Ángel Collado
The campaign for the local and regional elections on 28 May ends next Friday without the socialist candidates having been able to avoid the erosion of their leader, Pedro Sánchez, or the PP candidates having managed to escape the shadow of Vox.
All the countless polls published, except the official CIS poll controlled by the government, coincide in predicting a severe setback for the PSOE, which sees even its traditional fiefdoms such as Castilla-La Mancha and the Seville mayoralty in danger.
The same polls are smiling on the main opposition party, with increases that only in the case of the Community of Madrid point to an absolute majority for Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the only candidate who is in a position to get rid of the extreme right-wing party.
The most important seats at stake will be decided by a few thousand votes at the ballot box, or later in the pacts between parties, from the Valencian Community at the regional level as the second most populated region of those holding elections, to the main city councils such as those of Madrid and Barcelona.
The polls, in line with the results of the last three decades of local and regional elections held on the same date, do not point to an electoral reversal, but they do indicate a general trend towards a decline of the socialists and a sinking of their partners (the extreme left of Podemos and related brands), which would shift the map of autonomous Spain to the right.
Sánchez and the two big national parties have campaigned as if these same predictions were going to come true. First at party rallies and then from the Government, the current president has made announcements about investments, aid and various subsidies to support his candidates through his cabinet’s own actions.
The chief executive is giving a national political dimension to the elections in terms of expanding public spending. In less than two weeks, up to 14,000 million euros have been “mobilised” or “injected”. While his autonomous barons are making calculations and fleeing from the damage that Sánchez himself and his alliances with populist and pro-independence parties – including ETA’s heir (Bildu) – could have on the PSOE brand, Sánchez is cultivating his own image with his sights set on the general elections at the end of the year.
Two socialist regional presidents in power, Emiliano García-Page in Castilla-La Mancha and Javier Lambán in Aragón, have staked their chances of repeating in office on publicly disassociating themselves from their leader’s policy of alliances. The rise of the PP in both regions threatens the absolute majority of the former and the sum of the conglomerate of forces that keeps the latter in power.
In the Valencian Community, where the socialist Ximo Puig governs in coalition with the entire far left in the style of Sánchez, may be the most visible key to the possible general overturning of the elections. After Andalusia, Catalonia and Madrid, it is Spain’s fourth-largest region in terms of population and the PSOE’s main remaining regional fiefdom. According to the polls, Puig’s current majority is about to cease to be so in the face of an eventual sum of the PP, as the sure winner, plus Vox. But barely two seats in a regional chamber of 100 separate the two blocs.
Faced with the nerves of the socialist candidates when they saw how Sánchez and his alliances were mortgaging their campaigns, the PP was betting precisely on this factor, and even more so when the scandal of the 44 terrorists on Bildu’s lists broke out and it became clear that the President of the Government cannot or will not break with the heirs of ETA.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s team takes the party’s general advance in the elections for granted, but it needs to win some of the socialist fiefdoms in order to achieve a clear victory that will also serve as a boost ahead of the general elections. Otherwise, the PP is counting on the powerful governmental media apparatus, both public and private, to try to disguise negative results for the PSOE and to blame them on the regional barons in order to alleviate the image of the head of the Executive.
The greatest consolation the polls offer the socialists is the continuity of Vox as a necessary complement to almost any PP majority. The Community of Madrid is barely spared, and Santiago Abascal has dedicated the campaign to making it clear that he will demand to enter all governments in which his vote is necessary for the investitures. If necessary, it will be Sánchez who can use these possible agreements for the general elections, even if some of the party’s barons have gone into opposition.
