Just a week ago, the PP dreamed of 168 seats and a landslide victory that would allow them to govern alone and without Vox. But much stronger than expected resistance from the left, with a PSOE clearly improving their 2019 results against all odds, has given Alberto Núñez Feijóo a victory so narrow he can’t even match Vox, UPN and Coalición Canaria. The result of the vote is even more surprising than what is reflected in the seats: the PP wins the PSOE elections with just over 300,000 votes. It is a victory, but so small, very similar to that of José María Aznar in 1996, that it leaves a very bad taste in the mouth of the popular leadership, which at no time doubted that with Vox they would have the absolute majority. The numbers are so small that governance remains uncertain: the current bloc would have 172 seats and would need at least the abstentions of junts to make Pedro Sánchez president, and the right bloc has only 171 as long as the PNV stays with the PSOE.
The parliament emerging from the polls allows Sánchez to repeat his majority, although this time he would need the abstentions of the junts and the yes vote of ERC and Bildu, and it makes it very difficult for Feijóo to achieve that majority as he does not have the necessary support to invest unless there are changes in the starting positions of important parties like the PNV. “The involutionist bloc has failed. “There are more Spaniards who want Spain to move forward and will continue to do so,” shouted a euphoric Pedro Sánchez, while PSOE bases chanted “They will not pass!” at the door of his headquarters. The president fell, so he will try to rule. “They thwarted the sum of rights,” admitted Santiago Abascal, chairman of Vox. Much less clearly, Feijóo insisted he will attempt an inauguration – “my duty is to open a dialogue to try to govern our country in line with winning the election” – and urged everyone else not to lead Spain to the blockade while madrileño fighters yelled “Txapote vote for you” and “Ayuso! Ayuso!” shouted. The PP leader will no doubt attempt this inauguration as an election winner, but it is very likely that he will not succeed and then Sánchez’s chance will present itself.
The surprise and frustration at PP HQ contrasted with the irrepressible joy at PSOE HQ. Despite the electoral defeat, which Feijóo will try to exploit to demand an abstention from the Socialists to let them govern, Pedro Sánchez has achieved what seemed impossible less than two months ago when he decided to take the umpteenth leap into the void and push ahead with a general election the day after the regional and local elections debacle on May 28: his 2019 results in the votes – more than 700. 000 – and by seats – two more – to improve Even power dreams of seeking a majority even more complex than the current one, but not impossible to govern. The Socialists believe an abstention by the Junts could be enough to get a larger majority than the PP with Vox and the support of UPN and the Canary Coalition.
The situation left in Congress by the ballot box is very complex and difficult to resolve. The possibility of a deadlock is a fact, although the disaster of the last re-election in 2019 can serve as an antidote to avoiding that temptation. There are currently two possible majorities, depending on what each party has said, although there are still many weeks of complex negotiations ahead. On the one hand there is the most obvious, namely the PP with Vox, UPN and Coalición Canaria, a party that many count among the mainstream parties because it governs with them on the islands. But this sum remains at 171, far from the absolute value that Feijóo dreamed of and that many surveys in recent weeks have taken for granted, if not the 40 dB. for EL PAÍS and Cadena SER.
The other possible majority is that of the PSOE with Sumar, who prevailed with 31 seats – United Podemos had 35 – although they were still 20,000 votes short of third place, which in turn benefited Vox. To do this he would have to add, as he has done now, the voices of PNV, ERC, Bildu and BNG, which is feasible for an investiture but always complex. These groups have 172 seats, one more than the 171 of the PP block. But the crucial key would be the Junts, Carles Puigdemont’s party. In this formula, Sánchez would not need the approval of junts to become president, which is hard to imagine, but an abstention would suffice. However, it is an even more complex majority than the current one, with a long way to go before it is clear which of the two options could be enforced or whether the deadlock will lead to new elections. “We will not make Pedro Sánchez president for nothing,” said Miriam Nogueras, leader of the Junts list, on election night.
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The Independentists can be crucial but the result in Catalonia was disastrous for them. The ERC has lost six seats, Junts has lost one – with PDeCAT it had eight – and the CUP the two it had. The independentists left a total of nine seats in these elections, which went particularly well for the PSC. This result shows that Sánchez’s policies, which implied a different approach to the political conflict and included pardons and the creation of a dialogue table, were again rewarded by the Catalans – they were already rewarded in regional elections and later in municipal elections, both won by the Socialists – but penalized the other major party in this agreement, ERC. On the contrary, this policy seemed to have punished the Socialists in the local and regional elections in May in the rest of Spain, but this was not the case in the general elections, where there was an unexpected and very strong reactivation of the PSOE vote in the closing stages of the campaign.
Feijóo is very frustrated because he knows it’s quite possible he won’t be able to govern even though he only won with the minimum number of votes and has 14 more seats than the Socialists. The former Galician president, who represented four overwhelming absolute majorities in his country, did not leave the Xunta to remain the leader of the opposition to Sánchez. All of the veteran Galician politician’s plans called for governing as his main internal ally, Juanma Moreno, who won an absolute majority in Andalusia, stealing many votes from the PSOE or something very close. Moreno will now gain points in the PP, while Feijóo could suffer from defending a result nobody expected in this game.
The first leaders to be consulted this election night quietly showed their disappointment and spoke openly about the blockade, leaving them unavailable to govern on the table, which they took for granted just a few days ago. The final stretch of Feijóo’s campaign was particularly disastrous, especially after the error in the book in the TVE interview, where he gave false information and, far from correcting it, asked the journalist who pointed it out, Silvia Intxaurrondo, to apologize. Feijóo later decided not to take part in the debate as a foursome, which many saw as another mistake, and saw the controversy surrounding his friendship with drug dealer Marcial Dorado flare up again in the ’90s. Now the leader of the PP will try at all costs to get Sánchez to let him govern with his abstention, as he had already emphasized during the election campaign, but the chances of that are minimal, and even more so when the result is as close as this one.
In the meantime, as almost always in his entire political career, Sánchez has again achieved something that seemed impossible. The politician, whom many saw as evicted after the local elections, has waged a very patchy electoral campaign that got off to a strong start thanks to the PP and Vox governments clearly activating progressive voting and then collapsed into a face-to-face debate in which he had a very bad day at the worst moment. But Sánchez’s ability to keep getting back up after a crash showed itself again from last weekend when he regained his strong messages in rallies. Last week the Socialists and some polls, which by law were not allowed to be published but were still being conducted, showed that there was a clear recovery among left-wing voters, particularly the Socialists.
Yolanda Díaz, the leader of Sumar, also showed much greater resistance than expected and began to win back many votes in recent days, especially after the four-way debate where she shone the most. Díaz was euphoric and openly spoke of victory that election night. “A lot of people were worried. I think people will sleep more peacefully today. Democracy has won, it emerges stronger. “We won,” said an emotional leader in a broken voice. Díaz managed to rebuild the space to the left of the PSOE, ensuring its continuity and the possibility of even governing again in a coalition with the Socialists.
Meanwhile, Vox has achieved a discreet result despite managing to maintain third place and those seats could be useless, the worst nightmare for Santiago Abascal, who already saw himself as Spain’s vice-president after reaching an agreement with the PP in Castilla y León, the Valencian Community and Extremadura. The Spanish far-right remains an important force, but when it does not govern, political failure is important because as the PP recovers, so too does the ratio become increasingly imbalanced in favor of the main right-bloc party, which will make Vox increasingly irrelevant.
The electoral campaign, the PP pacts with Vox and a dizzy last week that mobilized the progressive vote much more than expected, have completely changed the expected scenario and stopped what almost everyone took for granted, namely the Feijóo government with Valencian Community-style Abascal. Sánchez is once again making up for his manual of resistance and the Spanish right is once again on the verge of a government that was within reach, as in Andalusia 2012, when Javier Arenas, like Feijóo, also decided not to take part in the debate and later admitted the mistake. All eyes will now be on the leader of the PP who had everything to rule and failed in the attempt. The Spanish political landscape is completely open and investiture is in the air. Spain voted for a tie between two blocks, but the figures show that one of the two, the one with the current majority, has a seat more. And that can be crucial for the government of the country. If not, there will be a redial.
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