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Spain’s PP unites with far-right to rule Valencia region

Spain's Popular Party and the far-right Vox reached a deal Tuesday to govern the Valencia region in a tie-up that could be replicated nationally if the right wins July's election.

Published: 13 June 2023 17:55 CEST
Spain's PP unites with far-right to rule Valencia region
Popular Party (PP) and Vox make a deal in Valencia. Photo: JAVIER SORIANO / AFP

With less than six weeks until the July 23rd snap election, the two parties reached “a government agreement in principle,” said Juan Francisco Pérez, a negotiator for the right-wing Popular Party (PP), which polls suggest is on track to win.

The parties “have agreed on a coalition government in the Valencia region,” Vox wrote on social media.

Located on Spain’s eastern seaboard, Valencia has five million residents and is Spain’s fourth-largest region in terms of population.

The agreement means Valencia will become the second of Spain’s 17 regions to be jointly ruled by the PP and Vox, the first being Castilla y León.

The Valencia deal is the first big agreement between the two factions following their success in the May 28th local and regional elections, with the PP’s Carlos Mazón taking over as regional leader.

On that day, elections were held in 12 Spanish regions, with the PP seizing six of them from the ruling Socialist Party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

But the PP needs the support of Vox to govern in five of them: Aragón, the Balearics, Extremadura, Murcia and Valencia.

Socialists decry ‘shameful’ pact

Polls have long suggested that PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijoo’s chances of replacing Sánchez hinge on his party inking a pact with Vox – which could harm his image as a moderate.

During negotiations over Valencia, the PP managed to ensure that Vox’s regional candidate Carlos Flores — who was convicted in 2002 of psychologically abusing his ex-wife – would not be given any role in
government.

“I’m not stepping aside, I’m moving forward,” said Flores who has now left regional politics to run as a Vox candidate in the general elections.

The PP-Vox deal was dismissed as “embarrassing and shameful” by Socialist spokeswoman and Education Minister Pilar Alegría, who denounced Vox for fielding a candidate like Flores.

The PP has “reached a deal with a party which rejects the idea of gender violence out of hand, which says it doesn’t even exist,” she said.

“And even worse, this man (Flores) has been convicted of domestic violence.”

The two parties also signed a pact to jointly govern Elche, a town of 230,000 residents in the Valencia region in what was their first such deal at a municipal level.

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POLITICS

Spain’s Catalonia sets clock ticking for possible fresh polls

The speaker of Catalonia's parliament said Wednesday he will give the Spanish region's assembly two months to form a new government or else he will push for new elections.

Published: 26 June 2024 15:33 CEST
Spain's Catalonia sets clock ticking for possible fresh polls

No party secured an absolute majority in Catalonia’s 135-seat parliament in a May 12th regional vote in the wealthy northeastern region, which saw separatist parties lose their governing majority in the body they had dominated for the past decade.

The local branch of Spain’s ruling Socialists, led by Salvador Illa, won the biggest share of the vote giving it 42 seats, while hardline separatist party JxCat – headed by exiled former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont – finished second with 35 seats.

The regional Catalan parliament had until June 25th to vote on a new government but neither Illa nor Puigdemont decided to present themselves to an investiture vote in the assembly as they had not secured enough backing from other parties to be successful and preferred to keep negotiating.

So the speaker of the Catalan parliament, Josep Rull of JxCat, on Wednesday set a two-month deadline for parties to agree on a new head of the regional government, otherwise a fresh election will be held – most likely in mid-October.

“After consultations with the parties, none have proposed a candidate to go through the presidential investiture debate by the first deadline,” he said.

“However, two of these parliamentary groups have expressed their willingness to explore ways to build an agreement to make the investiture possible over the next two months.”

To win the support of an absolute majority of 68 lawmakers of the Catalan parliament, Illa will need to secure the backing of the more moderate separatist party ERC which won 20 seats in the May election.

The ERC helps prop up Socialist Prime Pedro Sánchez’s minority government in the national parliament but its demands for regional financing so far seem too steep for Illa’s party.

Puigdemont is also courting the ERC but even with their support, as well of that of two other smaller separatist parties – the far-left CUP and the far-right Alianca Catalana – he will still fall short of the required 68 seats to enable him to pass an investiture vote.

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