The most shocking data of the Extremadura elections was the 60.08% added by PP and Vox. For some reason it seems that the most left-wing community in Spain did not receive the anti-fascist alert from Pedro Sanchez and acolytes. On the contrary, the Extremadurians have begun a journey which is reminiscent of that of Andalusia and which would consist of concluding that voting to the left no longer “benefits” them, to use the new presidential slang.
The results indeed point to a profound change that goes far beyond a strong abstention or a setback due to a bad candidate. What Sánchez built his wall against has happened: a transfer of votes from the left to the right. And not in small quantities or in one direction. The PSOE gave votes to the PP, but everything indicates that it also began to send them towards Vox, which is yet another revenge of fate against the one who most promoted and desired the growth of the Abascal.
Let’s look at two specific cases. The first in Villanueva de la Serenaabsolute stronghold of the PSOE of Extremadura and city of the candidate Gallantwhere the Socialists lost 20 percentage points of the vote, which translates to 2,892 fewer votes. If we assume, even if it is too much to assume, that all the new abstention in the city comes from the PSOE (593 votes less than in 2023), that everything the PP wins comes from the PSOE (485) and that everything Podemos won also comes from the PSOE (375), half of the lost votes are still missing. Where did they go? Vox gained 1,562, the largest increase. Make your own deduction.
Second case: Capital of Badajoz. Here, the PSOE lost 10,112 votes, still a huge figure. Once again we see that the PP gained only 316 votes, while Podemos gained 3,262 and abstention increased by 3,541 people. The votes are lacking once again and, once again, the one who wins the most is Vox, which, with 5,444 more votes, has managed to become the second force in the most populous city of Extremadura.
That PP and Vox total 60% of the votes is something truly exceptional in Spain. The non-nationalist right only adds more than 50% in six autonomies -Murcia, Andalusia, Madrid, Castile and León, La Rioja and Extremadura itself- and has never been a majority in the entire country. The closest it came was in 2011, with Rajoy’s absolute majority and in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in our recent history.
With the current grouping of forces, in which the PSOE leads a bloc with extremists and separatists, the PP would only have governed from 2000 to 2004 and from 2011 to 2015, and the first would be questionable, because if CiU and the PNV had not supported the first Aznar and kept González’s PSOE in power, as they are doing now with Sánchez, this absolute majority d’Aznarate would surely never have existed. And yet, polls now show a solid political majority on the right. The latest national Sigma Dos survey, published at the beginning of this month, gives the sum of the PP and Vox 50% of the vote, compared to 51.3% for the UPN and Alvise’s party.
The hegemony of the left and the nationalists is a constant in democratic Spain. The board of directors leaned, always in his favor, always in service of his political and cultural framework. And what is under discussion is whether this is completed and whether the board is balanced.
There is no doubt that Sánchez is counting on her, because his reaction to the catastrophe in Extremadura was the same, in double doses. He named Elma Saiz as spokesperson to announce a new pension increase, a prelude to what will surely be a spending spree between now and the election. But for the middle class who bear the tax burden, the young people who suffer from the subsistence wage and the self-employed who suffer from the increase in contributions, Saiz is the minister of the generation gap, precariousness, arbitrary taxes and the entry of half a million immigrants per year without integration policies, which are also negotiated by them.
A government that disconnects from the majority of the country is a project with an expiration date. This is not only a political crisis due to corruption and poor governance, but also signs of loss of cultural dominance and social majority. A climate of satiety whose results we will see in 2026… or 2027.
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