In local elections held on Sunday in some of Spain’s autonomous communities (i.e. regions) and large cities, the right-wing Popular Party (PP) scored a clear victory, prompting Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call snap elections, which will be held on July 23rd. However, in several autonomous communities and cities, to obtain an absolute majority and govern the Popolari, they will need the far-right Vox party. Whether and how to make these arrangements is one of central themes of recent Spanish politics.
The general strategy of the PP is to avoid an alliance with Vox before July 23: to avoid accusations of left-wing extremism, and not to lose the vote of many supporters who might not like the prospect of the far right in a any future government coalition. However, avoiding alliances with Vox everywhere and before July 23 could be complicated for the PP.
Vox is a radical right-wing, anti-immigration, anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ+ rights party. It was founded in 2013 and the leader is Santiago Abascal. PP and Vox govern together in the region of Castilla y León and in recent years they have shared several positions, including the common hostility towards Catalan and Basque separatism: until a few years ago the PP was a pro-European party, liberal in economics and all things considered moderate , but like many other similar parties across Europe in recent years it has moved decisively to the right.
After the results of the administrations, Vox spokesman Ignacio Garriga said he wanted to “stretch a hand” to the Popolari to form a government with them in the places where the PP did not obtain an absolute majority. But he also let it be known that cooperation with the PP “will come at a cost”: “Vox will not give away its votes.”
Commenting on the results of the elections, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the PP, instead ignored the subject of the agreements with Vox: he spoke above all of the defeat of the Socialists and celebrated the victory of the regional leaders who obtained the majority: «The absolute majorities they are my favorites, they give me a lot of pleasure,” said Feijóo. Despite this, the question of the alliance with Vox worries the PP and has been the main topic in the last few days’ party meetings, as he wrote the newspaper The country.
On the other hand, and right from the start, Sánchez’s socialist party has tried to keep the prospect of future alliances between the PP and Vox at the center of public discourse. Isabel Rodríguez, a government spokeswoman, said: “I don’t think that the extreme right and the right represented by Abascal and Feijóo reflect Spanish society. This feeling of hate does not prevail in the streets.”
Vox is essential to allow the PP to govern in five autonomous communities and in about thirty large cities. And the PP’s main strategy to outflank the far right before July 23 seems to be to postpone the timing of an agreement as much as possible. “There is no hurry,” said the President of Andalusia, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, for example: “There is more than enough time.” This is only partially true.
In some cases it will not be possible to delay the installation of new administrations because the times set by statutes and regulations do not allow it. In the cities that have gone to the vote, the new mayors will have to be elected on June 17. In the Spanish electoral system, mayors are not elected directly by citizens: at the first session of the Ayuntamiento, i.e. the municipal council, the elected councilors indicate a name for the office of mayor. If an absolute majority is found on the same candidate, he is proclaimed mayor. Otherwise the task is entrusted to the head of the list of the party that has obtained the highest number of votes.
In 30 cities the PP did not obtain an absolute majority and could achieve it with the help of Vox. In most of these municipalities, the PP was the party with the most votes and obtained a greater number of councilors than the councilors elected by all the left-wing parties put together: therefore it will be enough for Vox to abstain for the PP candidate to automatically elected mayor, since he is also the head of the list with the most votes. However, this will not guarantee that the new mayor will be able to govern and approve the municipal budgets, but that he will in the meantime be able to take an oath and postpone any agreement with Vox until the end of July.
Abascal has already made it clear that his advisers will never vote for a leftist mayor, so the PP would be in no danger if it avoided making a deal with Vox any time soon. This situation occurs for example in Seville, Alicante, Zaragoza, Cáceres, Segovia, Palma de Mallorca and Ceuta.
On the other hand, the situation is different in the municipalities where PP and Vox together have the absolute majority of councillors, but the Popolari are not the list that has obtained the highest number of votes. In this case Vox and PP should reach an agreement by June 17 to vote and elect one of their candidates. This is the case of Burgos, Valladolid or Toledo, for example. Abascal therefore asked Feijóo to find a compromise, but it seems that the PP leader reiterated to him, as he had already said during the electoral campaign, that the party with the most votes should govern: this would give the Socialists the possibility of electing its own mayor, if certain circumstances arise.
Even with regard to the autonomous communities, the PP’s strategy of postponing the election of new presidents will not be able to be applied everywhere. The communities where the Popolari won but did not obtain an absolute majority are Aragon, the Balearic Islands, Murcia and the Valencian Community. Initially Cantabria was also part of this group, but the leader of a minor regional party announced his own support to the PP candidate so that her election does not have to depend on Vox.
In some of these autonomous communities there will almost certainly be an initial vote for the nomination of the president before the general election. But it could not be successful, and therefore the second vote could be held after July 23 with the closure, only at that point, of an agreement with Vox.
In Murcia and the Balearic Islands, Vox’s abstention is enough for PP candidates to be sworn in as president because both have obtained more seats than the entire left combined: there is therefore no possibility of an alternative majority. It is therefore probable that here we will go to the vote without an agreement with Vox which could instead be done after July 23rd.
The most complicated cases are those of Aragon, the Valencian Community and Extremadura: in these communities the Popolari need the favorable vote of Vox’s regional deputies to obtain the presidency: it is here that Vox could have greater claims and room for maneuver and that with difficulty the PP will be able to postpone an agreement.
In Extremadura, for example, the Socialists and Populars elected an equal number of regional deputies, but the Socialists got a few thousand more votes. Abascal then provocatively asked Feijóo if he intended to apply to the letter the principle that the party with the most votes should govern, leaving the entire region to the PSOE. It is not yet clear what will happen: Feijóo, in a recent public speech, called the leader of the Popolari in Extremadura, María Guardiola, “president”.
In the Valencian Community, the necessary alliance with Vox to appoint a PP president is complicated by the fact that Vox’s candidate who is expected to become vice president is Carlos Flores: he is a constitutional law professor and formerly belonged to the youth section of the Valencian party. extreme right and linked to Franco’s Fuerza Nueva, therefore to the more radical fringes of Spanish politics. In 2002 he was also convicted of violence against his ex-wife.