By Juli Minoves-Triquell (University of La Verne and CIDOB-Barcelona)
Andorra has term limits for Prime Ministers; they cannot run more than twice. With the end of the second term of Antoni Marti of Demòcrates per Andorra (DA, center-right) who had ruled with parliamentary majorities two full terms, elections were foreseen to be competitive. Seven national parties were running; DA, Partit Socialdemòcrata PS, Liberals d’Andorra (LA), Tercera Via, Progressistes (SDP), Units pel Progrés, and Andorra Sobirana, as well as a number of parish-based parties allied and/or running with the aforementioned national parties. In the Parish of La Massana, a purely autochthonous political formation, Ciutadans Compromesos, was running on a first-past-the post election against a joint ticket of LA and PS. The split, a year and a half ago, of LA, then the party with the highest number of MPs in parliament after DA, due to disagreements concerning the leadership contest, had contributed to the larger number of parties competing since the split gave rise to Tercera Via and partly to La Massana’s Ciutadans Compromesos.
The Andorran parliament has 28 seats. 14 are elected on a national proportional system, and 14 are elected 2 per parish (the parish being the electoral district) on a first-past-the-post election by tickets of 2 persons. In the parish election thus the ticket of 2 that has more votes is the one that is elected. In this election the liberals and the social-democrats decided to create tickets of 2 (one from each party) with a joint appellation D’ACORD for the first-past-the-post elections in each parish to try to overcome DA which had proven in the past to have a reservoir of votes larger than either party alone at the local level. One of the questions before the election was whether D’ACORD (LA + PS) would be able to add their respective voters in a joint ticket since traditionally both parties had been opposed to each other and some analysts feared that some voters would be turned off by their tactical agreement.
Results
27278 people could have voted in the election. The participation was 68,33% with 18638 votes counted. There were 17783 valid votes, with 531 blank votes and 324 invalid votes.
The results for the national proportional system (half of parliament) were as follows in decreasing order of magnitude:
Source: Govern d’Andorra at www.eleccions.ad
The results for each parish (half of parliament) on the first-past-the-post system were as follows in the traditional protocol order of the parishes:
Source: Govern d’Andorra at www.eleccions.ad
The combination of both results 1. at the proportional national level for each party and 2. at the majoritarian local parish level, give the following composition of the new parliament:
Source: Govern d’Andorra at www.eleccions.ad
Aftermath and possible scenarios
From the results displayed above one can infer the following:
1. DA continues to be the most voted party in Andorra but has not achieved an absolute majority of seats in parliament as in 2011 and 2015.
2. The leader of DA, Xavier Espot, as the representative of the most voted party has announced that he will entertain conversations with other political parties in order to form a government.
3. DA will most likely approach Ciutadans Compromesos (DA did not compete in La Massana betting on the first-past-the-post victory of Ciutadans Compromesos) but if it agrees with this party the sum of both parties will only be 13 MPs. They will need at least 2 more to form a government.
4. The chances of a German-style coalition with PS are slim. PS and LA both competed together in the local districts and from what their leaders said after the election it is likely that they both will remain in opposition. PS is now the second most voted political party in the country; LA the third.
5. Tercera Via will most likely have the key to ensure the formation of a government by DA but it is unclear whether they would like to enter the government, negotiate an agreement for the duration of the legislature, or just lend support for the investiture of the head of government and then allow a minority government to negotiate with them in the future on a case by case basis.
6. The current negotiations of Andorra with the EU will most likely be an important issue to be discussed during talks between DA and its prospective partners.
Photo source: https://www.ccma.cat/324/27-000-persones-amb-dret-a-vot-per-renovar-el-consell-general-dandorra/noticia/2915085/