The conservative opposition People’s Party (PP) won the parliamentary elections in Spain. The previous head of government, Pedro Sanchez, came second with his socialist PSOE. However, it is uncertain whether PP election winner Alberto Nunez Feijoo will replace the incumbent.
According to the latest projections published by TV station RTVE, the People’s Party can hope for 136 seats in Parliament in Madrid. The right-wing populist Vox, with which Feijoo has not ruled out cooperation, achieved 33 mandates. However, 176 seats are required for an absolute majority in the House of Representatives.
The PSOE can count on 122 mandates. Your possible left-wing partner, the newly founded electoral alliance Sumar, came fourth with an expected 31 seats.
Tolerated right-wing populists?
If, as expected, PP and Vox miss an absolute majority, they would be dependent on the support or at least the toleration of smaller parties. However, this is unlikely due to the resistance of other parties to the right-wing populists. As a result, the fourth largest economy in the EU, which currently holds the presidency of the Union, could face a long stalemate. A “bloqueo”, a political blockade of the kind that occurred twice in a row after the 2015 and 2019 elections and required a second round of voting in each case, cannot be ruled out.
Like partner parties in Hungary and Poland, Vox has a very unique understanding of the rule of law. She is also Eurosceptic and calls for cashing in on prestige left-wing projects in the areas of social affairs, the protection of minorities and the environment, and for cracking down on separatists. There is no so-called firewall to the right in Spain, as there is in Germany against the AfD. In some regions, PP and Vox already rule together.
A “grand coalition” is unthinkable in Spain. Sanchez does not even want to tolerate a PP minority government and therefore leaves him “no choice” but to talk to Vox, Feijoo emphasized several times.
The parliamentary elections were actually only planned for the end of the year. But Sanchez preferred it after the debacle of the left parties in the May 28 regional elections. The left-wing government repeatedly warned that a right-wing government would undo the social gains of recent years and set the country back decades.
wa/haz (dpa, afp, rtve.es)
Source: DW
