Conservative mistakes helped Pedro Sanchez stop the march of Vox in Spain

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Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s warnings that conservatives and hard-right nationalists would drag Spain backwards were far from original in the rhetoric of political campaigns.

But in the weeks before Sunday’s vote, hardliners from the conservative opposition People’s Party and Vox provided real-life examples in local government of how they would handle the coalition. And the vast majority of voters didn’t like what they saw.

As a result, the PP did not gain as many seats in parliament as expected, and Vox lost a third of its share, leaving the right-wing bloc without a majority to form a government. Sánchez and his party colleague Sumar were also unsuccessful, leaving Spain in an impasse.

But the prime minister claimed an achievement: He had stopped the march of the hard-right across Europe. “The reactionary bloc, which proposed to completely undo all the progress we have made in the past four years, has failed,” he told cheering supporters.

It is a far cry from May, when Alberto Núñez Feijoa’s PP handed Sánchez such a humiliating defeat in municipal and regional elections that he decided to call an immediate general election. The PP hoped to win the same wave in the July election, which coincided with the seasonal beach holidays.

But it faced difficulties in co-operation with Vox, an opposition party of green energy, multiculturalism and feminism. Since the PP did not have a legislative majority in May, it needed to cooperate with Vox in several regions and 140 municipalities of Spain to form a coalition government.

Analysts said the chaotic results of these coalitions – which included banning LGBT+ flags, culture wars on theaters and closing bike lanes – had two effects.

This proved to be a great motivator for many voters on the left, including those disillusioned with Sánchez’s shaky coalition government, who would otherwise have stayed home or supported the PP. It also dampened the enthusiasm of some centre-right PP voters, who were already suspicious of Vox.

As a result, with no group having a majority in the 350-seat Congress, Spain faces weeks of dirty bargaining with smaller parties – or repeated elections.

Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, head of the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that while Feijoa has a reputation as a sensible but highly capable manager, one of his big mistakes was his failure to set boundaries for any agreement with Vox on his way to the premiership. “Then to make matters worse, their erratic decisions mined the road,” he added.

The PP quickly struck a coalition deal with Vox in the Valencia region, where a far-right official claimed that “violence against women does not exist” and Feijo was forced to veto Vox’s role as regional leader after he was convicted of “psychological violence” against his ex-wife.

In the Balearic Islands, both parties agreed on a 110-point program on the condition that Vox would abstain from the investment vote so that the PP could govern alone. In western Spain’s Extremadura, the regional PP leader refused to consider any agreement with Vox, only to reverse its position and form a coalition that gave the ultras control over rural affairs, including hunting and bullfighting.

Torreblanca said, “Perhaps it was in Extremadura where Feijoa lost the credibility to convince undecided socialist voters and potential voters that he had the vision and authority to distance himself from Vox.”

For Sánchez, whose upbeat message about the economy did not resonate with voters, PP-Vox’s decision to scrap regional governments’ environment and equality departments helped underline the prime minister’s warnings that a right-wing national coalition would “lead us into a dark time”.

José Pablo Ferrández, a director at pollster Ipsos, pointed to other flaws in the PP campaign, including Feijú’s refusal to participate in a second televised debate with Sánchez, where the prime minister competed with Vox leader Santiago Abascal.

He added, “Fizzu’s absence at the debate meant that the visible face of the expected conservative coalition was Vox, who was on the extreme right.” “This demoralized a significant portion of the centre-right electorate and had an effect on the People’s Party.”

The PP’s result of 136 seats was a vast improvement over the 89 it had won in 2019, but was short of what it had wanted.

Vaux’s success in the previous election disproved the idea that Spain was immune to the rise of the far-right due to the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. But after losing one-third of his seats on Sunday, Sanchez has shown that right now, he can only go so far.

Get Free Spanish Politics Updates

we will send you one myFT Daily Digest Latest Email Rounding spanish politics News every morning.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s warnings that conservatives and hard-right nationalists would drag Spain backwards were far from original in the rhetoric of political campaigns.

But in the weeks before Sunday’s vote, hardliners from the conservative opposition People’s Party and Vox provided real-life examples in local government of how they would handle the coalition. And the vast majority of voters didn’t like what they saw.

As a result, the PP did not gain as many seats in parliament as expected, and Vox lost a third of its share, leaving the right-wing bloc without a majority to form a government. Sánchez and his party colleague Sumar were also unsuccessful, leaving Spain in an impasse.

But the prime minister claimed an achievement: He had stopped the march of the hard-right across Europe. “The reactionary bloc, which proposed to completely undo all the progress we have made in the past four years, has failed,” he told cheering supporters.

It is a far cry from May, when Alberto Núñez Feijoa’s PP handed Sánchez such a humiliating defeat in municipal and regional elections that he decided to call an immediate general election. The PP hoped to win the same wave in the July election, which coincided with the seasonal beach holidays.

But it faced difficulties in co-operation with Vox, an opposition party of green energy, multiculturalism and feminism. Since the PP did not have a legislative majority in May, it needed to cooperate with Vox in several regions and 140 municipalities of Spain to form a coalition government.

Analysts said the chaotic results of these coalitions – which included banning LGBT+ flags, culture wars on theaters and closing bike lanes – had two effects.

This proved to be a great motivator for many voters on the left, including those disillusioned with Sánchez’s shaky coalition government, who would otherwise have stayed home or supported the PP. It also dampened the enthusiasm of some centre-right PP voters, who were already suspicious of Vox.

As a result, with no group having a majority in the 350-seat Congress, Spain faces weeks of dirty bargaining with smaller parties – or repeated elections.

Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, head of the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that while Feijoa has a reputation as a sensible but highly capable manager, one of his big mistakes was his failure to set boundaries for any agreement with Vox on his way to the premiership. “Then to make matters worse, their erratic decisions mined the road,” he added.

The PP quickly struck a coalition deal with Vox in the Valencia region, where a far-right official claimed that “violence against women does not exist” and Feijo was forced to veto Vox’s role as regional leader after he was convicted of “psychological violence” against his ex-wife.

In the Balearic Islands, both parties agreed on a 110-point program on the condition that Vox would abstain from the investment vote so that the PP could govern alone. In western Spain’s Extremadura, the regional PP leader refused to consider any agreement with Vox, only to reverse its position and form a coalition that gave the ultras control over rural affairs, including hunting and bullfighting.

Torreblanca said, “Perhaps it was in Extremadura where Feijoa lost the credibility to convince undecided socialist voters and potential voters that he had the vision and authority to distance himself from Vox.”

For Sánchez, whose upbeat message about the economy did not resonate with voters, PP-Vox’s decision to scrap regional governments’ environment and equality departments helped underline the prime minister’s warnings that a right-wing national coalition would “lead us into a dark time”.

José Pablo Ferrández, a director at pollster Ipsos, pointed to other flaws in the PP campaign, including Feijú’s refusal to participate in a second televised debate with Sánchez, where the prime minister competed with Vox leader Santiago Abascal.

He added, “Fizzu’s absence at the debate meant that the visible face of the expected conservative coalition was Vox, who was on the extreme right.” “This demoralized a significant portion of the centre-right electorate and had an effect on the People’s Party.”

The PP’s result of 136 seats was a vast improvement over the 89 it had won in 2019, but was short of what it had wanted.

Vaux’s success in the previous election disproved the idea that Spain was immune to the rise of the far-right due to the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. But after losing one-third of his seats on Sunday, Sanchez has shown that right now, he can only go so far.