In the aftermath of a heavy electoral defeat, the Spanish Socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, in power since 2018, announced the calling of early legislative elections on July 23. The Conservatives have indeed won a large victory over the left in a double ballot, municipal and regional, which took place on Sunday.
The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) thus collected less than 6.3 million votes (28.1%) in the municipal elections, against more than 7 million (31.5%) for its conservative rival, the Popular Party (PP) . An increase of two million votes for the right in four years, and a massive decline of the left, which loses, according to the daily El Pais and the public television TVE, six of the ten regions it led until then.
The far right, represented by the Vox party, is the big winner of the ballot: with more than 1.5 million votes in the municipal elections, the party has doubled its score in four years and further consolidates its place as third force country policy.
Maria Elisa Alonso, teacher-researcher at the University of Lorraine, delivers her analysis to Le Point.
Le Point: How to understand this debacle of the Socialist Party in Spain?
Maria Elisa Alonso: This defeat is quite astonishing, and, even if it was announced by the polls, still surprises by its magnitude. It is actually quite paradoxical: Spain’s economy is doing well despite the international context, and the government’s record in this regard is good. They increased the minimum wage, indexed pensions to inflation, lowered unemployment, and contributed to creating, with Portugal, the Iberian exception: the price of electricity did not increase as quickly in Spain as in the rest of Europe.
However, the left-wing coalition that brought all these improvements has just been defeated. So I think that if Sunday’s elections were local, it was the national context that prevailed. In my opinion, the voters wanted to vote against the PSOE coalition with Podemos, and in particular against the controversial laws that Podemos pushed through.
The “real and effective equality law for trans people”, for example, [which allows the change of sex on identity papers by simple administrative declaration from the age of 16, 14 with parental consent] has made scandal within the PSOE and feminist organizations themselves.
Can we talk about “vote sanction”?
This is really a vote against the government, even against Pedro Sanchez himself: moreover, if the abstention rate remained about the same as in the last elections, it was much higher among left-leaning voters. The leadership of Pedro Sanchez is particularly disputed. Many voters are disappointed with the personalization of power he brought and voted against it.
When Pedro Sanchez called early elections on Monday, for example, he did not warn his coalition, his party, or even his cabinet. He caught everyone off guard, and framed the election as a plebiscite around his stay in power, asking voters, “With me or without me?” This kind of shot is his trademark.
Isn’t Sanchez putting himself in danger by calling a snap election? Does he have any chance of remobilizing his voters?
It’s quits or double. With hindsight, I understand his approach: it would be very complicated for him to govern for another six months with all the regional governments in opposition, he would be attacked from all directions, his leadership would run out. He therefore bets on the fact that the majorities obtained by the PP in municipal and regional elections are simple majorities: the right needs to make a coalition with the extreme right of Vox to govern.
I think Pedro Sanchez will try to play this situation in his favor, exploiting the vote of PP voters opposed to an agreement with the far right. He will also try to capture the voices of the far left, which has almost disappeared. Faced with the PP/Vox alliance, he wants to use the useful vote and take advantage of the atomization of the far left.
Spain will also take over the presidency of the European Union on July 1, which will give him international visibility that he can use.
But if nothing is lost, nothing is gained either: Pedro Sanchez can get away with mobilizing voters on the left, but it is also possible that we will see a powerful comeback from the right. However, as the only possible ally of the PP in the current Spanish political landscape is Vox, whatever the outcome of the elections, they are unlikely to have an absolute majority.
