The right is already majority in Menorca

CitadelThe calling of early elections catches the right wing at its best moment in Menorca, where, according to polls, it already exceeds 50% of the voting intention and the Popular Party is one step away from regaining an absolute majority in the Council, which it lost in the 2015 elections.

Three years ago, left-wing forces comfortably exceeded 50% in the general elections in Menorca and left the PP and Vox with only 45% of the votes. In the regional elections of that same year, the left also obtained 1,300 more votes than the right in Menorca, but the application of the D'Hondt rule caused them to lose the majority in the Island Council by only 32 votes. It was the narrow margin that separated Podemos from maintaining the councillor's seat that ultimately allowed Vox's entry into the institution.

Since then, despite governing in the minority in the Council, both the Popular Party and Vox have been gaining ground in the voting intention of the Menorcans. This is confirmed by the IBES poll that the Grup Serra made public last June. The PP advances from 39% to 42% of the votes and would achieve an absolute majority in the Council, with or without Vox, which also grows to over 8%, while the PSOE drops from 27% to 22% and Més per Menorca remains at around 17-18%.

Citizen mobilization

Everything suggests that very little will have changed in the archipelago throughout the summer. Despite the citizen mobilization to put a brake on mass tourism and the delay of the popular government in the Council to limit the entry of vehicles, the corruption cases surrounding the state PSOE and controversies such as the airport expansion have shared the wear and tear between both hegemonic forces and have diluted the vote in a Menorcan key that a good part of the electorate usually makes.

“We need a government of Spain that understands what it means to live on an island,” remarked this Monday the popular president Tóbal Marquès, for whom “it is not acceptable to have a government that, from Madrid, expands the airport without listening to the institutions of Menorca. A new control tower is needed, more National Police and Civil Guard officers, more air connectivity and state investments that we have been waiting for for too long.”

The PP, which in addition to the Council already governs in six of the eight municipalities on the island, has intensified its political crusade against the PSOE during the last half year, since Senator Tóbal Marquès assumed the presidency of the party in April, and deputy Pepe Mercadal took the reins of the general secretariat of the Menorcan socialists this July.

Mercadal understands that “limits are needed” to intervene in the “uncontrolled” housing market and “avoid excessive rent increases” such as the one, he predicts, “that more than 18,000 Menorcans may suffer from 2029 onwards, who—in the event that a left-wing majority is not re-elected in the Courts—may find themselves forced to face unaffordable increases.”

The young PSOE leader, who already announced that he will leave his deputy seat before the end of the legislature to focus on the fight for the presidency of the island Council, with his resignation makes the future outlook clearer for prominent PSOE leaders, such as the current regional deputy Marc Pons, one of the aspirants to be nominated as a Menorcan candidate on the list to Congress in the elections now brought forward to November 29.

On the other hand, everything points to continuity in the case of the PP. Both deputy Joan Mesquida and president Tóbal Marquès, who holds the only senator seat for Menorca, would currently head the party's lists.

Més per Menorca joins the 'island voice'

As for Més per Menorca, it goes from joining the Sumar bloc as in 2023 to forming a coalition with Ara Eivissa and MÉS per Mallorca (Ara Més) with the goal of achieving the dreamed-of “island voice in Madrid,” which is not held hostage by the mainstream current in the two major state parties. “Too often our representatives in the capital forget to defend the interests of the territory they come from,” criticizes the coordinator of Més per Menorca, Esteve Barceló, for whom “now more than ever it is necessary to combat overcrowding and the difficulty of accessing housing and to defend that we residents can live in decent conditions on the island.”

And Vox? Although it was left without the representatives it had obtained at the polls very early on—Maite de Medrano in the Council and Xisco Cardona in the Parliament, both expelled from the party—it looks to the imminent electoral horizon with optimism. The president, Pedro Marquès, who a year ago received the task of rebuilding the party in Menorca, says that he already has the candidacies for the Council, Maó, and Ciutadella “practically ready.” “There is a group of between 28 and 30 people in each municipality willing to go on lists” and a calendar to proclaim the candidates in January, just after Christmas. So the calling of early general elections “will not disrupt” plans internally.

Aware that there is only one senator seat for Menorca and that it is “extremely complicated” to snatch it from the PP, Marquès will opt to “be realistic” and propose names with a little less potential to fill the lists for Congress and the Senate, “and thus avoid favoring the PSOE.” Its “big problem,” however, is that the chosen people “are reliable and electable” by the electorate and to ensure that they do not rebel against the party again, as De Medrano and Cardona have done in this term.

Neither the employers' association nor the GOB have yet pronounced themselves explicitly on the early election, but the environmental organization has insisted, indirectly, on asking for the promotion of a housing policy that curbs speculation. It also demands that human pressure on the island be reduced, the use of water be rationalized, and the economy be diversified.

An ideology that, precisely, was adopted a few days ago by the three main political groups represented in the Council of Menorca. The PP, the PSOE, and Més have agreed on the foundations of a future strategic development plan for Menorca, urged by the conservatives, who know that the vote now being contested is not exactly to their right. There is enough discontent on the left to fish for votes.