3.2. Assessing the openness of political parties

Once the Best Practice Guide for Open Political Parties was written, the websites of the four selected parties were analysed: Partido Popular (PP), Partido Socialista (PSOE), Unidas Podemos, and Ciudadanos (Cs). This analysis was carried out between the months of April and May of 2019, and therefore coincided with the Municipal, Regional and European elections, as well as the General elections, which were moved ahead (they were scheduled to take place in June of 2020). This may have been a factor in favour of political parties, which carry out more activities related to communication during the election campaign that bring the parties closer to the electorate.

Ciudadanos was the only party that failed the overall evaluation of openness for political parties. It only obtained 49.37% (144.15 points), with only the first section (Transparency) approved, and it only obtained a ranking of acceptable with 57.08% (122.15). Regarding Deliberation and Decision-making/Collaboration, both levels were very poor, with 26.31% (10) and 28.57% (12), respectively.

The PP fared somewhat better than Cs with an overall count considered to be a passing mark of 54.35% (158.7) with regard to the aspects analysed. It only failed the third section (Decision-making and Collaboration), but with a scant mark of 16.6% (7), while in Transparency it reached 62.59% (132.7), and in Deliberation, a borderline 50% (19). Even so, the PP did not achieve a positive or optimal result at any level according to the assessment valuation of the methodology.

With regard to the PSOE, it had an overall result of 63.53% (185.52). The transparency section was positive at 69.58% (148.52), followed by an acceptable level in Deliberation at 57.89% (22). However, the mark for the Decision-making and Collaboration section was insufficient at 25.71% (15).

Unidas Podemos was the only party that received a passing mark for all the sections, and was also the party with the best overall result, with 66.74% (194.89). Thus, the levels of Transparency and Deliberation were positive, with 69.28% (146.89) and 65.78% (25), respectively. However, in Decision-making and Collaboration they only achieved 54.76% (23). Nevertheless, the effort made by this group is noteworthy, as it was the only party with an acceptable score in the final section.

Table 4: Final analysis results of political party openness

Source: Prepared by the author