Forgotten from Madrid and sparsely populated (2.4 million inhabitants), the autonomous community of Castile-and-Leon, a very rural region located in the north-west of Spain, was remembered fondly by politicians. In this stronghold of the People’s Party (PP, right) for thirty-five years, the far-right Vox party led by Santiago Abascal did indeed score well in the regional elections on Sunday 13th February.
With 17.6% of the vote, he went from a single MP to thirteen in this 81-seat parliament. The PP, makes him look gray with 31.43% of the votes and a gain of only 2 deputies which does not allow him to obtain an absolute majority, forcing him to an alliance with Vox.
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“The Castilians and Leonians have spoken, and we demand respect for the verdict of the sovereign peoplesaid Santiago Abascal on the night of the victory. Vox has the right to form the government in Castile and Leon. We do not demand more or less than what we are owed. »
Vox claims the vice-presidency of Castile and Leon
Founded in 2013 by dissidents from the People’s Party, Vox has since denounced the migration policy and the decentralization that it considers excessive in Spain. In 2018, the party broke through in the regional elections in Andalusia, where it obtained nearly 11% of the vote.
With its success on Sunday, Vox claims the vice-presidency of Castile and Leon, “which seems legitimate but does not help the affairs of the PP », analyzes Benoît Pellistrandi, specialist in contemporary Spanish history. ” If he refuses, I do not exclude a parliamentary blockage. If there is no executive, it would be a disaster for Pablo Casado’s right-wing formation” who hoped to reintegrate the electorate of Vox into its ranks.
Especially since other elections are looming in Spain and “Casado’s leadership within the popular party is questioned by his competitor, Isabel Díaz Ayuso”, president of the community of Madrid since August 2019 and new icon of the party, continues the expert. On the left, the Socialist Party (PSOE), which in 2019 was the leading force in Castile and Leon, is retreating. With 30% of the votes, he loses seven seats.
“Voters zap with startling fluidity”
“Since 2015, we have witnessed a recomposition of Spanish political life with a crisis of bipartisanship (right-left) and the failure or collapse of intermediate parties such as Podemos (radical left) or Ciudadanos (center right), which dreamed to replace respectively the PSOE and the PP. As the polls go on, we see voters in Spain zapping from one party to another with startling fluidity,” adds Benoît Pellistrandi.
In this panorama of explosion and fragmentation of the vote, small parties slip in, such as Soria ¡Ya! (“Soria now”) and its three deputies. Coming from the citizens’ movement España vacia (“Empty Spain”), these admittedly marginal parties are fighting against the abandonment of entire regions of the country. They defend the interests of “inner Spain”, where local or regional concerns increasingly come before national problems.