LOCAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN BATTLE HAS COMMENCED

With campaigning for the elections in Majorca now officially under way, results of the latest opinion poll for the Balearic Parliament indicate that President Bauza’s Partido Popular could lose as many as sixteen seats on 24 May.The poll by the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) establishes that the PP would still be the party which receives most votes at the regional election – 30% of the share of the vote and five more seats in parliament than its closest rival – but that it will lose its overall majority: 30 seats are needed for a majority. Of the “newcomer” parties – Podemos and Ciudadanos (C’s) – the poll suggests that they will get ten and nine seats respectively. The C’s could prove to be crucial in the horse-trading that will have to occur after the election in order to create coalitions in the absence of a clear majority for any party. Were the C’s to side with the PP, the total number of seats would still, based on the CIS poll, be under the majority threshold, but a pact between the PP and the C’s could allow Bauza to carry on as head of a minority government. However, the leader of the C’s in the Balearics, Xavier Pericay, has said that his party will not seek a pact with any other party unless it gains the most votes, which would be most unlikely.