This was not the plan of the Government, which was working this week to carry out the 2024 Budgets. But the socialist sector of the Executive, with a leader like Pedro Sánchez, who has always boasted of its ability to adapt, has already completely changed the speech and now he seems convinced that the electoral advance in Catalonia can be very positive for his interests. While in Sumar they believe that it was the PSC that has indirectly forced the elections with its resistance to abandoning the megacasino project Hard Rock in Tarragona, in the PSOE they blame the commoners for having brought down the Budgets. But in any case, apart from this obvious tension between the partners, the Government is going into electoral mode and is already concentrating everything on the three elections in a row – Basque, Catalan and European elections – that will dominate the political scene until the summer.
The president’s entourage assures that the Government will make necessity a virtue, a phrase that Sánchez has used a lot lately. Now, it is trying to make the most of an unexpected situation that, according to the first analyzes of both the Executive and the PSOE, does not have to be negative for the socialists or for the majority, which is now relatively suspended, but could be recomposed later. of the elections depending on the result.
In reality, according to the Government’s vision, what the Catalans are doing is precipitating into the spring a situation that was going to occur in the autumn-winter: the tension between ERC and Junts in the face of those elections. The advance has caused as an immediate consequence that Sánchez has discarded the 2024 Budgets, but now he believes that he will be able to have more peace of mind, now without a close electoral horizon, to approve those for 2025. If the elections had been held for early 2025, as was planned, it would have been easier to draw up the 2024 Budget, but much more difficult for 2025. What is postponed with this decision is the definitive start, with a certain stability, of the legislature that the PSOE saw consolidated with the pact of the amnesty law. But now that stability is being called into question again.
However, the socialists insist that in May, with the Basque and Catalan elections cleared, and even more so in June, with the European elections already surpassed (although there the PSOE result could be worse and the PP has high expectations because there is always a vote of punishment of the Government in those elections) the political panorama will be much clearer. All members of the majority, barring great surprise, should look for their incentives to negotiate with the Government without the tension generated by elections on the immediate horizon.
Once this electoral superspring is resolved, the panorama will be quite clear of elections until 2026 and a more stable majority than the current one can be attempted. Despite everything, the Government boasts that the majority has not been broken even by an early election and Thursday was a new test, since the Executive carried out without problems the two votes it had pending: the amnesty and the law of artistic teachings. And, although the atmosphere that exists is one of a kind of daily crisis, the reality in Congress is different.
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Furthermore, the playing field for the next two elections is comfortable for the socialists. Not only are they two communities in which the PSOE has better expectations, unlike Galicia, where it had a terrible result. In the Basque Country he already governs and in Catalonia he believes that it could be the first party again and this time even with greater distance over the second. The last general elections went very well for the socialists in Catalonia, and although they always have less support in Catalonia, Salvador Illa’s party has managed to regain a centrality that it had lost in this community. Furthermore, if the amnesty approved in Congress on Thursday may have significant rejection in the rest of Spain, precisely the Basque Country and Catalonia are the only two communities that massively support this forgiveness law, according to 40dB surveys. The text will go through the campaigns because it will presumably be definitively approved at the end of May, after spending two months in the Senate. The socialists believe that any PP criticism of the amnesty has been neutralized by the change of position of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who in the Galician campaign spoke of reconciliation, of pardons, and acknowledged that he studied the amnesty for “24 hours” when Junts joined forces. He raised it in exchange for support for his investiture.
The solidity of the socialists in Euskadi and Catalonia has nothing to do with the weakness with which the party faced the elections in Galicia. The PSdeG, immersed in internal fights, was not able to counteract the crutch role of the BNG. The concentration of the useful vote in the candidacy of Ana Pontón, encouraged by the certainty that both parties would reach an agreement, was a loss for José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, who was also penalized for the short time that he had been in charge of the project. The consequence was the worst result in history.
The perspective is very different in the Basques and in the Catalans, where the PSOE is certain that it will grow and obtain two good results that will also serve to arrive “with a tailwind” and with a “moral effect” to the European elections of the June 9, which the PP intends to turn into another kind of plebiscite against Pedro Sánchez. Both territories are now two talismans for the President of the Government. The PSOE achieved one million more votes on 23-J compared to the 2019 elections, but their distribution was not uniform. Half were concentrated in Catalonia and Euskadi. The PSC, which had not won in a general election since 2008, contributed more than 425,000 of those votes in Catalonia after shooting above 1.2 million, more than the sum of the voters of ERC, Junts and the CUP. In Euskadi, the PSE-EE, which had not been first in legislative elections since 2008, beat the PNV and EH Bildu in a three-way tie for seats and with 65,000 more votes than in 2019.
tough speech
Eneko Andueza and Salvador Illa, the candidates in the elections of April 21 and May 12, share a tough speech, in one case with EH Bildu and in the other with the independence movement that remains anchored in the process. The general secretary of the PSE-EE has said actively and passively that he will not agree with the nationalist left nor allow it to govern as long as he does not take steps to condemn ETA. The option, therefore, is to revalidate the coalition with the PNV in the Presidencystarted in 2016. “The coalition with the PNV is going well for us, and we see that we are adding up,” say sources from the PSOE leadership about the surveys they manage.
The electoral advance in Catalonia also occurs a few days before the congress in which Salvador Illa will be elevated as leader of the PSC. The winner of the 2021 Catalans will share the closing of the conclave with Sánchez. The general secretary of the PSOE will have a great presence in the Catalan campaign. “Our speech is very powerful in Catalonia. “People want that speech,” they say in Ferraz and La Moncloa, where they see Illa with real options to be president. Even if they don’t succeed – it will be very difficult, it already happened three years ago when they won and couldn’t govern – if they consolidate themselves as the first party, the socialists will be able to demonstrate that Spain is very diverse and luck depends on neighborhoods. And if the PP swept Galicia and Feijóo was able to celebrate, Sánchez will now be able to do so after the Catalan elections, as long as they do not bring even greater instability in national politics that could put his majority at risk.
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