This Sunday, Spain has municipal elections throughout the country and regional elections in 12 autonomous communities, and the polls predict several fierce battles between the left of the PSOE, in power, and the right of the PP, in opposition.
These elections are the first electoral round this year in Spain, which also has national legislative elections scheduled for December, at the end of a legislature marked by the first government coalition in the country, between the Socialist Party (PSOE) and overseas. left platform United We Can.
The 35,539,083 voters who are called to vote this Sunday will elect 12 regional parliaments and more than 8,100 municipal assemblies.
In the 12 autonomous communities where there are elections, the PSOE leads the regional governments of nine (Aragon, Asturias, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Castilla La Mancha, the Valencian Community, Extremadura, Navarra and Rioja); the Popular Party (PP) of two (Madrid and Murcia) and the Cantabrian Regionalist Party of one (Cantabria).
The campaign of the PSOE and the PP, the two largest political forces in Spain, focused on the Valencian Community, the fourth most populous Spanish region and currently the main autonomy led by the Socialists, with a coalition of left-wing and far-left parties. parties and regional in scope.
According to the surveys published by the newspapers El País and El Mundo at the beginning of last week, the last ones allowed to be published by the Spanish electoral law, the PP will be the party with the most votes in the Valencian Community, but with the possibility of being reissued by the current left-wing government, albeit “to the limit”, in an election that will be decided “by a handful of votes”.
Opinion polls also suggested close races in Aragon and the Balearic Islands, with the possibility of the Socialists losing these regions.
In Madrid, the polls agreed on a new victory for the PP, both in the city and in the region, in the latter case, with the possibility of an absolute majority.
In major cities beyond Madrid, the same polls predict close races in Barcelona, Valencia and Seville, all currently held by left-wing parties.
In Barcelona, the dispute is between parties of the left, while in Valencia and Seville the fight is between left and right.
In the municipal elections that are being held throughout the country today, the PSOE, at the helm of the national government since 2018 and headed by Pedro Sánchez, also Prime Minister, should continue to be the party with the most votes worldwide, but with only 2 more , 3 percentage points than the PP (30.2% and 27.9%, respectively), according to a study by the public body Centro de Investigações Sociológicas (CIS) published last Monday.
In the previous survey, dated May 11, the day before the start of the campaign, the CIS predicted 32% for the PSOE and 27.3% for the PP, a party whose president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, was elected about a year ago. and the first great electoral test is being faced today.
In addition to the dispute between PSOE and PP, today it is also at stake to check the scope of the expected advance of the extreme right of VOX in the country as a whole, after having simultaneously achieved its biggest victory in 2022 and the first electoral victory. fiasco since 2015.
The victory was in Castilla y León, where VOX managed to enter a government in Spain for the first time, in alliance with the PP. The fiasco occurred in Andalusia, where the PP obtained an absolute majority that left VOX without influence in power.
The PP won the two early regional elections in 2022 (Andalusia and Castilla y León), creating expectations of growth for the party for the first time since 2018.
The expectation for today is to know how far the PP can advance and to what extent it will depend on alliances with VOX to remove governments and left-wing autarchies.
On the left of the socialists, today’s elections are being seen as a laboratory for new protagonists, such as the Minister of Labor and communist leader Yolanda Díaz, at a time of division of the United We Can platform.
Source: TSF
