Ángel Collado
Beyond the forecasts of any survey, the real map of the distribution of regional and local political power, with almost absolute hegemony of the Partido Popular, confirms the change of political cycle in Spain in the run-up to the general elections on 23 July. The municipal elections of the May elections left the PP in 30 of the 50 provincial capitals, compared to 10 for the PSOE.
The party presided over by Alberto Núñez Feijóo governs 7 of the 8 most populated cities in the country (Madrid, Valencia, Seville, Malaga, Zaragoza, Murcia and Palma de Mallorca) and the same is true of the regions with the most inhabitants: 5 of the 6 Autonomous Communities that contribute the most deputies to the Congress that will be elected at the polls next month also have PP executives: Andalusia, Madrid, the Valencian Community, Castile and Leon and Galicia.
The collapse of the Socialist Party in regional and municipal power is reflected in the loss of more than half of the city councils in provincial capitals that were under its control until 23-M, which are now in the hands of PP mayors.
Moreover, in the coming weeks, as the regional parliaments are constituted and regional governments are formed, the PSOE’s failure at the polls will become institutional proof of its failure at the ballot box. The PSOE is only able to hold on in Castilla-La Mancha with the absolute majority of the critic Emiliano García-Page, in Asturias with the support of the extreme left and in Navarre with the permission of Bildu, the party that inherited the political arm of the ETA terrorists.
The Socialists, led by Pedro Sánchez, arrive at the next election with less regional power than ever before. They are barely hegemonic in three of the 17 autonomous communities in Spain, and among the least populated. Altogether, they do not contribute even 10 percent of the 350 deputies in Congress.
Catalonia is the exception in the overall disastrous local panorama of socialism, having won the mayor’s office in the capital, Barcelona, Spain’s second largest city. But the electoral background is not positive for Sánchez’s interests either.
The new mayor, Jaume Collboni, came second in number of votes and councillors (only 10 out of 41 in the city council), and has had to face a number of difficulties. and has had to rely on the support of the PP to win the post. The Socialists’ success was based on the fact that the PP councillors preferred to vote for Collboni in order to prevent a separatist leader from becoming mayor of Barcelona.
On the other side of the political spectrum, Feijoó is running in the general elections with the backing of
In addition to controlling most of the regional governments, the provincial capitals and the cities with the largest populations, he has the added advantage of concentrating the centre-right vote throughout Spain. In fact, and despite the government’s campaign to highlight the dependence on the extreme right represented by VOX, the PP candidates have reached almost all the important municipalities (25 out of 30) without making a pact with the party led by Santiago Abascal.
The electoral fiefdoms of the Partido Popular have emerged consolidated or expanded in municipal power in the May elections on the basis of their autonomous majorities (excluding Vox) in Andalusia, Madrid, Galicia and Murcia. And the pacts with Vox already signed in the Valencian Community, or in the making as in the Balearic Islands, complete a map of Spain with an overwhelming preponderance of the right in the face of a PSOE cornered with Sánchez and an extreme left in recomposition with Yolanda Díaz at the forefront.
The populist left that maintained the mayoralties of important cities such as Barcelona, Valencia and Cádiz has been diluted in the opposition in the respective city councils to add uncertainty to Díaz’s attempt to maintain the legacy of Pablo Iglesias in Congress, the 35 deputies that were essential to make Pedro Sánchez president in 2019.
The municipal pacts on Saturday and the regional ones in the coming weeks certify the severe defeat of the Sanchez coalition in May as a prologue to another failure in the July elections that only the president of the Government and the results of his CIS refuse to see.
