Last Sunday’s elections have meant a bitter victory for the PP in the most complex elections of the last decades, as it has won but far below the expectations of the polls – a real media bubble with the aim of making the prophecy self-fulfilling – gave it. Instead, the conservative and progressive blocs have almost tied in votes and seats, and only Catalonia has been clearly different in the way of voting and interpreting Spanish politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is indisputable that if the PP-Vox bloc has grown, obtaining 11.2 million votes compared to 10.3 million in 2019, but it has been held back in Catalonia, the Basque Country, Navarre, the Galician coast, part of the province of Valencia, Extremadura and inland Andalusia. Thus, if we look at the percentage of votes and not at seats, the PP has only gained 1.5 points on the PSOE. If we analyse by blocs, PP and Vox add up to 45.5% ahead of the left formed by PSOE and Sumar, with 44% (a very similar percentage to that recorded in the two elections of 2019 and those of 2015). In addition, if we take into account the nationalist parties (Bildu, ERC, BNG), the left continues to win more votes than the right. On the other hand, there is also a significant upturn in the bipartisanship, as in this election PP and PSOE have 258 MPs and 64.75% of the votes, compared to 209 seats and 40.82% in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Catalonia, PSC and Sumar have increased their lead over the right by 12 points since the last elections and this growth has served to compensate for a good part of the losses in the rest of the regions. On the other hand, Esquerra Republicana, Junts and the CUP have lost 700,000 votes and the first two have each fallen below half a million votes for the first time. The pro-independence movement has lost nine seats in Congress, from 23 to 14, and from 4 parliamentary groups to just two following the disappearance of the CUP and PDECat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A key factor that has also had a significant impact must also be taken into account: voter turnout. In Catalonia, 65.42% of the electorate voted, four points less than in the last general elections, but 10 points more than in the last municipal elections. In other words, the increase in mobilisation, even though the elections were held in the middle of the summer, has significantly harmed the pro-independence movement and favoured a useful vote for the PSC. Thus, the results of the PSC and Sumar – they obtained 26 deputies out of a total of 48 – are reminiscent of the triumph of the Catalan left in the first democratic elections of 15 June 1977.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Catalonia thus represents the counterpoint in the two Spains described by Machado, along with the Basque Country, where the Socialists have achieved very good results, revealing that S\u00e1nchez has had allies capable of conveying a message of moderation that he has not been able to circulate so effectively in the rest of Spain. These elections have also shown that Spain cannot be governed without its ‘peripheries’ and even less so against them. The conservative opposition, and a good part of the Spanish intellectual establishment, should draw the right lessons. S\u00e1nchez’s political action, with its successes and mistakes, reduced political and institutional tension in Catalonia and has ended up lowering the political weight in Congress of his pro-independence allies, even if he still needs them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beyond the factual analysis, the difficulties in forming a government are obvious. For Pedro S\u00e1nchez to stay, the Basque and Catalan nationalists will need to align with the PSOE and Sumar coalition. For a slowly receding PNV, this would mean siding with Bildu, the party that is disputing its hegemony, while the large loss of votes in two consecutive elections seems to push ERC and Junts to work to put aside their differences and agree on a common position. On the other side, the possibility of Alberto N\u00fa\u00f1ez Feij\u00f3o becoming Primer Minister is, to say the least, remote, as he needs to make a pact with the far right of Vox, which prevents him from weaving any additional alliance that would give him the necessary majority, as evidenced by the PNV’s refusal to start talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a complex scenario where the investiture will depend on the deputies of Junts, as long as ERC and Bildu vote in favour, the referendum on self-determination can be a decisive element and the question is whether Pedro S\u00e1nchez can agree to this request. Probably not, because, although it would be a democratic instrument to solve the conflict with Catalonia, the level of political wear and tear for the socialists would be very high and the tension that it would generate between state powers and even within the PSOE would be very intense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Therefore, the question is what alternatives to the binding<\/em> referendum is Pedro S\u00e1nchez willing to negotiate? One alternative could be the article 92 of the Constitution, which establishes that political decisions of special importance may be submitted to a consultative <\/em>referendum, but states that all citizens must be consulted and not just a part of them. We would be in a similar situation to that of the initiative similar to the Catalan Parliament’s bill defended in the Congress by Jordi Turull, Marta Rovira and Joan Herrera in 2014. The truth is that the basic problem of the last legislature has not only been the issue of the referendum or the prisoners, but that the Spanish government has not been able to tackle two basic consensuses for the Catalans: the transfer of suburban railway and a financing system that corrects the fiscal deficit between tax collection in Catalonia and its low level of return on investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, in the European context, after a series of elections that have seen the radical right’s agenda on issues such as irregular immigration, LGBTQ+ rights and climate denialism incorporated into the discourse of traditional conservatism, the impossibility of forming a PP-Vox government represents a blow to the strategy of EPP leader Manfred Weber and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to unite conservative and populist forces to obtain a clear majority in the European Parliament elections in spring 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, a strong conservative wave has swept across the continent since the outbreak of war in Ukraine. With the sole exception of Denmark and Malta, no social democratic or labour party has managed to win a general election since February 2022. The trend is the opposite: the rise of more or less traditional conservative forces, allied for the first time with the far right. This has led to pacts of parliamentary support (Sweden), coalition governments between several right-wing parties (Italy and Finland), overwhelming majorities of the extreme right (Hungary), and clear victories of the traditional right (Greece). Spain looked set to be the next victim, but the message from voters has been clear: the reactionary wave can be defeated by proposing an alternative progressive horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the medium term, however, the close election result also means that the political direction of a country that has become an important player in EU politics is uncertain. Due to the weakening of the Franco-German axis as Europe’s driving force, Spain has taken on an important role, together with the Netherlands, in the reform of the Stability Pact. Moreover, it has an important geopolitical role to play at a time when Europe is trying to become more involved in this area and Latin America is of growing importance for the EU. Spain is also an important actor in North Africa, especially in Morocco and Algeria, another EU focal point. Hence, Europe has welcomed the Spanish election results with relief. Pedro S\u00e1nchez is likely to remain, at least until December, as acting Prime Minister, avoiding a potentially disruptive change of government in the midst of the Spanish presidency of the European Council that would prevent the concentration of energy and time on implementing the many pending dossiers and legislative changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Photography: collage by Maria Oliva from Creative Commons images.<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00c0lex Berengueras and Sara Garc\u00eda, trainee students at the CETC, have participated in this issue of Diari de les idees<\/em>.<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last Sunday’s elections have meant a bitter victory for the PP in the most complex elections of the last decades, as it has won but far below the expectations of the polls – a real media bubble with the aim of making the prophecy self-fulfilling – gave it. Instead, the conservative and progressive blocs have almost tied in votes and seats, and only Catalonia has been clearly different in the way of voting and interpreting Spanish politics. It is indisputable that if the PP-Vox bloc has grown, obtaining 11.2 million votes compared to 10.3 million in 2019, but it has\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":63877,"template":"","category_newspaper":[563],"segment":[],"subject":[],"class_list":["post-63889","newspaper","type-newspaper","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category_newspaper-563"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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