Spain begins the campaign with the entry of Vox into the Government as the most likely scenario | The president of the PP announces that he will appoint ultras ministers if he needs the votes of the extreme right to form a government

2023-07-04 05:01:00

From Seville

The Spanish have jumped from one electoral process to another. On May 28, regional and municipal elections were held, with a clear vote to punish Pedro Sánchez, and the President of the Government did not take 24 hours to react. He announced the dissolution of Congress and the early calling of general elections. Sánchez’s mandate expired in December, but after the crash, which led the PSOE to lose the government of most of the autonomous communities, he decided to call the polls as soon as possible. The move was not without controversy. The first possible date was July 23, in the middle of summer, under the threat of a heat wave like never before and with half the country on vacation. It is as if the Argentines were called to the polls on January 23.

The move had the dual purpose of avoiding an exhausting six-month agony and trying to mobilize the leftist electorate in the face of the latent threat of a possible entry of the extreme right into the Government. The first has been achieved, the second is yet to be seen and at the moment it is not reflected in the polls.

Since the electoral call, every morning the Spaniards have breakfast with a new poll of voting intentions and in practically all of them the block on the right appears clearly ahead of that on the left, but both in the PSOE and in Sumar (the coalition led by Vice President Yolanda Díaz, who managed to integrate not without difficulty the entire spectrum to the left of the PSOE) is confident that it is a disadvantage that can be overcome.

The strategies of both blocks seem to respond to the logic of the mirror. They try to mobilize the electorate by warning against the possible coalition government that could be formed if the adversary wins. On the left, they warn against the social setbacks that the formation of a government with Vox ministers would entail, whose agenda includes repealing the abortion law and equal marriage or the outlawing of the pro-independence parties. In the right-wing bloc they counterattack against the possible reissue of what they call the ‘Frankenstein government’, a figure in which they integrate all the demons of the Spanish right: socialists, communists and Podemos with the parliamentary support of Basque and Catalan nationalists.

The succession of one election after another has had the consequence that the electoral pre-campaign takes place at the same time that the regional governments that emerged from the May 28 elections are being formed. Initially, the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, had the intention of delaying the negotiations as long as possible to avoid the political cost of the pacts with the extreme right to which he is forced, but the calendar has been relentless and has allowed to anticipate what can be expected after the July elections.

In the Spanish parliamentary system, both at the national and regional levels, there is no direct vote for the Executive and the presidents are elected by the parliaments. The negotiations are closing these days, for the moment with a uniform criterion. In those communities in which the PP’s abstention from Vox is enough to invest their presidents, as has been the case in the Balearic Islands and possibly also in Murcia, the extreme right does not enter governments, but where the PP does require of the vote in favor of their candidate from the Vox parliamentarians, this formation is demanding, and getting, to be part of the executives. This is the case of the Valencian Community and also of Extremadura, where the Popular Party candidate, María Guardiola, has had to rectify after announcing that she could never allow “those who deny sexist violence” into the Government. The possibility of an electoral repetition and the pressure from her party – and also from the media – led her to back down just five days later. “My word is not as important as the future of Extremadura”.

It cannot be said that the president of the PP is not speaking clearly. Núñez Feijóo said this Monday in a television interview that if Vox has to vote ‘yes’ in his investiture it is because the PP does not add more votes than the entire left. Therefore, “the logical thing is for Vox to enter the Government.”

The left is trying to mobilize its voters with the warning of what a government that integrates Vox ministers would mean, but for the moment the results are not seen in the polls. It is a strategy that is not very different from that of the PP, which seems to want to replicate the tactic that worked so well for them a year ago in Andalusia, the most populous community in the country and a traditional socialist electoral stronghold. There, his candidate managed to mobilize in his favor what he called the “borrowed vote”; Center-left voters who, faced with the possibility of Vox entering the government, opted for the lesser evil and gave the Popular Party an absolute majority.