Spain wakes up this Monday with an inconclusive result of legislative elections within reach and with a government waiting for agreements between parties to be formed, but parliamentary mathematics is not easy to guess.
The PP elected 136 deputies (47 more than it had) and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE, in power) won two more, now with 122. The polls pointed to a possible absolute majority of the PP with VOX, but the far-right lost 19 deputies and the 33 elected did not allow the right-wing bloc to reach 176 to take over the Government.
El Sumar (extreme left), whose parties are part of the government coalition led by the PSOE, had 31 deputies in the new parliament. Thus, and to avoid new elections, the pro-independence parties of Catalonia and the Basque Country are included in the accounts, as he explained in the TSF Marcos Farias Ferreira, International Relations researcher at the Institute of Social and Political Sciences.
The attempts of the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to form an executive “will fail quickly” due to the lack of “a path towards governability”, predicts the expert.
For his part, the leader of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, “will do everything possible to achieve abstention and achieve, in a second round, that simple majority.” But that also includes what it might be able to “offer the most critical parties, which are calling for an independence referendum in Catalonia, for example.”
Sánchez “cannot offer them a referendum”, but he will have to find a way to “achieve abstention” in a second election scenario, especially since it will be “very difficult” to obtain the 176 deputies necessary for a majority in the first.
“The second, where only a simple majority is needed, still needs the abstention of the majority of these forces.
Faced with a “great” governance challenge in Spain, “a very possible scenario is the holding of new elections.”
The Spanish newspaper El País publishes this Monday a “alliance calculator” in parliament, an indication of the many negotiations that may be necessary to form the next Government of Spain.
In addition to the 136 deputies from the PP, the 122 from the PSOE, the 33 from VOX and the 31 from Sumar, they also elected ERC (seven), JUNTS (seven), EH BILDU (six), EAJ-PNV (5), BNG (one), CCA (one) and UPN (one).
For Francisco Seixas da Costa, these results are “a defeat” for Sánchez, “that is very clear”, because the “attempt to bring forward the legislative elections to avoid wear and tear until December ended up failing”.
Speaking to TSFThe diplomat also points out that the result achieved by Sumar, which appears “with a certain weight”, means that there will be “a crisis within the left” and that, “most likely, the leadership of Pedro Sánchez himself will be in question”.
Ana Isabel Xavier, a researcher at the ISCTE Institute of International Relations, sees the loss of VOX mandates as a sign that “many of those who wanted to vote against Sánchez and wanted to create a protest vote did so in the PP and not in VOX”.
Thus, Abascal’s party is assumed “as a party that has a very fixed electorate, which is seen a lot in what VOX represents”, but “it can lose what was considered for a long time, [que é] a movement, a protest party”.
Spanish newspapers reflect uncertainty
The Spanish press reflects the political uncertainty derived from the advance of the legislative elections on Sunday, with the left preventing the absolute majority of the right, despite the victory of the conservative Popular Party (PP).
“The PP wins but the resistance of the PSOE and Somar frustrates the majority with VOX and leaves the Government up in the air”, highlights the newspaper El País on its website, just below the electoral results.
“Feijóo does not live up to expectations, but he claims the right to govern” is another of the highlights of the election night in El País, which also reports that the leader of VOX Santiago “Abascal blames Feijóo for the ‘failure of the alternative’ in the demobilization of the right”.
On the left, the same newspaper says that “the PSOE rises from the ashes of 28-M to improve the result of 2019”, in reference to the socialist defeat in the municipal elections in May, and “Somar clings to a possible restoration of the coalition government”.
The newspaper El Mundo headlines “Feijóo wins the elections but Puigdemont could make Pedro Sánchez president”, referring to the Catalan leader dismissed by the Spanish Government in 2017 for having tried to proclaim a republican system in Catalonia.
“The victory was bitter for the PP and the defeat was sweet for the PSOE,” says the same newspaper.
“Sánchez will be able to return to government through a new alliance of the defeated and with the acquiescence -in the form of abstention- of the Junts, the party of the fugitive Carles Puigdemont”, he adds.
In the editorial, El Mundo speaks of an “uncertain scenario with the country in the hands of Puigdemont and Bildu”, recalling that a party that lost the elections has never governed in Spain.
ABC also highlights that “Feijóo wins, but Sánchez can govern if he has the support of Puigdemont.”
In the editorial with the title “Spain in its greatest uncertainty”, the ABC affirms that “contrary to almost all forecasts, the electoral result frustrates the expectations of the conservative bloc and marks an unlikely alternative to the Government of Pedro Sánchez”.
“Feijóo wins but does not reach Moncloa and Sánchez would need Junts to be reversed” is the title that La Vanguardia collects.
The Barcelona newspaper also assures that the leader of the PP will try to form a government and that Sánchez “is resisting the tsunami of the right.”
The Catalan La República highlights that “Independence is once again crucial: Junts and ERC have the key to elect Sánchez president.”
The newspaper El Diario Vasco headlines “Feijóo wins, Sánchez resists and both have the opportunity to govern”, and adds that “the specter of impasse and new elections looms over the new parliament”.
La Voz de Galicia points out that “the PP wins the elections, but the PSOE resists and Junts sets the conditions for the investiture of Sánchez”.
Source: TSF
