2023-05-29 01:36:07
At the end of Sunday’s election, the People’s Party (right) won at least six of the ten regions hitherto led by the Spanish Socialist Party.
By Le Figaro with AFP
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Six months before the legislative elections, the socialist party of the Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez suffered a very heavy defeat in the municipal and regional elections on Sunday May 28 in Spain, which does not bode well for its continuation in power at the end of the year. The leader of the Popular Party (PP), the main right-wing opposition party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, immediately announced “a new political cycle”. The PP did on Sunday “one giant leap” on the road to lead Alberto Núñez Feijóo to the post of prime minister at the end of the year, added the president of the government of Andalusia, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, a leader of the party.
But besides the PP, the other big winner is the far-right party Voxalready the third political force in Parliament, which, with more than 1.5 million votes in the municipal elections (7.19%), has doubled its score in four years and made a spectacular push in many regional parliaments.
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The polls all announced a victory for the right in this double municipal and regional election, but no one expected the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) of Pedro Sánchez to suffer such losses. The head of the outgoing government of Cantabria (northern Spain), Miguel Ángel Revilla, leader of a small regionalist party allied with the socialists, spoke of a “right tide”both of the PP and of Vox, while the head of the socialist government of Aragón, Javier Lambán, went so far as to evoke a «tsunami» who took away “the wall” erected by the socialists. Both were beaten. “The result is not what we expected”soberly commented the spokesperson of the Socialist Party, Pilar Alegría, looking defeated.
Vox, a difficult and cumbersome partner
The PP, which had made these local and regional elections a national referendum on the policy of Pedro Sánchez, has practically achieved all its objectives. He first collected the largest number of votes in the municipal elections, more than 7 million (31.5%), or some two million more than four years ago, once morest less than 6.3 million (28, 1%) for the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) of Mr. Sánchez. Above all, according to public television TVE and the daily The countrythe PP has conquered at least six of the ten regions hitherto ruled (directly or within a coalition) by the PSOE: the Valencian Community (east), fourth in the country by population, Aragon (center), Extremadura (west), the Balearic Islands (east), Cantabria and Rioja (north).
But the other side of the coin is that in most of these regions it will need the support of Vox to govern, and this far-right party is already looking like a difficult and cumbersome partner for the PP, while this one tries to project a subdued image. The two parties have already been governing since last year in one region. The Socialist Party also lost to the PP the town hall of Seville, the largest city in Andalusia (south) and its main municipal stronghold, as well as that of Valencia. And it is not guaranteed to win that of Barcelona, its candidate having only arrived in second position behind a separatist.
Like a dress rehearsal before the legislative elections
This Sunday’s elections involved all 8,131 municipalities, or 35.5 million voters, as well as the assemblies of 12 of the country’s 17 autonomous regions. Some 18.3 million voters were affected by this second vote. This double ballot was considered a general rehearsal before the legislative elections, the exact date of which is not yet known. The name of Pedro Sánchez did not appear on any ballot on Sunday, nor that of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. But what was at stake was very important for the two men, who had been heavily involved in the campaign, to the point of making these elections a real first round before the legislative elections at the end of the year. Sánchez had campaigned on his government’s record, primarily in the economic sphere. But Feijóo was also playing very big, because it was the first elections in which he took part as head of the PP. The latter not only kept the two regions he held (Madrid and Murcia), but he won an absolute majority in both. Just like for the town hall of the capital.
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