Spain on Friday ends an election campaign that analysts say had a “decisive moment” in a televised debate that ultimately saw the two largest parties call for a helpful vote against the far right.
This was the second election campaign in two months in Spain, where early parliamentary elections will be held on Sunday following regional and municipal elections on May 28.
For Carlos Barrera, professor of political communication at the University of Navarra, the “certain saturation” of Spaniards “with campaigns and political messages” – also because these elections take place in the middle of summer and during the holiday season – is accompanied by an idea that the Sunday’s legislature is “a sort of second round” of May’s municipal and regional elections, which the right wing won.
In this context, the campaign that ends this Friday had a “general tone of polarization, of extremes”, in a confrontation between the left and the right, like the one in May, with the major parties repeating the same strategies, defends Carlos Barrera.
For this academic, the People’s Party (PP, right), the favorite in the polls and the big winner on May 28, was running a “very conservative campaign, in the sense of trying to hold onto territory already conquered”.
The PP has been pushing for the past two weeks on the message, which it had already used and elaborated in the previous elections, to “revoke Sanchismo”, which the people believe is the policy and way of governing of the current Prime Minister, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, with concessions to the radical left and separatists, who have divided and torn Spaniards for the past four years.
On the other hand, the Socialist Party (PSOE) sought to generate a spirit of recovery and reversal from the May 28 result and from the polls, with its message centered on the threat of the far right entering the government.
But, as Professor Carlos Barrera says, he maintained the “strong personalist component” of the campaign, strongly focused on the figure of the prime minister, which can have advantages in mobilizing some voters, “but has disadvantages because there are large sectors of the Spanish population that Pedro Sánchez is quite fed up with, the policies he pursued, the partners with whom he ruled”.
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, remained on safe ground in the campaign, betting on rallies and giving several interviews, but only agreed to take part in a debate with other candidates, a “face-to-face with Pedro Sánchez from whom he left as the winner by all analyses.
Sánchez left for the campaign “more proactive, more inclusively aggressive, with more TV appearances and interviews and much more available for debate,” in the analysis of political scientist Astrid Barrio, professor of political science at the University of Valencia.
These were the strategies of the two candidates who wanted to become heads of government, and for Carlos Barrera and Astrid Barrio, both were surprised by the only televised debate between Sánchez and Feijóo, albeit with different results for socialists and popular ones.
Carlos Barrera says that in the case of Feijóo, who was president of Galicia’s regional government for four terms, “a new image was created” among the majority of Spaniards who “strengthened the morale” of the PP, with the polls of the following days the debate to indicate the consolidation of the party’s advantage.
Feijóo conveyed a “more presidential image” than the president of the government in the debate, with Sánchez showing that he was “quite nervous” and even “ill-prepared”, unable to refute the PP leader’s statements with data , apparently underestimating the opponent’s abilities, according to Astrid Barrio.
In the hours and days following the debate, Feijóo was confronted with errors and incorrect data he presented, with socialists accusing him of lying, which however does not appear to have harmed him, at least not materially.
“Convincing his (supporters) of the presidential image he gave in the debate outweighs the confusion with the dates that happened a few days later,” explains political scientist Astrid Barrio.
The polls have always given the PP the advantage in this election, as they have done for the past year since Feijóo took the lead of the party.
Before the debate between Sánchez and Feijóo, however, studies pointed to a socialist recovery, which stalled after the face-to-face meeting.
“The two-way debate was quite decisive because there was a strategy designed on the part of the PSOE based on the idea of giving Pedro Sánchez a very aggressive and very confident image that, in my opinion, was very contradicted,” says Astrid Barrio.
Also for Carlos Barrera, “this campaign will be remembered above all for the incidence that has not happened for a long time” of a debate between two candidates, which this analyst says he only remembers took place, in the same dimension, in 1993, with two front- the head-to-head between José María Aznar (PP) and Felipe González (PSOE).
“I think it was the great milestone of the campaign,” confirms the professor from the University of Navarra, who also speaks of a “Sánchez fiasco” in the debate.
The PP ended the campaign asking for a “useful voice” in the party, to rule alone and not have to ally “with the extremes”, which are synonymous with “blockades”, in a reference to the far-right party VOX and in a context where the polls give victory, but without an absolute majority, to the people.
The PSOE has also pushed for a “helpful voice” for the socialists against the far right, in a call heavily targeting a left-wing voter who did not go to vote on May 28, according to electoral studies.
“I have serious doubts that this can work as it has in the past. There is a growing impression that a significant proportion of voters are not afraid of VOX. July preferred to vote over anything else,” said Astrid Barrio, who draws attention to an unprecedented fact in Sunday’s elections: “They take place in the middle of the heat wave”.
For Carlos Barrera after this campaign, the only doubt regarding Sunday’s result is “the magnitude of the PP’s victory”, whether it will get enough deputies to rule alone and “not be so bound by possible negotiations”. with the VOX”.
Astrid Barrio, on the other hand, says the most recent polls indicate “not much has changed” during the campaign, the PP remains “quite ahead” but has not guaranteed an absolute majority and about 30% are undecided . , so expectations about the possibility of a new governing coalition between the PSOE and the far left remain.
Source: DN
