Spain was plunged into political uncertainty Monday a day after Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s conservative Popular Party narrowly won the country’s national election but without securing the parliamentary majority needed to topple the five-year-old coalition government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
The result means Feijóo can’t claim outright victory, though he told his supporters he would try to form a government. That process is likely to take weeks or even months as Sánchez may also be able to secure support from smaller parties to form a governing coalition. A new election could also be called.
Expectations Santiago Abascal’s far-right Vox party would perform well enough to prop up a Feijóo-led government did not happen. Vox’s campaign was fueled by anti-immigration messages. It also attracted support by calling to repeal gender violence laws and slamming feminism. Vox took a beating in the vote.
Jobs. The economy. The cost of living. These were the issues that appeared to matter most to Spanish voters. However, climate change, nationalism and LGBTQ and gender issues also featured in campaigns.
Spain elections: ‘Everything up in the air’
No party secured more than half of the Spanish Parliament’s 350 seats − the threshold required to win an absolute majority. A bloc of right wing parties led by Feijóo won 169 seats. A left wing bloc with Sánchez as the figurehead secured 153 seats. Vox won 33 seats, down from 52 in 2019.
Feijóo’s best chances of forming a government had been with a partnership with Vox. That’s unlikely to happen now because of the latter’s poor performance. A route to power for incumbent Sánchez could be if he were able to secure the backing of Junts, a Catalan pro-independence party founded by Carles Puigdemont. Catalonia is a region of Spain with Barcelona as its capital that has long sought to breakaway from Spain’s government.
“The results are so close that they leave everything up in the air,” the Spanish newspaper El País wrote Monday.
“The Spanish political landscape is wide open.”
