The people of Extremadura voted according to their interests and not according to the action of the Spanish government. The PSOE leadership will strive today, tomorrow and until President Pedro Sánchez calls general elections, to put an end to the electoral debacle in Extremadura, where the abstention of previous socialist voters has been overwhelming. There was no incentive to vote for candidate Miguel Ángel Gallardo or his party, the PSOE. Both the election poster and the brand suffered a resounding blow, without palliatives. Everything except recognizing in public that the Extremadurians were capable of judging the government of the nation.
Nothing that the socialists did not expect, in an election in which their greatest aspiration was that the main opponent, the PP, had a bad result, since their own expectations have always been disastrous. With this result, the PSOE leaves its bases in all federations with depressed morale due to the prospect that its party will not succeed in the next regional elections which will take place between February and June. Since the beginning of democracy, Extremadura has been a symbol for the PSOE with overwhelming results; Losing thirteen points in just two years, while in 2023 it gained in votes while tied in seats with the PP, damages the emotional structure of the century-old party.
The prime minister’s team’s attempt to limit the outcome will have limited effect, no matter how much the burden of defeat falls on the candidate. Miguel Ángel Gallardo, in fact, led a campaign in which his weakness came from his accusation of having allegedly favored the musician David Sánchez, brother of the president of the government, with a position of president of the Provincial Deputation of Badajoz. Gallardo was very popular until this case opened. For 21 years he was mayor of Villanueva de la Serena; In this city where it obtained an absolute majority, the PSOE remained the third force. All his questionable actions, such as ensuring his capacity at all costs, for which he forced the resignation of four members of the list who would have been autonomous deputies before him, are linked to his legal problem directly linked to the president of the government.
Whatever the outcome of the trial, which, according to him, “will achieve nothing because there is nothing”, it will always result in paradoxical data and facts. Miguel Ángel Gallardo never supported Pedro Sánchez, but in the 2017 primaries his bet was on Susana Díaz. Much more recently, in 2024, he competed for the General Secretariat of the PSOE of Extremadura with Lara Garito, Ferraz’s candidate, as was repeated without the slightest concealment. By saying “Ferraz”, it was indicated that he was the one supported by the former secretary of the Organization Santos Cerdán, today accused of having allegedly collected illegal commissions. The candidate of the apparatus at the head of Extremadura was Garito and not Gallardo, but the activists gave him victory, to the great displeasure of the federal executive.
In the national discourse of the PSOE, as well as in that of Gallardo, the line of attack of the PP of Extremadura, supported by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, for having called
these elections, two years before the end of the legislature, not to obtain greater stability, but to make Vox extraordinarily big. The PP does not have an absolute majority, which is why the victory has a bitter aftertaste, but it received no less than 43% of the votes.
The argument that the far right continues its rise will be maintained within the PSOE to encourage progressive citizens not to allow it. In Extremadura, this warning did not have the slightest effect. Participation was also very low and, pending a post-election analysis, the socialists themselves consider that it was their voters who mainly swelled the pool of abstainers.
During these first hours, the PSOE showed no signs of reconsidering its strategies. It remains that María Guardiola did not obtain an absolute majority and that the Assembly of Extremadura will be configured with more uncertainty than the PP has already suffered due to the continued impulses of Vox.
In the final days of the campaign, we got a glimpse of the attitude that Miguel Ángel Gallardo would adopt on election night. There is no question of resigning but rather of convening the party authorities, which will take place this Monday morning, to carry out “calm” reflection. This is the start of a probable departure of the candidate, but without haste, recognize the interlocutors of the PSOE of Extremadura.
The internal trauma of this result will collide with the internal trauma of the federal leaders who did not lose Extremadura because they did not have it; nor do they govern in the autonomy in which they will be examined in the coming months: Aragon, Castilla y León and Andalusia. It is assumed that there is no power recovery; and even less, lose votes without restraint.
All election results in Extremadura
About The Author
