Signing the accord for government in 2019. | Teresa Ayuga

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With four months to go before the elections, the latest poll by the Balearic Institute of Social Studies indicates that the right-wing Partido Popular will have the greatest share of the vote for the Balearic parliament and win the greatest number of seats. The scenario provided by the poll indicates that the PP will have 21 or 22 seats; the majority is 30 (from 59).

While the PP, according to the poll, will recover up to six seats, their chances of forming a government will depend on an alliance with Vox, who have climbed from three to seven seats. They would then need support from elsewhere, and the poll questions whether this will be feasible.

On the Balearic centre are Ciudadanos and El Pi. For the Cs, the bad news continues; electoral decimation and the loss of all five seats. For El Pi, the scenario ranges from no seats to two. But even were El Pi to pick up one or two seats, there would be a big question mark over whether they would countenance a government with Vox in it. It is also quite possible that El Pi could look in the other direction to the left, although they have similar issues with both Més and Unidas Podemos. The PP, it should be noted, have questions of their own regarding Vox. A government of the right would be far from straightforward.

Poll by the Balearic Institute of Social Studies, January 2023

On the left, Francina Armengol's PSOE will, at best, lose one seat - down from 19 to 18. Unidas Podemos will go down from six to five and Més per Mallorca will remain at four. In addition to these 27 seats, there are three for Més per Menorca and one for Gent per Formentera. These could secure the investiture of Armengol but leave the current coalition without a working majority. But this, in effect, is the situation at present, as the coalition parties only amassed 29 seats at the 2019 election.

The left have issues of their own. Més per Menorca prefer to maintain a distance from Més per Mallorca, while the latter have suggested that they might not continue as formal members of the coalition. Since Lluis Apesteguia, the mayor of Deya, became party coordinator, the Més style has become more belligerent. An unknown factor is that posed by Sumar, the platform set up by the Spanish government's employment minister, Yolanda Diaz, a Unidas Podemos minister.