Few believed it, but he did. Thwarting all the polls that had given him a major defeat for months, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez managed to limit the gains of the right-wing opposition in Sunday’s early legislative elections.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s Popular Party (PP, conservatives) finally won 136 seats out of a total of 350 in the Congress of Deputies, while the far-right Vox party, its only potential ally, won 33. They therefore only total 169 seats. Far from the absolute majority of 176.
Opposite, the Socialist Party (PSOE) of Pedro Sánchez has 122 deputies. Sumar, his radical left ally, won 31. In front of euphoric militants – shouting “No pasarán” (“They will not pass!”), famous anti-fascist slogan of the Civil War (1936-1939) – the Prime Minister claimed his ability to continue to lead Spain. “The backward bloc of the People’s Party and Vox has been defeated. Many more of us want Spain to keep moving forward and so it will be,” he said.
Need for supports
With its 153 deputies, the alliance of the PSOE and Sumar will therefore need the support of several regionalist parties, such as the Catalans from ERC or the Basques from Bildu, a party considered to be the heir to the political showcase of ETA. But they will also have to ensure the abstention of the party of the Catalan separatist Carles Puigdemont, Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), whose leaders have already warned that they would not help the current Prime Minister to remain in power without counterpart.
If all these conditions are met, Pedro Sánchez could then gather on his name 172 deputies, more than the leader of the PP, which would be enough for him during a second vote of investiture by Parliament, where only a simple majority is required.
Otherwise, Spain, which has already experienced four general elections between 2015 and 2019, would find itself in a situation of political deadlock and would be condemned to a new ballot. Narrow winner on the paper of this election, the leader of the Conservatives has claimed the right to form a government. The PP “won the elections” and “our obligation now is to prevent a period of uncertainty from opening,” he said from the balcony of the party headquarters.
“It won’t be easy”
“I will undertake to start a dialogue” with the forces represented in Parliament “to form a government”, he added, asking the Socialists not to “block” it. “We are going to talk a lot over the next few days and weeks” and “it will not be easy”, he admitted. Without an absolute majority with Vox, Alberto Núñez Feijóo wants to govern as a minority. But for that he would need the abstention of the Socialists in a vote of investiture in Parliament – which is not their intention, they have already made it known.
Wanting to regain the initiative after the rout of the left in the local elections on May 28, Pedro Sánchez had called this early election and campaigned on the fear of the far right entering the government in the event of a victory for the PP. A strategy that seems to have paid off: turnout reached nearly 70%, or 3.5 points more than in the last election, in November 2019.
This election has aroused unusual interest abroad due to the possibility of a PP/Vox coalition coming to power in a country considered a pioneer in terms of women’s rights or those of the LGBT + community. Such a scenario would have marked the return to power of the far right in Spain for the first time since the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975, almost half a century ago.