While the summer heat overwhelms a large fringe of the kingdom and many Spaniards are on vacation, nearly 37.5 million voters are called to the polls, Sunday July 23, to elect their deputies and senators.
The date was unexpectedly set by the leader of the leftist government, the Socialist (PSOE) Pedro Sanchez, after his party’s rout in the May 28 local elections. If it is to be feared that it will have a negative effect on the participation rate, more than 2.5 million people (+ 160% compared to the last polls in 2019) have already voted by post, so as not to have to stay or return to their municipality.
This record testifies to the Spaniards’ interest in these early legislative elections, which could put an end to the left-wing coalition led by Pedro Sanchez, in power since 2018, and see Vox, the far-right party, come to power in a coalition with the People’s Party (PP, conservative), as is already the case in many cities and several autonomous regions, from Castile-Leon to the Valencian Community via Extremadura.
After seeing bipartisanship explode in 2014 with the emergence of new formations – Podemos on the far left, Ciudadanos in the center and Vox on the far right – the Spanish political spectrum has been reconfigured and now opposes two antagonistic blocs.
The PSOE, led by Pedro Sanchez, 51, aspires to the victory of the union of the left and to lie the polls which rather consider its defeat (28%). This time, his coalition partner would not be Podemos, a party with which the relationship has often been rocky and which has collapsed in local elections, but Sumar (“Add”). This movement, which aims to be less divisive, was created by the popular labor minister, former communist activist and labor lawyer, Yolanda Diaz, 52. It brings together about fifteen parties of the alternative and regionalist left.
A consolidated territorial presence
On the right, the PP, led by the former president of the Galicia region (2009-2022), Alberto Nuñez Feijoo, is the favorite with 35% of voting intentions, according to the latest polls. This 61-year-old former senior civil servant is expected to win all the votes of the liberal Ciudadanos party, which decided not to run after its recent rout in the local elections. He does not rule out governing in coalition with Vox if the party is essential for him to obtain his majority in Parliament, even if he constantly asks the voters to give him a large majority which will allow him to do without the far right.
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