PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU / AFP
Candidates for the post of Spanish Prime Minister, incumbent Prime Minister of the Socialist Party (PSOE) Pedro Sanchez and leader of the right-wing opposition Partido Popular (PP) party Alberto Nunez Feijoo (r) arrive before taking part in a televised election debate organized by Atresmedia July 10, 2023 in San Sebastian de los Reyes near Madrid ahead of July 23 general elections. Re-election hopes for Spain’s prime minister depend on support from the far left, who have agreed to join forces to contest snap general elections on July 23. Most polls suggest the PP will win but will need to form an alliance with the far-right party to form a government. (Photo by Pierre-Philippe MARCOU / AFP)
SPAIN – The great uncertainty. Hours after snap elections called by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the situation in Spain is very confusing as the specter of snap elections remains an important option in the coming weeks.
Outgoing socialist leader and conservative rival Alberto Núñez Feijóo, whose party won the most MPs, will begin negotiations to form a new government on Monday 24 July. Because, by thwarting all the polls that largely gave him defeat for months, Pedro Sánchez has managed to limit the right-wing opposition’s gains and can hope to remain in extremis.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s Popular Party (PP) eventually won 136 seats in the Congress of Deputies out of a total of 350, while the far-right Vox party, its only potential ally, won 33 seats. So you only get 169 seats, far from an absolute majority, which is 176. Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party (PSOE), on the other hand, has 122 MPs and Sumar, his radical left ally, has 31.
Sanchez and Apothecary Calculations
In front of euphoric militants who chanted “No pasarán” (“You can’t get through!”), the famous anti-fascist slogan of the Civil War (1936-1939), the prime minister claimed that he was capable of continuing to lead Spain. “The declining bloc of the People’s Party and Vox has been defeated. A lot more of us want Spain to keep moving forward and that’s going to be the case,” he said.
With its 153 MEPs, the PSOE/Sumar alliance will therefore need the support of several regionalist formations such as the Catalans of ERC or the Basques of Bildu, a formation considered the heir to ETA’s political paragon. But they must also ensure that the Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), the party of Catalan separatist Carles Puigdemont, abstain, whose leaders have already warned they will not help Pedro Sánchez stay in power without compensation.
If all these conditions are met, the resigning party could then gather 172 deputies on his behalf, more than the leader of the PP, which would be enough for him in a second investiture vote in parliament, where only a simple majority is required.
Otherwise, Spain, which has already experienced four general elections between 2015 and 2019, would find itself in a political impasse and condemned to a new ballot.
The fear of the extreme right returning to power
Alberto Núñez Feijóo himself, the narrow winner of this vote, claimed the right to form a government. The PP had “won the elections” and “our duty now is to prevent a period of uncertainty from beginning in Spain,” he said from the balcony of party headquarters. “I will commit to starting a dialogue” with the forces represented in Parliament “to form a government,” he added, urging the Socialists not to “block” him. “We’re going to talk a lot over the next few days and weeks” and “it won’t be easy,” he admitted.
Without an outright majority with Vox, the right-wing leader wants to govern in a minority, but he would need the Socialists to abstain in an investiture vote in parliament. However, the Socialists have already made it clear that they have no intention of doing so.
In order to regain the initiative after the left’s defeat in the local elections on May 28, Pedro Sánchez called these snap elections and campaigned with fear that the far right would enter government if the PP won. A strategy that has apparently paid off: the turnout was almost 70%, i.e. 3.5 percentage points more than in the last election in November 2019.
This election has attracted unusual interest abroad given the possibility of a PP/Vox coalition coming to power in a country seen as a frontrunner on women’s rights or the LGBT+ community. Such a scenario would have marked the return to power of the extreme right in Spain for the first time since the end of Franco’s dictatorship in 1975, almost half a century ago.
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