The leader of the Popular Party of Spain (PP, right), currently in the opposition, claimed this Sunday a clear victory in the regional and municipal elections on Sunday, which he considered the beginning of “a new political cycle” in the country.
“Spain has started a new political cycle,” said Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in a statement to the thousands of PP supporters who gathered tonight in front of the party’s headquarters, in Madrid, to celebrate the results of the regional and municipal elections on Sunday in Spain, a country that will have national legislatures in December and whose national government has been led by socialists since 2018.
Feijóo, former president of the Xunta de Galicia, was elected president of the PP a little over a year ago and had his first electoral test this Sunday.
“It gained centrality in the face of radicalism,” said Feijóo, who considered that the PP recovered “the best version” of the party, the one that “is in tune with the majority of Spain”, “focused, broad, where the vast majority of Spaniards fit”.
For the leader of the PP, the new cycle that began on Sunday in Spain will continue “in the coming months.”
“I know that my time will come if the Spanish want it,” said the PP leader.
In Sunday’s elections, VOX (extreme right) also claimed victory, both in the regional elections, where it increased its representation in the regional parliaments, and in the municipal ones, where it reached 7.19% of the global votes (it had had the 3.56% in the previous municipal elections, in 2019).
In addition, the PP will only be able to govern in some of the regions and municipalities where it won the elections on Sunday with the support of VOX.
For the leader of the far-right party, Santiago Abascal, this Sunday VOX “has established itself as a national project” and as an “absolutely necessary” party to build an alternative to the left in Spain.
The big loser in the elections was the Socialist Party (PSOE), currently in government.
The party leader and Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has not spoken after the results were known.
It was up to the PSOE spokesperson and Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, to make a few brief statements to the journalists in which she admitted the “bad result.”
“It is not the result we expected after these weeks of electoral campaign and we have to reflect on the coming months,” he said.
The socialist regional leaders also admitted defeat and spoke of a “tsunami” that would hit the PSOE throughout the territory.
The PP won the regional and municipal elections on Sunday in Spain, the result of which reversed the previous map, dominated by the PSOE.
In total, the PP will be able to govern eight of the 12 regions that went to the polls, to which are added Andalusia and Castilla y León, which advanced the elections to 2022 and which the Popular Party also won.
The PP only governed two of the regions that went to the polls on Sunday (Madrid and Murcia, which it retained).
In the municipal elections, which were held throughout the country, the PP was also the party with the most votes and conquered the left in large cities, such as Seville and Valencia, as well as having an absolute majority in Madrid.
The municipal and regional results reflect a change compared to the previous elections, in 2019, in which the PSOE had been the party with the most votes globally and with the most victories in the regional elections.
This is also considered the first electoral victory of the PP in Spain since 2015.
The results confirm, in parallel, the advance of VOX in most of the territory and the almost disappearance of Cidadãos, also on the right.
These elections have been the first electoral round of 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 PSOE and the extreme left platform United We Can . .
Sunday’s elections are seen as a harbinger of December’s legislatures.
Source: TSF
