Ángel Collado
Pedro Sánchez is delighted with the stability in power that the independentistas give him, but the regional leaders of the PSOE see how the polls confirm their fears of being punished in the regional elections next May for the Government’s favours to its partners.
Even the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS), a public body under strict control of the Executive, points out that the Socialists are in danger of losing traditional fiefdoms such as Extremadura and that the best prospects are for the regional presidents most critical of Sánchez: Emiliano García-Page in Castilla-La Mancha and Javier Lambán in Aragón.
The head of the Executive closes the annual exercise in a hurry with the payment of outstanding bills with the Catalan separatists, such as those of repealing the crime of sedition and lowering that of embezzlement of public funds incurred by the main leaders of the Generalitat in the secessionist attempt of 1 October 2017.
Sánchez thus frees or relieves his allies from the pressure of Justice, as well as disarming the State against future coups, according to the opposition and a good part of the PSOE, at least the one represented by García-Page and Lambán.
On 28 May, the two main national parties are playing for half of the power in the autonomous regions in elections held in conjunction with the municipal elections. Andalusia, Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country are on the sidelines because they have their own system of elections, and the same applies this time in the case of Castile and Leon because there were early elections last February. The citizens living in the rest of the regions, including Madrid, account for slightly more of Spain’s population and are called to the polls in an election that will also be the prologue to the general elections at the end of the year.
Of the ten regional governments at stake, the PSOE controls eight: two with an absolute majority (those of Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura) and the rest thanks to pacts with the extreme left (Podemos), regionalists and pro-independence supporters, including the heirs of ETA’s political wing in the case of Navarre. For its part, the Popular Party only presides over two regional executives: Madrid and Murcia.
The PP assumes that it will maintain its hegemony in the two autonomous regions it already governs and hopes that Isabel Díaz Ayuso will rise in Madrid to achieve an absolute majority so as not to depend on Vox. In addition, the party presided over by Alberto Núñez Feijóo is already campaigning to capture the socialist electorate in the rest of Spain, which is dissatisfied with Sánchez’s management in favour of the Catalan and Basque independentists. The Popular Party sees room to win in most regions.
García-Page, with an absolute majority in Castilla-La Mancha, and Javier Lambán from Aragón have stood out in criticising Sánchez for reforming the Penal Code to suit the interests of the separatists condemned by the Supreme Court. The former was counting on his management of the autonomous region over the last four years to guarantee his return to office, but has seen the PSOE brand and the image of Pedro Sánchez become a liability for his campaign in the region.
The polls were also smiling on Lambán, with an overall approval rating for his administration and an upward outlook that allowed him to aspire to get rid of some of his forced partners in this legislature, Podemos or some of the Aragonese regionalist groups on which his government depends. Despite these dependencies, he is the clearest in his criticism of Sánchez, even though he disavows himself every time he is called to order by the PSOE’s national leadership.
The socialist presidents of the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands and Navarre, who depend on their pacts with nationalists, pro-independence and far-left groups, have not objected to the president of the government’s drift. They are counting on reissuing their alliances after May to remain in power in the face of the foreseeable rise of the PP and the Unión del Pueblo Navarro.
In the case of the regional government of Extremadura, a traditional PSOE fiefdom since 1983, its current president, Guillermo Fernández Vara, has left his well-known disagreements with Sánchez to internal affairs. And the polls, the private ones published by the media and the governmental CIS, coincide in the same data in predicting the end of his absolute majority and in leaving the future of the regional government up in the air, dependent on the pacts of the socialists with Podemos, and even of the PP with Vox.
Not even the PP counted on this degree of deterioration of the PSOE’s brand, which also confirms the commitment of the main socialist barons to base their future campaign on their personal management and to distance themselves from Sánchez.
