At the headquarters on Bambú Street, they hesitated to give credibility to the upward curve that the polls had been predicting for several months. This is why Santiago Abascal He devoted himself to the campaign of Extremadura, because it was the the ordeal by fire to assess whether the trend was just an abstract result or whether it had a real translation. There were some last-minute nerves, and the Vox leader erred on the side of caution and preferred to follow election night in the background, from Madrid and without calling the press. But the final verdict of the polls is an encouragement for the party and, above all, for the strategy designed in the engine room of Vox after its departure from regional governments, which opened a new era among those of Abascal. He 16.9% of the votes which yesterday brought together the hardest right-wing party in Extremadura and the 11 places who will occupy the Assembly will only have one but: Maria Guardiola is now, on paper, less dependent on Vox. But those of Abascal have the future of the community in their hands and they will benefit from it.
The most right-wing party was yesterday the one that made the most progress in the Extremadura polls: if in 2019 it was excluded from the Assembly with 4.7% of the votes and in 2023, with 8.1%, it came out with five parliamentarians, this December 21 it more than doubled its result, both in percentage of votes and in seats. The 16.9% of votes collected yesterday by Vox represents its third best historical result in a regional election, surpassed only by the 17.6% obtained in the Castilian-Leonese elections of 2022 and by the 17.7% obtained in Murcia in 2023.
Numerically, therefore, at the headquarters on Bambú Street, the results were described as “excellent”. The Extremadura elections were the first test after their departure from the autonomous governments that they shared with the PP, a decision that marked a change in their strategy – betting on the exercise of their influence outside the executives and avoiding attrition – and which was supported yesterday by citizens. Now the equation in which the polls leave the two right-wing parties in Extremadura allows Vox to maintain this approach, with the sole exception that if Guardiola previously needed the Yeah of those of Abascal for any initiative that he would like to approve – including the investiture and the budgets -, today abstention is enough. Vox loses negotiating strength, even if it has more seats.
But Abascal announced that this would not change his position: “We will demand respect from Vox voters. Vox votes must count”, he warned from Madrid after midnight, and assured his voters that “they will not be made invisible”. “We are going to defend each vote tooth and nail, as we have already said. And we are going to defend tomorrow exactly the same thing that we defended yesterday,” his candidate also declared. Oscar Fernándezthus excluding an abstention from his party in exchange for nothing.
Thus, Abascal’s party does not seem to have borne the brunt of the controversy that surrounded it throughout the campaign: its break with Revoltthe youth brand to which he was linked and on which suspicions of accounting irregularities now rest. And, on the other hand, the main role assumed by the party leader in the Extremadura campaign catapulted him throughout the autonomous geography, anchoring his national rise in a community that, a priori, was not one of the most favorable to Vox.
In the most populous city of Extremadura, Badajoz, the residents of Abascal gathered yesterday 20.8% votes, thus becoming the second force, ahead of the PSOE. In the following municipalities, the most populated, Vox occupies third position, but with a better result than in 2023: in Cáceres, with the 14.8%; in Mérida, with the 17.9%; and in Plasencia, with the 17.2%. And, in the most rural areas, the path taken by Abascal during the campaign also bore fruit: his party emerged victorious in five municipalities of the province of Cáceres, and in another, Talayuela, tied for first place with the popular.
By constituency, Vox exceeded the 17% mark in Badajoz, with the 17.2% and get six parliamentarians -in 2023, there were three-. In Cáceres, he gathered the 16.4% supports and added others five seats -there were two under the previous legislature. More than 89,000 Extremadurans voted yesterday for Vox, almost 40,000 more than in previous elections. The PP, on the other hand, despite growth in seats and percentage of votes, received fewer votes yesterday than in 2023 – participation was lower – a fact that Abascal wanted to highlight. The verdict of the polls prevents Vox from demanding a new entry into government – this was not its priority – but it maintains the PP’s dependence on it. Abascal, reinforced, thus has the freedom to play your cards in his favor in Extremadura, and he will do so with an eye on the next elections.
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