2023-07-24 06:07:57
This Sunday, at the initiative of the socialist president Pedro Sánchez, early legislative elections were held in Spain, after the left was defeated in the municipal and regional elections last May. Although another setback for Sánchez was predicted, the truth is that he narrowly lost to the conservatives, which would allow him to eventually renew his mandate with the support of other parties.
The PP (Popular Party) of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, which all the polls gave as the winner, was imposed by a very narrow margin: 136 deputies in Congress to the 122 of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) of Pedro Sánchez. However, the leader’s party is in a better position to reach agreements than the deputies that are missing for an absolute majority of 176.
In the Senate, the lower house, the situation was similar: although the PP won 136 seats, the PSOE was left with 122. “The involutionist bloc of the Popular Party with Vox (from the right) have been defeated,” Sánchez told thousands of supporters gathered outside the PSOE headquarters in Madrid on Sunday night. “There are many more of us who want Spain to advance and it will continue like this,” he concluded.
President Gustavo Petro, an ally of Sánchez, celebrated the president’s triumph and through his Twitter account he limited himself to saying: “Good for Spain. Progressivism resists”.
The right-wing block that made up the PP plus Vox has 169 deputies and the left-wing PSOE-Sumar 153, but the latter is to a greater extent to get the support of Basque nationalists, Catalans, and other minority parties to reach the 176 votes that mark the absolute majority in Congress and achieve the investiture.
Many of these parties announced that they would never vote for a government that included the extreme right. Despite this, Feijóo claimed his victory and asked to form a government: “As a candidate for the party with the most votes, I believe that my duty is to try to govern our country,” the leader assured before supporters gathered at the PP headquarters.
“It’s a surprise. Sánchez’s challenge is to find a majority, it all depends on one or two seats,” explained Antonio Barroso, an analyst at the consulting firm Teneo.
Sanchez’s luck
Pedro Sánchez, 51 years old, five of them in power, confirmed with these results his reputation as a lucky man, since his risky bet of bringing forward the general elections went well. It was of no use to Feijóo to improve the results of the PP in the 2019 elections by 47 deputies.
It is presumed that as of this Monday the negotiations between the different parties will begin to form a government, and in a month the Parliament will be constituted. “We can tip the balance,” acknowledged the Catalan independence deputy Gabriel Rufián, whose ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia) party won 7 deputies, and who announced that he would request an independence referendum in exchange for his support for Sánchez.
“Our votes will be decisive once again,” agreed Andoni Ortuzar, from the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which won five seats.
Coming?
Once the Parliament has been constituted, King Felipe VI will receive representatives of the different parliamentary forces and will propose a candidate for investiture, who must have the support of an absolute majority of the Congress of Deputies, in a first vote, or a simple majority in the next.
If, in short, there was not a viable majority, neither on the right nor on the left, the country would be headed for new elections in a few months.
This new air for the Spanish socialists is a relief for the European left, which already lost Italy last year and now governs only half a dozen of the 27 member countries of the European Union.
A mobilizing factor for the left in these elections was the fear that the extreme right would enter into a government coalition. The foregoing, given that PP and Vox agreed in various local and regional governments.
Sánchez warned that such an alliance would be “a setback for Spain” and something frowned upon in Europe, while the leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, said this Sunday night that “people are going to sleep more peacefully.”
“The Popular Party has lost support with the latest moves in the campaign while, in parallel, the Socialist Party has managed to mobilize its electorate,” said Giselle García Hípola, professor of Political Science at the University of Granada.
2.5 million voted by mail
Some 37.5 million voters were called to renew the 350 members of the Congress of Deputies for another four years and to elect 208 senators. On a very hot day in the middle of summer, participation was still 70%, higher than in 2019 (66.23%). Mainly because of the holidays, 2.5 million people voted by mail, a record number.
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