Faced with the serious electoral defeat in the regional elections, the Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez tries the card of early elections, leading the country to the polls on July 23 instead of the natural year-end deadline. The goal of the socialist leader is to take the right by surprise and mobilize the electorate of the left and centre-left, worried about a possible new government in which the conservatives of the People’s Party (PP) are forced to ally with the far-right Vox. A similar gamble rewarded socialist Antonio Costa in Portugal last year, but it doesn’t necessarily work in Spain.
The “drastic” decision was taken after “a dramatic election night”, writes El Pais. For the socialist party (PSOE) it was a real defeat. Voting took place in 12 of the 17 Spanish regions and the PP wrested the regions of Aragon, Valencia and the Balearic Islands from the socialists, conquering an absolute majority in La Rioja and winning in Cantabria, Murcia and Extremadura. The greatest success of the Populars came in the Madrid region, where regional president Isabel Ayuso was reconfirmed with an absolute majority.
The PP also asserted itself in the municipal elections: in Madrid it strengthened by obtaining an absolute majority, in Seville it wrested the municipality from the socialists and also won in Valencia. In all, the PP gets 750,000 more votes than the Socialists.
But if the Popolari celebrate a real “blue wave”, like the color of their party, in various places they will be forced to ally themselves with Vox, the far-right party which now sits in all the regional councils. The centre-right liberal Ciudadanos party, which could have been a potential partner, had a disastrous result in yesterday’s elections.
The radical left of Podemos, in government together with the PSOE, is also doing badly, losing almost everywhere, including all ten of its representatives in the Madrid regional parliament. Competition with Labor Minister Yolanda Diaz’s new left-wing Samar movement has not helped. While in Barcelona, the mayor Ada Colau, of the radical left movement Barcelona en Comu, is defeated by her predecessor, the conservative separatist Xavier Trias.
Sanchez’s move brings Spain to the vote at the height of the summer season, with the risk of a low turnout. The vote will finally take place three weeks after Spain assumes the European rotating presidency, with the possibility of a change of government.