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What the PP’s landslide win in Andalusia means for Spain’s ruling Socialists

A resounding win by Spain's conservative Popular Party in a weekend regional election in Andalusia appears to have boosted its chances in national elections next year and weakened Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

Published: 20 June 2022 17:00 CEST

What the PP's landslide win in Andalusia means for Spain's ruling Socialists

Supporters of Partido Popular (PP) candidate for the Andalusian regional election Juanma Moreno celebrate during a meeting following the Andalusian regional elections, in Seville on June 19, 2022. - Spain's main opposition Popular Party secured a landslide win in a regional election in Andalusia, partial official results showed, dealing a blow to Socialist Prime Minister ahead of a national vote expected at the end of 2023. With 90 percent of the ballots counted, the conservative Popular Party (PP) won 57 seats in the 109-seat Andalusian regional parliament, which will allow it to govern alone in Spain's most populous region, a longtime Socialist stronghold. (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP)

The Popular Party (PP) secured 58 seats in Sunday’s election in Spain’s most populous region — three more than the 55 needed for an absolute majority. That constitutes its best-ever result in the longstanding Socialist stronghold.

The Socialists won 30 seats, their worst-ever result in Andalusia. It governed there without interruption between 1982 and 2018, when it was ousted from power by a coalition between the PP and centre-right Ciudadanos.

This was the Socialists’ third consecutive regional election loss to the PP after votes in Madrid in May 2021 and Castilla y Leon in February.

Sanchez’s government has been struggling to deal with the economic fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has fuelled inflation worldwide, especially through increasing energy prices.

Socialist party officials argued the results of a regional election “can’t be extrapolated” nationally.

But in an editorial, centre-left daily El Pais said no one can deny the gulf in the election scores obtained between the two parties in two of Spain’s most populated regions — Andalusia and Madrid.

This was “more than just a stumble”, it argued.

“This may be a symptom of a change in the political cycle” at the national level, it added. The conservative daily ABC took a similar line.

‘Worn down’

Pablo Simon, political science professor at the Carlos III University, said this “new cycle” in which “the right is stronger” began when the PP won a landslide in a regional election in Madrid in May 2021.

It could culminate with the PP coming out on top in the next national election expected at the end of 2023, he added.

But Cristina Monge, a political scientist at the University of Zaragoza, took a more cautious line.

“The government is worn down after four difficult years due to the pandemic” and the war in Ukraine, which has fuelled inflation, she said.

She refused to “draw a parallel” between Andalusia and Spain, arguing “there is still a lot of time” before the next national election.

Sanchez come to power in June 2018 after former PP prime minister Mariano Rajoy was voted out of office in a no-confidence motion triggered by a long-running corruption scandal.

The PP then suffered its worst-ever results in the next general election in 2019, which the Socialists won.

Sunday’s election was the first since veteran politician Alberto Núñez Feijóo, a moderate, took over as leader of the PP from Pablo Casado following a period of internal party turbulence.

Partido Popular (PP) candidate for the Andalusian regional election Juanma Moreno greets supporters during a meeting following the Andalusian regional elections, in Seville on June 19, 2022. (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP)

‘Packing his bags’

“People are fed up with Sanchez,” the PP’s popular regional leader of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, said Monday.

“If national elections had been held yesterday, the result would have been the same and today he would be packing his bags,” she added.

Up until now, the far-right Vox party had supported the PP in Andalusia but from outside government.

This time around however, it had said its support would be conditional on getting a share of the government of the southern region.

But the PP’s commanding victory in Andalusia means that is now moot: it no longer has to rely on far-right party Vox to govern.

At the national level, it could be a different story however, said Pablo Simon.

A PP government nationally that did not rely on Vox would be “impossible” due to the fragmentation of parliament, which has several regional and separatist parties.

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Why regional elections in Catalonia matter to Spain's future

Sunday May 12th will see regional elections in Catalonia at a time when political uncertainty and unpredictability reigns not only in the northern region but across the country. As such, the results could, and likely will, have political ramifications at the national level, perhaps even on the stability of the government itself.

If you follow Spanish politics, you’ll have probably noticed that there’s been quite a lot going on recently. And even if you aren’t a semi-obsessive politico, Spanish politics has been so melodramatic, so unpredictable and (at times) so ridiculous, that in recent months it’s been hard to ignore.

In short: Socialist (PSOE) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez made a pact with Catalan separatist parties to stay in power after last summer’s general election. Part of this was an amnesty law that granted a legal amnesty to people involved in the failed 2017 referendum independence bid, but it caused outrage across many parts of the country and led to weeks of protests, some of which were violent.

Though Sánchez faced a lot of public ire, Carles Puigdemont, the former President of Catalonia who is a fugitive from Spanish law, takes the brunt of the hatred, particularly from the Spanish right and far-right. Puigdemont is running again in the regional election on May 12th, and has already stated that he will leave politics if he isn’t re-elected.

More recently, Sánchez shocked the country by publishing a highly personal letter on Twitter/X, reportedly released without the advice of his advisors or cabinet colleagues, stating that he was taking five days out to consider his future following repeated attacks against his wife over alleged influence peddling. This came right before the Catalan campaign kicked off and essentially brought politics to a standstill and left the country in limbo.

Sánchez then disappeared from public life, shut himself away in his La Moncloa residence and considered his future, leaving the country in the midst of what felt like a telenovela – a soap opera. On Monday he announced he was staying on and attempted to use the decision as a pivot moment to reinvigorate his government, strengthen Spanish democracy, and to make a stand against what Sánchez describes as the far-right ‘mud machine’.

Others view things differently. While Sánchez supporters see the debacle as a brave affront to right-wing harassment and lawfare tactics used against him, critics have described it as farcical, manipulative, and opposition Partido Popular leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo said that Sánchez had “made a fool of himself” and embarrassed Spain on the global scene.

Many view the move as cynical electioneering, and Sánchez does indeed have a well deserved reputation as a somewhat machiavellian political maneuverer.

But how can Sánchez’s five day mini-sabbatical be electioneering if Spain had elections as recently as last summer? Here’s where the upcoming Catalan elections come in again.

Why regional elections in Catalonia matter to Spain’s future

In short: the results of the Catalan elections have the potential to disrupt the delicate power balance in Madrid.

Some context: in the Catalan regional government, pro-independence parties Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Junts per Catalunya (Puigdemont’s party) and the smaller Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP) have an absolute majority. This allowed separatist parties, namely ERC and Junts, greater political leverage when negotiating the amnesty with Sánchez and the PSOE last year.

Though some, particularly in Junts, would like the amnesty (which is still yet to be approved in the Senate) to go further, the national government has more or less survived since the summer based on this uneasy truce. Depending on the results in Catalonia on May 12th, we may see just how fragile it really is.

Exiled Catalan separatist leader, MEP and founder of the Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) party Carles Puigdemont gives a speech during a meeting to present his list for the upcoming regional elections in Catalonia, in Elna, southwestern France. (Photo by Matthieu RONDEL / AFP)

What do the polls say? Most seem to have the PSC (the PSOE’s sister party in Catalonia) making big gains and becoming the biggest party in the Generalitat, with leader Salvador Illa becoming President. According to RTVE’s average of polls, the PSC is on course to win 39 seats, six more than in 2021. Junts is projected to be in second place with 32 seats and would thus overtake ERC, which would get 28, a loss of 5 seats, though some polls put ERC in second and Junts third.

However, no poll gives the PSC an absolute majority of 68 seats needed to govern alone. As such, the PSC, should it win, will require the votes of far-left Comuns-Sumar, but also a coalition arrangement with a pro-independence party, most likely ERC.

However, polling from El Nacional, a Catalan newspaper, estimates that undecided voters still make up a third (33.5 percent) of the Catalan electorate, so there will likely be some variation from polling data to the results on election day.

Interestingly, Sánchez’s five day reflection period seems to have actually boosted PSOE polling numbers overall on a national level. According to a flash poll taken following the letter, the PSOE vote intention surged.

But the move has not proven popular with politicians in Catalonia, particularly among the pro-independence parties Sánchez’s government relies on in Madrid. The current President of the Generalitat and ERC candidate Pere Aragonès accused Sánchez of exploiting the “empathy” of the Spanish public “for an exclusively political purpose”, describing the “five day comedy” as “yet another electoral manoeuvre.”

The ERC has even made a complaint to Spain’s electoral authority about Sánchez’s decision and subsequent interview on Spanish state TV, claiming it could have breached electoral rules by favouring the PSOE candidacy in the Catalan election.

Junts general secretary Jordi Turull, meanwhile, has accused Sánchez of “interfering in the Catalan election.”

Remember, these are the parties that prop up the Sánchez government at the national level.

Protesters hold up a banner reading “Pedro (Sánchez), traitor” and “Spain is not for sale” during an anti-amnesty protest in Madrid. (Photo by Pierre-Philippe MARCOU / AFP)

Potential scenarios

So, it’s safe to say that things are tense in Spanish politics. Sánchez has angered a lot of people with his period of reflection — not only his opponents but also those who prop up his government in Congress. Conversely, the move does seem to have increased PSOE support overall ahead of polling day, and the PSC seems to be on course to win in Catalonia.

With no party likely to win an absolute majority, the Catalan results on May 12th will require coalitions, which could in turn have a ripple effect on alliances in Madrid. This is principally because there is a possibility that ERC or Junts could be left out of the Generalitat, which could remove the incentive for one (or even both, in the unlikely event of a PSC absolute majority) pro-independence parties to keep Sánchez in the Moncloa, or at the very least to demand more from him.

The polls suggest the most likely outcome is the PSC winning the elections but needing the support of ERC. At the national level, this could lead to a split in the separatist movement and would leave Junts’ support in Congress up in the air. Junts could theoretically withdraw its support, topple the government, and trigger further general elections.

Another scenario touted by political pundits is that pro-independence parties could again win an absolute majority between them. This would heap further political pressure on Sánchez, who, after already spending a lot of political capital on the amnesty law, would likely be pressured for further concessions from the Generalitat, namely another referendum but also changes to the amnesty law. Separatist parties would point to their victory, against polling predictions, as a mandate for pushing the pro-independence movement further.

Of course, there’s also the (admittedly unlikely) possibility that Junts per Catalunya win an absolute majority and Puigdemont becomes President of the region, something that would set the scene for his return to Spain and send shockwaves through Spanish politics.

Perhaps there is no better indication of how important this election is than the fact that Sánchez’s first public appearance since his ‘will he, won’t he’ resignation stunt was at the Fería de Barcelona.

Whatever happens in Catalonia on May 12th, two things seem certain: firstly, that people from across the country will be tuning in for the results; and secondly, as the last few years have shown, predictions are essentially useless and anything can happen in Spanish politics.

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