2023-07-24 08:02:02
MADRID (AP) — Spain faced weeks and perhaps even months of political stalemate with the possibility of new elections, but Sunday’s election produced a result that would be greeted with relief in mainland capitals that, like Madrid, staunchly back the European Union.
Spain’s Vox party, with its ultra-nationalist message, lost support among voters and saw its hopes of becoming a key partner dashed and entering a governing coalition that would have empowered Spain’s far-right for the first time since the 20th-century dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
The conservative Popular Party won the election but fell well short of poll estimates that it might unseat Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez if it formed a government with Vox as a minority partner.
Although Sánchez’s Socialists finished second, they and their allied parties celebrated the result as a victory because their combined forces won slightly more seats than the PP and Vox. The block that would probably back Sánchez had 172 seats, compared to 170 on the right.
“It has been a pyrrhic victory for the PP, which cannot govern,” said Verónica Fumanal, a political scientist and president of the Political Communication Association. “I see a situation of blockade in Parliament,” he predicts.
The tighter-than-expected result was likely to usher in weeks of political negotiations and uncertainty over Spain’s future leadership.
Socialist voter Delphine Fernández said she hoped Sánchez might stay in power. She crossed her fingers that she and the 37 million Spaniards called to the polls would not have to do it once more like in 2019, when Sánchez needed two consecutive victories before forming a coalition government.
“It was going to be difficult, yes, tied, but let’s see (…) we are still going to govern,” said Fernández, a lawyer by profession.
“I’m not coming back once more in a few weeks, huh?” he joked. “Now or never”.
But the chances of Sánchez getting the support of the 176 parliamentarians needed to have an absolute majority in the lower house are not very great.
The split results make the Catalan separatist Junts party key to Sánvhez’s ability to form a government. But if Junts were to call for an independence referendum for the northeastern region of Catalonia, that would likely be too high a price for Sánchez.
“We will not make Pedro Sánchez president in exchange for nothing,” said Miriam Nogueras, leader of the party, on election night.
With 98% of the votes counted, the Popular Party was on its way to 136 seats. Even with the 33 deputies that Vox would obtain and another from an allied party, the PP would still be seven short of a majority.
The Socialists seemed to have achieved 122, two more than in the previous legislature. Sánchez might probably count on the 31 of the left-wing Sumar coalition, which includes his current government partners, and several smaller parties to assemble at least more than the sum of the right-wing parties, but would also be four short of a majority unless Junts joins them.
“Spain and all its citizens who have voted have been crystal clear and resoundingly clear. The evolutionist block of retreat, which proposed a total repeal of all the progress we have made during these last four years, has failed, ”said a plethoric Sánchez before his followers in Madrid.
When his party took a beating in regional and local elections in May, Sánchez might have waited until December for national elections. Instead, he took his rivals by surprise by early voting in the hope of gaining more support.
Sánchez can add election night to his career list of counterattacks built on defying the odds. The 51-year-old leader had to lead a mutiny by socialist militants to regain control of the party before winning the only victorious vote of no confidence in Spanish politics to oust his predecessor, the Popular Party, in 2018.
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, claimed the right to try to form a government as the party with the most votes in the elections, although he seemed to have even less chance of forming a majority.
“We have won the elections. It is up to us to try to form a government, as has always happened in Spanish democracy,” said the conservative candidate from the balcony of the PP headquarters in the center of Madrid.
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Wilson reported from Barcelona. AP journalists Aritz Parra, Renata Brito, David Brunat, Iain Sullivan, María Gestoso, Alicia Léon and José María García contributed to this report.
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