Extremadura is not Spain, but its elections allow us to draw clear conclusions for the electoral cycle that is beginning. Basically, the PSOE is collapsing and the PP is incapable of stopping the advance of Vox and freeing itself from its dependence, even if both can build a large majority.
Also, no matter how much the PSOE insists on exploiting fear of the far rightvoters have shown that this argument no longer works and no longer mobilizes potential left-wing voters.
After Sunday’s elections, the right and the far right won a number of seats in Extremadura that were unthinkable until recently, because the PSOE is at its historic minimum in this community. 60% of the votes went to the right and the far right compared to 47% in 2023.
The regional elections in Extremadura are the first stage of the electoral gymkhana that the PP wanted to organize until the general elections, when they will take place.
The party of Alberto Nuñez Feijóo begins with a large and historic victory in a traditional stronghold of the PSOE, but today he cannot find the formula to free himself from Vox. This does not resolve the question of whether he will be able to govern alone. And his candidate, María Guardiola, hardly improves his situation and finds himself at the expense of the fact that Santiago Abascal did not carry out his threat and did not ask for his head to allow the inauguration with his abstention.
The candidate in these elections was not Pedro Sanchezbut the president of the government and socialist leader launched into the campaign like few other times, with a candidate who was not his at the start, but who ended up being his when he was taken to court with his brother.
Sources from Moncloa repeated after the close of the poll that “these are not general elections”, that “each election has a different logic” and that we must go “match by match“, but the procession takes place inside and the President of the Government cannot absolve himself of responsibility for the result.
Miguel Angel Gallardowho holds the record for the worst socialist candidate in history in Extremadura, is the personification of the scandals that have surrounded Sánchez over the past two years.
And what was expected happened: the PSOE collapsed with enormous attrition and clearly showed that there is a very large majority on the right and on the extreme right. This time in Extremadura, but as expected throughout Spain, according to all surveys.
The electoral gymkhana will continue in February Aragonin March at Castile and León and in June at Andalusiaand with identical black expectations for the PSOE.
Feijóo’s party begins with a large victory over the PSOE, but without reaching an absolute majority and with the need to reach an agreement to obtain the abstention of Vox. And this is where the Achilles heel of the PP lies because it gives ammunition to the socialists.
The PSOE, which was previously a party that always opted for victory in elections and which was capable of protecting its strongholds from the right, can now only rejoice at the fact that the PP does not reach an absolute majority, that it depends on another party and that it must give in to the far right.
Because the PP failed to completely ruin the discourse with which Sánchez intended to advance in the electoral cycle.
The speech will continue
The president of the government intended to mobilize his people for fear of the extreme right, with the pernicious pacts of the PP with Vox, denier of gender violence and climate change. It will continue to do so, but the truth is that it works less and less, as has been demonstrated now.
He intended to sow concern within the PP among those who might begin to think that with Feijóo it will be impossible for them to reach Moncloa. He wanted to force the implosion of the leaders of the PP who feared not being able to capitalize on the terrible situation of the Government and the PSOE.
All these messages barely continue to serve Sánchez as consolation for the future disaster of his party.
Paradoxically, he can only console himself with the rise in power of Vox and, already on the evening of the elections, the head of the Organization, Rébéca Torroinsisted on the message that identifies the PP with Vox and accuses the people of Feijóo of having inflated the extreme right.
Guardiola managed to improve slightly with his risky decision to pre-empt the elections, based on a convincing argument to call them: the lack of budgets.
With this, he exposes other presidents of the PP such as those of Murcia or the Balearic Islands, who remain without having approved the accounts, but above all the president of the government, who wants to maintain the legislative even if he fails to carry out the state accounts.
Before, he depended on the Vox vote and now he depends less on it, because his abstention helps him for the nomination. It won’t be easy for him, but if he succeeds, he will have to make a deal with the party of Santiago Abascal to achieve their future budgets. That is to say, he is almost back to the starting point of the frustrated pact on accounts with Vox. And what’s more, he will have to wait until Vox does not ask for his head as a condition for allowing the nomination.
Fear of the PSOE in other LACCs
Another extrapolated effect of these elections in Extremadura is to sow panic among other regional leaders or intermediate positions of the PSOE in different federations due to the possibility that what already happened in the municipal and regional elections of 2023 could be repeated, when all of them paid personally for the usury of the Sánchez government.
This is reflected on Gallardo’s face and panic will grow if similar results are repeated in Aragon, Castile and León and Andalusia. The ordeal can be tough and shake the waters of the federations.
The argument of Moncloa and the PSOE is to insist on the fact that ““PP makes Vox grow”in the sense that there is hope because there was a high abstention and, therefore, there are recoverable voters and in the sense that in reality, they were competing with a terrible candidate, whereas in the other communities, the heads of the list are much better.
Of course, the message of Moncloa is to maintain the Parliament against all odds, as if nothing had happened, with the same roadmap: progressive measures if they do not require submitting them to the vote of Congress and an attempt to recover Junts and ERC to achieve the budgets from February.
Another derivative is the recovery of Podemosa party that has supported the thesis of withdrawing its support for Sánchez and which does not seem to have harmful consequences. Sumar is not present and therefore loses by default.
Sánchez today appoints a replacement to the Office of the Government Spokesperson to replace Pilar Alegria and Tuesday, the last Council of Ministers is held until the second week of the campaign. What we have always called “some”restorative vacation”.
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