74% of the income of the parties comes from public aid and leads them to harsh adjustments after an electoral disaster

When on February 16, 2021, the then president of the Popular Party, Pablo Casado, announced that he was putting the headquarters of his formation on Génova street up for sale, he explained it as a matter of breaking with the past of corruption. In the background, he beat the resounding failure in the Catalan elections of the previous Sunday. But it could have put forward a reason for economic survival: the PP closed the 2020 financial year with its lowest ordinary income figure (not counting flows from elections of any kind) in the 21st century: 33.8 million euros. In 2021 the shortage would be repeated below 34 million and in 2022 it has barely risen to 37 million. Of this last total amount, 82.5% was public money, a dependency that, in the group of the four big parties of the last legislature (PSOE, PP, Vox and Unidas Podemos) is 74% according to their latest accounts presented .

Mathematics, and popular sovereignty, rule: the subsidies received by political formations for ordinary operation are paid in proportion to the results in the last respective elections. For continuing with the PP, those of Casado came out of the repetition of general elections in 2019 with just 89 deputies.

So when Unidas Podemos announced an ERE for half of its staff a few days after July 23, it only confirmed that the survival of political parties lies disproportionately on their electoral performance: expenses fly when ballots are counted by millions ; the cuts arrive when the ballot box turns its back on you. According to the calculations that have been handled these days, the purple formation will see the income of the state organization cut by 70% and 90% in the nine autonomies where it also closes its headquarters.

Podemos is the only one of the four big parties that has not yet reported its 2022 accounts, but in 2021 it assumed that 60.36% of its income comes from subsidies and another 23.43% from contributions from parliamentary groups, which adds up to 83.79% of public oxygen over the total of its income. In total, just over 16.5 million euros to which would have to be added the 6.4 million declared by Izquierda Unida for the same concept.

The next party with the highest public support would be the PP, already with figures for 2022, with 82.5% of its annual income coming from subsidies for ordinary operation, security expenses and contributions from institutional groups from different parliaments, city councils or councils that they dedicate part of their profits to swell the national balance of the party. Practically throughout the entire mandate, the PP was in the vicinity of 35 million annual income from public sources, half of the 70 that it added easily in the years of the Government of Mariano Rajoy (end of 2011 to mid-2016).

On the opposite side would be the PSOE and Vox, whose lower ascendancy of public money is not explained by their lower electoral performance, since both were the ones that grew the most in votes and positions in 2019. Those of Pedro Sánchez are by far the party with the most variety of income, which leaves its percentage of periodic public subsidies at 67.83%.

Those of Abascal improve that ratio with 63.61%, due to those five million in income that it receives per year from affiliate fees and that cover 32% of its total budget.

In gross, no one collects as much from their supporters as the PSOE, with some ten million a year in payment of quotas by its 154,000 declared affiliates. That represents 13% of the 80 million ordinary income with which he closed 2022. Another ten million in each year Ferraz usually receives from contributions from positions and supporters in general (those who receive the most for this concept of the big four) and calls the attention to the almost three million that he consigned by lottery last year (usually around 2.5 and 3 million each year). Be that as it may, the good electoral moment has breathed air into Ferraz’s accounts. As an example, he has lowered his long-term bank debt from 32.3 million at the end of 2018 to 12.2 right now.

What the PSOE earned in 2022 for selling lottery is almost the same as what the PP obtained from membership fees. With almost 800,000 members recorded in their accounts, Genoa barely collects around three million euros a year for this concept, 8% of total ordinary income and barely four euros per head. Of course, Genoa tends to clarify that its membership policy does not require any payment. In fact, the current statutes contemplate the only figure of the affiliate, which is divided into two: militant (with payment of fee) and sympathizer (without obligation). The sale of the national headquarters that was truncated could have reached 70 million euros at market price and, incidentally, alleviate a bank debt of about 18 million euros.

Vox will also suffer a significant adjustment in its accounts in the medium term, by reducing its parliamentary representation by almost half after last July 23. When that moment arrives, it will have to face it by being the only one of the four big parties that presented losses in its last presented accounts, of almost two million euros at the end of 2022 (although half of those red numbers are explained by pending closures of spending electoral). On the other side of the scale, one of every three euros that Vox earns comes from the fees of its affiliates, the highest percentage of all the major parties. And all this, without resorting to banks, since it does not accumulate any term debt with banking entities.

Precisely, the great financial hallmark of Podemos since its creation has been its independence from banks: they do not seek financing at the window of any entity. In return, it stimulates donation campaigns that, according to the results set out in the 2021 accounts, reported just over three million euros or 16% of its total income. With this balance, the massive loss of votes and public representatives between May 28 and July 23 could only lead to a brutal adjustment of its personnel and ordinary expenses. It has followed the same budgetary fate as Ciudadanos: as soon as it lost its parliamentary footing, the red numbers immediately took over the accounts.

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