The Population Principle: Municipalities

There are 67 municipalities in the Balearics - 53 in Mallorca, eight in Menorca, five in Ibiza and the one of Formentera. There are 59 deputies in the Balearic parliament. There is a mismatch between the two figures because there isn't meant to be a match between the two. Deputies are not elected according to municipality; their number is the consequence of some strange logic which determines that there needs to be one deputy for roughly every 17,000 people on the islands. The population-deputy ratio differs from region to region in Spain. There is no hard-and-fast rule other than a principle of arriving at the number of deputies based on population and size of territory, but this does give rise to huge variations.

Part of the backdrop to the elections on Sunday has been discussion of both the number of parliamentary deputies and the number of municipalities. President Bauzá tried to get the former reduced but his proposal was defeated. Certain parties have spoken of cutting the number of municipalities or merging them. The rationale behind both has been cost and the anticipation of greater efficiencies that would accrue, and it is a rationale which, in purely pragmatic terms, is difficult to take issue with. But the stubbornness in resisting either fewer deputies or fewer municipalities takes little account of cost. There is history to consider as well, and the municipalities are where it resides.

It can seem daft that almost half the total number of municipalities across Spain - 8,122 in all - have populations of under 500 people. (Mallorca might be said to be positively sensible in this regard as it only has two - Escorca and Estellencs.) It might seem crackers that despite the desire of national government to reduce the cost of public administration, and indeed a 2013 law aimed at doing so, seven new municipalities of small size have emerged in Spain since the last local elections in 2011. Why? It all has to do with old law under which a petition for "independence" could be granted before the 2013 law came in which established that there had to be 5,000 people resident before "independence" was attainable.

Mallorca, over the years, has seen its municipalities grow in number, thanks to this principle of independence. Once upon a time, and just as one example, Son Servera wasn't independent but part of Arta. An 1820 law decreed that once there were 1,000 residents, villages could become independent, which is what happened to Son Servera. The population principle is what, despite the mismatch between municipalities and parliamentary deputies in the Balearics and the loose way in which the number of deputies was arrived at (the population was significantly lower when it was), goes to the heart of representation in Spain and it has done for centuries.

But more than this is the political role of the municipalities. Spain today is highly decentralised. While the Franco regime operated according to far more centralised criteria, decentralisation of a type existed. There were still municipalities with their town halls and their mayors (albeit they were appointed by the government). Spain has long been decentralised, and it has been a decentralisation found in the power but also the political freedoms of the municipalities.

Today's electoral system, with all it implies for numbers of deputies, can be traced back to one municipality - Cadiz. It was here in 1812 that the Liberal Constitution was drawn up and a national parliament created. It was a declaration of resistance against Napoleon and to be a further one against the odd ways of King Ferdinand VII, but it was one which partly took as its inspiration the quasi-democratic traditions of other Spanish municipalities that had existed for years.

The municipality is, therefore, something ingrained into the national consciousness. Because of the historical association, it is an institution which means far more than simply an administrative area. Ally this to sentiment and to a social desire for identity, and the forces against reform of the system of municipalities are immense. (In Mallorca an expression of this identity is the way in which residents of a particular town are known by it - Alcudia "alcudiencs", Calvia "calvianers" and so on.) And then on top of all this are the needs of current-day politics. Sweep away municipalities or merge them and political parties would eliminate positions for members. They would also lose power bases, those which help them to be represented among the 59 parliamentary deputies. The Rajoy government might have seemed as though it would reform local government but how much was it aware what it might have lost were it to have done so seriously and drastically? There is self-interest and self-preservation in having so many municipalities. And on Sunday, votes will be cast for councillors of the 67 and for deputies to make up the 59. Logic doesn't really come into it.