Ángel Collado
A shorter-than-expected victory for the People’s Party, without an absolute majority even with the support of the extreme right of Vox, and an unforeseen hold by the PSOE with a retreat of the extreme left of Sumar open a new period of instability in Spanish politics.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo won, or rather came first, in Sunday’s general elections, but the head of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, has room to re-edit his coalition government with the populists supported by the Catalan and Basque pro-independence parties that brought him to power in the 2018 motion of censure.
Between the PP’s offer of change and Sanchismo’s call for continuity, citizens have not been able to make a clear choice. Feijóo, with 136 MPs in a Congress with 350 members, did not achieve the number of seats and the advantage over the PSOE that he aspired to in order to take over the government. Not even with the 33 seats won by Vox did it reach the absolute majority set at 176.
The Popular Party is up almost 50 seats and twelve points in percentage of the vote with respect to the 2019 elections. The problem for Feijóo is that they are just a few tenths and 14 seats above the PSOE’s result. Without any wear and tear at the polls, Sánchez managed to ensure that the socialists held their ground in almost all of Spain, and especially in the Catalan provinces, adding two more deputies.
The president of the government’s re-election is complicated by the decline of his far-left allies, formerly Podemos with Pablo Iglesias and now Sumar with Yolanda Díaz, who have lost seven seats in the coalition bloc. Its other fixed partners, the Catalan separatists of ERC, also lost the same number of representatives. Only the heirs of ETA’s political wing, Bildu, gained another deputy.
The retreat of the national and regional left-wing bloc forces Sánchez to count on all the other separatist groups for his re-election, including that of the fugitive from justice and former president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont. Their 7 MPs in Congress will be fundamental for the continuity of the chief executive.
The near-tie between the two blocs of right-wing and left-wing parties that the polls have declared threatens a long period of political uncertainty and a very complicated investiture. The separatist parties will raise the price of their support for Sánchez at the cost of national unity, with consultations for the secession of Catalonia and the Basque Country.
In the previous legislature, Bildu had already scored the rapprochement of imprisoned terrorists to their places of origin, while ERC claimed pardons for its leaders imprisoned for the secessionist attempt of 17 October 2017. Also the suppression of the crime of sedition and the lowering of the crime of embezzlement in the penal code to suit the interests of the pro-independence supporters.
Sánchez, despite coming second in the elections, last night took for granted the continuity of his left-wing government without going into the negotiations and the price to be paid by the separatists.
Feijóo, as president of the most voted party, proclaimed himself the winner of the elections and made it clear that he is willing to opt for the presidency of the government. To this end, he announced talks with the other political forces and demanded that the unwritten principle in Spanish democracy, which grants the most voted candidate the Presidency of the Government regardless of whether or not he obtains an absolute majority, be respected.
This has always been the case, the PP president recalled, since 1977. Adolfo Suárez, Felipe González, José María Aznar, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Mariano Rajoy and Pedro Sánchez all came to office after coming first in the corresponding elections.
Feijóo can only hope to get the vote in his favour of Vox in his possible investiture. The nationalist groups, even if they are right-wing like the PNV, have ruled out backing the PP this time if it means an alliance with Abascal’s party.
Sánchez’s advantage is that he has a proven ability to reach agreements with all political forces. He already did so in the motion of censure against Mariano Rajoy in June 2018, when he brought together the entire left, independents, nationalists and regionalists to win the presidency of the Government on the basis of the 89 MPs that the PSOE had at the time. Now he has 122 to repeat the operation.
