2023-07-24 14:24:14
From Seville
From the balconies of the national headquarters of the PSOE and the Popular Party (PP) tonight displays of euphoria came down before the supporters of both formations concentrated to follow the result of the elections. But while in the first the displays of joy seemed genuine, the smiles of the PP leaders seemed forced grimaces. The former had just lost the elections, but the defeat could not be considered such if it was contrasted with the expectations with which the party led by Pedro Sánchez arrived at the polls. The second ones won, but their victory is insufficient and not even an eventual and unwanted alliance with the extreme right will be able to take Alberto Núñez Feijóo to the Moncloa Palace.
Spain celebrated this Sunday, in the middle of European summer, its general elections after Pedro Sánchez chose to advance the call to the polls by five months after having suffered an electoral disaster in the municipal and regional elections on May 28. A mere extrapolation of these results was enough to make Núñez Feijóo the eighth president of the Spanish democracy and the only question was whether he could do it alone or if he would need the support of Vox. The innumerable polls that scattered the road to the polls confirmed these hypotheses, and the far-right formation had already announced that their votes would have a non-negotiable price: placing ministers in the new government.
Pedro Sánchez, a survivor
However, the recount of the votes confirmed that the large and prestigious Spanish demoscopic consultancies are not infallible and, above all, that Pedro Sánchez is a politician who has made political survival in the most hostile contexts his main quality. It is not the first time that those who give him prematurely for dead miss the shot. The socialist general secretary is a survivor who lives up to the title of the book he published after managing to return to the leadership of the PSOE after being ousted in 2016 by a palace coup by the old guard led by Felipe González: ‘Manual of resistance’.
The results of the elections are far from the expectations with which the right came to this election day. The PP has 136 seats, which is 47 more than four years ago and ahead of the 122 won by the Socialists, although this apparently favorable result is well below the goal of its candidate, who was seeking to reach 150. Vox was also well below expectations, since it lost 19 seats and was left with only 33.
When the day after the result of the May 28 elections in which the socialist candidates were overwhelmed in municipalities and autonomous communities, Sánchez called the polls, the first reading that was made was that his intention was to shorten a half-year ordeal that would lead him to certain defeat. However, during this time he was able to mobilize the progressive electorate terrified of the possibility of Vox entering the Government.
The results of this Sunday allow us to conclude that Núñez Feijóo made rookie mistakes during the campaign. One was, after clearly beating Sánchez in the only face-to-face debate of the campaign, not going to the one organized by public television with the participation of the four main parties (PSOE, PP, Vox and Sumar), in which he left his seat empty. The second, and most relevant, was rushing to sign pacts with Vox in the autonomous communities in which the PP had not achieved sufficient support to govern alone. The removal of the LGTBI flags from official buildings, the destruction of the councils (ministries) and departments of Equality and even the suspension of cultural activities that had already been scheduled and that were read as acts of censorship imposed by Vox made the most progressive electorate see the ears of the wolf and mobilize as they had not done two months ago. No pollster detected this movement, which may have increased in the last week.
tie between blocks
The polls have produced a scenario as surprising as it is devilish, with a tie between blocks that makes governability impossible. Neither Núñez Feijóo can gather a majority that allows him to become president nor can Pedro Sánchez. The difference is that the first one already saw himself with one foot in La Moncloa and the second was considered evicted until the moment the vote count began.
Puigdemont emerges from the shelter
The tie between the blocks leaves governance in the hands of Junts per Catalunya, the right-wing independence party led by the former president of the autonomous government of that community, Carles Puigdemont, a fugitive from Spanish justice and a refugee in Belgium since he led the failed independence attempt in 2017. An eventual support from this formation for Pedro Sánchez is highly unlikely and Núñez Feijóo, impossible.
For this reason, the most probable scenario is that of an electoral repetition, despite the fact that Núñez Feijóo has claimed that as the most voted candidate he be allowed to govern.
After finishing the recount, the Popular Party candidate claimed “his right to form a government”, for which he will ask the rest of the parties that, “as usual in a democracy, allow the investiture of the candidate who has won the elections.” “I ask the PSOE and the rest of the forces not to block the Government of Spain,” he said from the balcony of his party’s national headquarters, from where he addressed a large group of supporters who gathered to celebrate a victory that turned out to be insufficient.
In the PP they argue that they have been the formation that grew the most in these elections, with 47 more deputies than in 2019, while the government coalition has fallen five points. This analysis omits that the PSOE has achieved a better result on this occasion than four years ago, with four percentage points and two more deputies.
Núñez Feijóo asked from the balcony of his party headquarters that “Spain not be blocked.” However, electoral repetition given the impossibility of configuring a majority is by no means a new scenario in the most recent Spanish politics. In 2015, the popular Mariano Rajoy was the candidate with the most votes, but he could not achieve a parliamentary majority and the Spanish were summoned to the polls the following year. Pedro Sánchez’s refusal to facilitate Rajoy’s re-election with his abstention cost him his dismissal as general secretary at the hands of the old leaders of his party. Later, the militants would reinstate him in office after a primary election in which he defeated the candidate of the party’s right wing, Susana Díaz.
Four years later, in April 2019, it was Sánchez himself who, after being the candidate with the most votes, did not obtain the confidence of the Chamber, for which reason the elections had to be repeated in November of that same year.
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