A Look at Valencia's Elections of the 28Th of April and the 26Th of May 2019
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DEBATS · Annual Review, 5 · 2020 — 11 / 25 DOI: http://doi.org/10.28939/iam.debats-en.2020-1 ISSN 2530-898X (print) ISSN 2530-8262 (electronic) A Look at Valencia’s Elections of the 28th of April and the 26th of May 2019 Salvador Enguix Oliver UNIVERSITAT DE VALÈNCIA (UV) [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0003-3597-5230 Benjamín Marín Pérez UNIVERSITAT DE VALÈNCIA (UV) [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0001-8957-7647 Received: 28/10/2019 Accepted: 17/02/2020 ABSTRACT This paper analyses the main features of the Valencian media coverage of the elections held in Spain in the Spring of 2019 (General, Regional, Municipal, and European elections). We shine a spotlight on the key themes covered by the main newspapers, radio and TV stations, and on the campaign strategies parties used to define ideological blocs on the left and right. Keywords: election campaigns, Valencian Autonomous Community, elections, candidates, debates, mass media, press. Corresponding author: Salvador Enguix Oliver. Departament de Teoria dels Llenguatges i Ciències de la Comunicació Facultat de Filologia, Traducció i Comunicació Avda. Blasco Ibáñez, 32 - 46010, València (Spain). Suggested citation: Enguix Oliver, S. and Marín Pérez, B. (2020). A Look at Valencia’s Elections of the 28th of April and the 26th of May 2019. Debats. Journal on Culture, Power and Society, 5, 11-25. DOI: http://doi.org/10.28939/iam.debats-en.2020-1 INTRODUCTION AND AIMS both in Spain and in the Valencian Autonomous On the 28th of April, Pedro Sánchez (Spain’s President) Community [autonomous region]. This paper analyses decided to bring forward the date of the Spanish how the electoral campaigns changed as a result, General Election to the 26th of May 2019. The based on the following initial hypotheses: President of Valencia’s Regional Government, Ximo Puig, subsequently decided to hold the regional H1:The confluence of the General Election and elections on the say day (26th of May). This upset the the Regional Election clearly influenced the election campaigns planned by the political parties news agendas of Valencia’s media (press, 12 — DEBATS · Annual Review, 5 · 2020 SALVADOR ENGUIX OLIVER - BENJAMÍN MARÍN PÉREZ digital press, radio and television). The media in the digital newspapers Valencia Plaza (VPZA) and had to change their planned reporting criteria Diari La Veu (VEU). With regard to audiovisual me- to ensure proper coverage in a wholly new dia, we took into account the coverage of: (1) Atres- political scenario. media; (2) TVE; (3) TVE-Comunidad Valenciana; (4) À Punt TV; (5) Cadena SER (the radio network H2: Another important impact of holding both with the most listeners in The Valencian Country). elections on the same day was the spill- When it comes to audiovisual media, we chose to over from the General Election campaign study nine radio and TV election debates, bearing to the regional one. This spill-over could be in mind that their rebroadcast by social networks seen in both what one might term political through streaming had a multiplier effect in terms narratives and the weight given to the media. of reaching potential voters. The social media The upshot was that coverage of the Regional channelled a fair chunk of the political discourse Election got pushed into the background from public institutions, private entities, and citi- by media coverage of the General Election zens themselves (Campos, Valera Ordaz, and López (Berganza, 2008). Furthermore, Ximo Puig’s García, 2015). Television continues to play a big attempts to get The Valencian Agenda covered role in shaping public opinion through news and by the national media failed — a political current affairs programmes (Casero Ripollés and error because this had been a key reason Marzal, 2011a). The debates, whether broadcast by for him choosing to make the date of the radio or television, attract audiences precisely be- Regional Election coincide with that of the cause they include the cut-and-thrust of politics, national one. representing various viewpoints. That is why they are seen as a tool that lets the electorate weigh up H3: Henceforth in the Valencian elections, the political opinions, compare the candidates in terms confluence of the Regional Election with of their ideas, backgrounds, and public image (Ma- the General Election (despite opposition by rín, 2003). Compromís) meant that the general Left-Right party discourse held sway throughout. Likewise, an analysis was made of the news treat- ment adopted by these media. Here, we focused In testing these hypotheses, this paper presents key on two key aspects: (1) the subjects that were over- aspects of the campaign coverage for the General represented and the news priorities in each of the and Regional elections between the 12th and the 26th periods studied; (2) the leaders in the parties’ elec- of April, focusing particularly on an event we con- tion strategies. These two aspects make up what sider of fundamental importance, namely Ximo one might call a Valencian look at the chosen cam- Puig’s announcement on the 4th of March 2020 that paigns. the date of the Regional Election would be brought forward. We also analyse the subsequent electoral campaigns that ran between the 10th and 24th of May for the Municipal and European elections. THE POLITICAL CONTEXT On the 15th of February 2019, the President of the To ensure that the Valencian media’s news cover- Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced his age was properly represented, we drew on informa- decision to dissolve the Spanish Parliament (las Cortes tion on the campaigns published in both the print- Generales) and call a General Election for the 28th of ed and digital versions of Levante-EMV (LEV), Las April. Sánchez stated that he had taken the decision Provincias (PROV), El Periódico Mediterráneo (MED), after finding it impossible to pass the State Budget and Diario Información (INF) newspapers, as well as [Presupuestos Generales del Estado — PGE]. The budget A Look at Valencia’s Elections of the 28th of April and the 26th of May 2019 DEBATS · Annual Review, 5 · 2020 — 13 Table 1 Analysed election debates Audio-visual media General Election Regional Election Municipal Elections European Election Atresmedia 23rd April TVE 22nd April TVE -C. Valenciana 17th April À Punt TV 24th April 10th May Valencia, Cadena SER 15th April 13th May Alacant and Castelló Source: The Authors. Bill had been blocked by the votes of Centre-Right election. The prerogative itself was enshrined in parties and by Catalan pro-independence parties. the 2006 reformed Valencian Statute of Autonomy. A couple of weeks later on the 4th of March, the Ximo Puig’s decision was strongly criticised by President of The Valencian Country, Ximo Puig, took Compromis, a party in his coalition government. an unexpected decision, namely to bring the Regional, Compromis immediately opened a debate in the Municipal, and European elections — originally Valencia media on the need to tackle the so-called scheduled for the 26th of May — and hold them on Valencia Agenda — that is to say, the problems the same date as Spain’s General Election, to wit, the faced by Valencia’s citizens in dealing with a Gen- 28th of April. Puig’s statement linked his decision to eral Election and a Regional Election at the same the exercise of Valencian self-government: time. Compromis’ fear — which was highlighted in the Valencian media — was that the ‘State Agenda’ Spain’s approval of Valencia’s reformed Statute would end up crowding out the issues that most of Autonomy and the securing of government affected Valencians’ daily lives. investment in the region are welcome recent developments. Now with the elections in the offering, it is incumbent on me as President of The Valencian Country, to round off this episode THE VALENCIAN AGENDA in our history (…), which is one that recognises In journalistic terms, the so-called Valencian Agenda our historic tradition of local autonomy and (sometimes also referred to as The Valencian Prob- thus opens up a new stage in our region’s lem) refers to those issues that have been and still self-governance. This is why I summoned the are of main interest to Valencian political parties. Plenary Council and, in accordance with my They cover some of the deficiencies found in this prerogatives under The Statute of Autonomy and region. The biggest issues formed part of the politi- the Government Act, I proposed the dissolution cal discourse during the regional legislature span- of Parliament and the holding of the Regional ning from 2015 to 2019. They were as follows: (1) Election for the 28th of April 2019. chronic lack of investment by the Spanish State This was the first time in the history of The Va- in the region’s infrastructure; (2) the need to par- lencian Country that the President had used this don the historic debt stemming from State under- prerogative to dissolve the Valencian Regional funding. The ‘historic debt’ has been estimated at Parliament before the scheduled date for the next anywhere between €12,000 million and €18,000 14 — DEBATS · Annual Review, 5 · 2020 SALVADOR ENGUIX OLIVER - BENJAMÍN MARÍN PÉREZ million in various rigorously-conducted studies Regional Election and in the Spanish General Elec- (Fernández, 1998; Barea Tejeiro, Lamo de Espino- tion. Joan Baldoví, a Compromís’ candidate, criti- sa, Schwartz Girón, Tamames Gómez and Velarde cised Valencia’s absence from TVE’s and Atresme- Fuertes, 2013). dia’s election debates with presidential candidates. He also scathingly noted during a debate he took When Ximo Puig decided to bring forward the Regional part in on À Punt TV (24th of April) that, “only 10 Election, he argued that this was an opportunity to minutes was spent talking about The Valencian highlight the Valencian Agenda during the Spanish Country.