The clear victory of the Popular Party in Sunday’s snap elections in Extremadura confirms that one of the historic bastions of the Spanish government has begun a cycle of majority votes. But this cycle will not be dominated only by traditional law. Alongside the victory of the PP (29 votes in the Assembly, only one more than two years ago), Extremadura experienced an explosion of ultra-derecha voting. Vox, which left the Assembly in 2019 and had five representatives in 2023, recorded a spectacular increase with 11 seats. Santiago Abascal’s party is the real winner of the PP vote. An ultra-derecha success in Spain. Both indisputable and worrying.
María Guardiola had summoned the extremes to the polls to ask them for a larger majority that would allow her not to depend on the ultras to govern, a situation that worsened when she rejected her anti-Vox statements in June 2023 and reached its maximum tension with the lack of agreement on their hypotheses. He didn’t succeed. Since today, extreme politics has returned to the old house, but in a worse situation: Vox then doubled its representation and feels supported by a meteoric rise in record time. The PP collects more votes than the community as a whole, and Guardiola can be inaugurated president with the abstention of Vox, but he will need it to govern. The PP now finds itself caught in the same perverse dynamic that is largely the reason Feijóo did not make it to La Moncloa: it depends on the ultrarecha to form the government and assumes its own extremist positions that the moderate majority of the Spanish people reject.
The PSOE, which governed Extremadura for 36 years, collapsed this Sunday. It’s unclear how he can quickly reverse a debacle that has seen him lose more than 100,000 votes and 10 votes in recent years. The Socialists governed with an absolute majority in 2019 and 2023 and were the party with the most votes. After the withdrawal of Guillermo Fernández Vara, after his death, the rise of Miguel Ángel Gallardo turned out to be a mistake. Unable to deceive the electorate, he soiled the acronyms and was taken to court for allegedly accusing David Sánchez, brother of the president of the government. And after an unworthy maneuver to seek the aforamiento. In the resounding rejection of his candidacy, the national political climate and the earthquake that Ferraz is experiencing could have been influenced, but the reality is that the socialists appear at these meetings without a proposal and without a candidate. The irony is that – in the midst of the umpteenth territorial disaster of the PSOE – the national discourse of Pedro Sánchez is partly justified with the result of Vox. It remains to be seen how much time remains for autonomous and municipal prices.
However, it would be time to consider the extremes and think that they were voted to lift sanchismo or, on the contrary, to stop the global ultra-derecha. This Sunday, they were able to find solutions to the specific problems of Extremadura, from the unacceptable lack of railway infrastructure to unemployment, including the tension between agriculture, ecological transition and industrialization. And, hypothetically, depopulation and aging, which require excess effort in the Welfare State to not feel like a second-class citizen for living in a pueblo. The next government of María Guardiola has its roots here in Madrid.
In general, it is foolhardy, in Extremadura and elsewhere, to look for clues about Spain’s future in fancy autonomous elections. However, the fragile situation of the Sánchez government’s network is inevitable and these results will be considered as a temperature test for the voting intentions of Spanish voters in the current elections. These were the first elections in a year and a half. There will be new renewals of the PP executives in Aragon, Castile-León and Andalusia.
With its drastic turn to the right after decades of money to the left, Extremadura highlighted this Sunday the height of Vox and the possibility that the so-called moderates assume the ultra ideal of Santiago Abascal’s party, often contrary to democratic values. María Guardiola won the elections clearly. Suya and the PP have the responsibility to form the government without betraying these values.
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