In early November, when there was still a month left for the official start of the Extremadura campaign, Santiago Abascal began to multiply its presence in the autonomous community. In Cáceres he even went out into the streets megaphone in hand address … hundreds of people who were unable to access the event. The space had become too small. The leader of Vox exploited in Extremadura “the best example of corrupt government” by clearly alluding to David Sánchez, the president’s brother, and to the PSOE candidate himself, Miguel Angel Gallardoprosecuted in the same case. Since then, he has traveled every week, visiting different municipalities in the two provinces of Extremadura. And in December, he has already signed five days of rallies.
On the election poster, as usual at Vox, Abascal appears in the foreground. “Common sense” says the image. In second position is the regional candidate, Oscar Fernándezspokesperson for the Assembly of Extremadura and largely unknown to the general public. The leader of Vox always maintains very high visibility in electoral campaigns, regardless of the candidates. But this occasion is different.
The Extremadura elections will not only open the electoral cycle for the first time since June 2024, the date of the European elections. They will also be used to see if the survey trends over the last year and a half. The rise of Vox worries the PP and also begins to overwhelm the left. The popular suppose that Abascal’s party has caused a breach in their electorate which is difficult to recover. The youth vote is no longer even contested. But Vox is also beginning to appropriate the left, fundamentally among the most popular classes, disappointed by the revenues promised by the PSOE or Sumarwhich did not work during these years of coalition government. Vox’s economic discourse does them a lot of harm.
Abascal knows that during these elections, the evolution of his party will be scrutinized, while national polls rule out growth close to 18% of votes. Their ambition is to reach 20%. But Extremadura presents an additional difficulty for the right-wing party: it has five deputies and 8% of the votes. This is what they achieved in 2023 and the data is much lower than what they obtained in the general elections of the same year and what they have in other autonomies. In fact, it is predictable that Vox will practically double the number of MPs. A growth which, in absolute terms, will be indisputable, but which, in political terms, could be very insufficient. Above all if Guardiola crosses the 30 seat mark. This would imply that Vox’s strength alongside the PP will be very limited.
The fact that the first elections are taking place in Extremadura is not good news for Abascal’s party and it means – in addition to the candidate’s lack of knowledge – that he gets involved in the campaign as much as possible. The rival of Alberto Nuñez Feijóo He needs a good result which shows that the increase in the polls is serious and which consolidates his party as the great political force on the rise, like what is happening in other European countries and even in different latitudes in recent years. The total explosion of Vox has not yet taken place in Spain.
In the PP, they are no strangers to this reality. Criticism of Vox’s First Sword grew throughout the campaign. “He seems to be the candidate,” they say in Genoa, trying to downplay the fact that he has played in many more events than Feijóo.
Precisely, the President of the Council, María Guardiola, called Abascal a few days ago “sightseeing”assuming that once the elections are over, the leader of Vox will disappear from its autonomous community and will stop making visits. Certain moments of the campaign did not go unnoticed either, such as the image of Abascal riding a horse in the Cornalvo reservoir, about 20 kilometers from Mérida, dressed and tending herds in the pastures of Extremadura. In the PP they pretend not to worry about the image it conveys, to the point that in Genoa they make constant comparisons with the Andalusian campaign in which Macarena Olona was shipwrecked, precisely for having abused the aesthetics and clichés of Andalusia at many times.
It is true that during the Extremadura elections of December 21, more than 26,000 new voterswho also seem won over by the defense of the traditions defended by Vox. In Abascal’s party, every intervention and every act is measured.
The PP, for its part, aspires that this spectacular growth that numerous surveys predict does not reach Extremadura. According to some leaders, this would make the phenomenon “disappointing”, at least enough to send the message that the only hegemonic force on the right, the alternative, continues to be the PP.
Abascal’s other big problem is that he went too far in his pre-emptive threats against Guardiola, even without ruling out the possibility of a new election if The president “does not jump through obstacles” with their demands to make her president. That the leader of Vox came to propose a change of candidacy a few days ago seemed fatal to Genoa: “That’s what we needed to hear.” It also aroused indignation in several territories, where barons with great institutional power were convinced that with Vox “we can no longer give in”. The Valencian Community pact has hurt the PP internally due to the weakness shown to avoid, in any case, elections that could punish them for the management of the dana. This autonomous conspiracy now sends a strong message: “To the end. With Guardiola and everyone he touches. Let Vox be the one to show up if he doesn’t want the PP to govern.”
What will be confirmed, according to all the polls, is a striking sociological change in a traditionally left-wing region like Extremadura: the sum of the right will exceed 50% of support.
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