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Election campaign kicks off with first party rallies and poll showing likely Socialist surge

Election campaign kicks off with first party rallies and poll showing likely Socialist surge

The survey also suggests a big vote for far-right Vox and that 40 per cent of voters have still to make up their mind

SUR

Friday, 12 April 2019, 15:22

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The campaign to win voters' support in the Spanish general election officially started at midnight last night and today, Friday 12th, is the first full day of campaigning.

Ahead are two weeks of wall-to-wall coverage of the campaign that will end on Friday 26 April. Saturday 27th is a day of reflection under Spanish electoral law, with no campaigning, and Sunday 28th is polling day.

A survey published this week by the government-run CIS polling agency was heavily commented on in the media. It showed the PSOE Socialist party as biggest party according to voting intention, estimated to win 123-138 seats in the 350-seat Congreso, the lower house, but short of the 176 majority needed. This would be significantly up on the seats won last time in 2016.

Government-funded opinion poll sparks controversy over "political bias"

  • Parties on the right questioned the veracity of the CIS official-government opinion poll published this week. CIS (Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas) is a research agency of the government and its director is appointed with the approval of the prime minister. Traditionally it monitors public opinion.

  • The current director, José Félix Tezanos, is a senior member of the ruling PSOE party and has faced criticism since the party came into power last summer over a change in methodology used in the poll, as rival parties have questioned his independence.

  • A senior PP politician said the CIS data was "an electoral obscenity" and had been used by the PSOE "on party lines", in reaction to the apparent collapse in the PP vote in the poll.

  • Even Tezanos, the poll's publisher, said he was surprised. "I don't think the PP will fall so much. And I have the impression that [hard-right] Vox could do better than the survey says," he commented.

The other main headline from the CIS survey was that the three right-of-centre parties, Ciudadanos, Partido Popular (PP) and Vox wouldn't have enough to form a majority. The PP, according to the CIS data, would see a significant fall in seats from 137 in 2016 to between 66-76 this year. The survey also showed that 40 per cent of voters were still to make up their minds.

For last night's launch meetings, all the main parties chose rallies in Madrid, except the PSOE that organised a meeting near Seville.

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