Extremadura is the start of a new attempt by the PP to finish off Sánchez with bites. Questionable strategy that has already failed once; During the last legislature, the Popular Party inflicted four blows in a row only to end up failing at the decisive moment. The success of … today, in any case, he is not in danger. The only unknown is not even the scale of Guardiola’s victory but rather the defeat of Sanchismo in the territory which until recently constituted one of his strongest political areas.
If the polls are correct, the prediction of which is theoretically easier in a small region, the turnover of the right will easily exceed fifty percent of the votes, or even approach sixty. Such a result would mean – or rather it should be said – a monumental disaster for the party which has governed the community of Extremadura with a comfortable majority for 36 years and which managed to be the first force in 2023. The socialists fear that these elections are the first sign of a significant change in trend, of a reversal on a national scale, the prelude to a complete fall.
The government clings, as a sad preventive consolation, to the hope that the rise of Vox will bring the current regional president back to square one, that is, to the dependence on Abascal’s party to articulate a majority. This hypothesis, the most probable in terms of objective reality, is its highest aspiration, which would allow it to camouflage its own perceived failure by launching its powerful propaganda machine to denounce the electoral advance as a failed maneuver and spread fear of an involution of the extreme right.
The PP, as usual, was overtaken in the last part of the campaign. He first sold the credible possibility of an absolute majority, knowing that it was a fairly distant goal, and then he made mistakes – like absenting himself from the televised debate – that could harm his candidate. If you know you are going to win, you cannot offer the slightest loophole to distrust, much less give an “Espantá” like the one that cost Feijóo the last votes he needed. Especially if the rivals are lightweights without half a slap.
It will still be enough for Guardiola to obtain more votes than the left to ensure an investiture on his own. But from now on each measure and each budget will become a test of his leadership… and of his leader’s commitment to under no circumstances govern with Vox. Sánchez won’t worry about the setback; He ignores it and is convinced that Gallardo’s arrest will serve to postpone the imminent trial of his brother who is related to him. The greatest risk is always the winner, the one who must demonstrate to citizens that the hasty call to the polls serves a purpose.
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