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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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Could Spain ever dethrone King Felipe and become a republic?

After a decade on the Spanish throne, King Felipe VI is steadily growing in popularity. If things were ever to turn sour, could the Spanish public and government actually oust the monarch and turn Spain into a republic?

Published: 17 June 2024 17:15 CEST
Could Spain ever dethrone King Felipe and become a republic?

King Felipe VI is set to celebrate a decade on the Spanish throne. He became king on June 19th 2014 following the abdication of his scandal-ridden father, former King Juan Carlos.

This meant that Felipe took over the crown needing to somewhat rehabilitate the public image of la Casa Real. According to polling data released to coincide with his decade as king, it seems he’s done a decent enough job of it so far. In fact, after 10 years on the throne his approval rating has grown.

READ ALSO: What do Spaniards think of their royal family?

Felipe obtained an average score of 6.6 among Spaniards polled, surpassing, for the first time, the 6.5 mark. This is according to a survey carried out by the IMOP Insights Institute for Vanitatis.

In fact, after a decade the majority of Spaniards approve of the King’s performance: 46.4 percent have a positive view of his work, compared to 20.9 percent who are critical or hold a negative view.

Older people generally have more favourable views of Felipe and the monarchy, whereas under 25s are the only group with a negative opinion of him.

In terms of regional breakdown, the most pro-Felipe part of the country was found to be Andalusia and the least, to the surprise of absolutely nobody in Spain, was Catalonia.

Many royal commentators in Spain argue that Felipe, along with his daughter, Princess of Asturias Leonor, have taken big steps to restoring the Spanish crown’s credibility.

That Felipe’s personal approval rating has grown over time is testament to that, and positive ratings, especially after a decade in the public eye, is something most politicians could only dream of.

That is to say, there doesn’t seem to be any danger of Spaniards turning on their king for now. But what if Spanish public opinion changed over time and suddenly Spain did want to become a republic?

Legally, constitutionally speaking, could Spain ever dethrone King Felipe and become a republic?

Spain’s King Felipe VI and Spain’s Queen Letizia attend a ceremony for the Spanish Crown Princess of Asturias. Photo: JAVIER SORIANO/AFP.

The steps to a republic

Even if Spaniards themselves wanted it, transitioning from a constitutional monarchy to a republic involves a lot of steps that make it highly unlikely, perhaps even impossible.

The change would require two-thirds support in both chambers of the Spanish Congress, something that is very unlikely in the current political climate. Such consensus across both houses is very, very rare.

But, theoretically speaking, to get rid of the king the Spanish legislature would first need to amend Article 1 of the título preliminar of the Spanish Constitution, which outlines the state structure and clearly says that: “the form of the Spanish state is a parliamentary monarchy”.

To do this, the government or Congress would have to call for a vote on constitutional reform in the Congress of Deputies and it would have to pass with a qualified majority, that is, with a majority of two thirds or more, which is equivalent to 234 or more deputies.

READ ALSO: How much do Spain’s king and royal family make?

It would then have to be ratified in the Senate with the same qualified majority. Of the 265 senators, 177 would have to be in favour.

But it doesn’t end there. If both chambers agree, Congress would be dissolved, a general election would have to be called, and the voting would have to be repeated among the new deputies.

However, there’s still one final hurdle: a general referendum. The people’s referendum is meant to function as a sort of fail-safe or quality control on the actions of the legislature, especially on such a huge constitutional question.

Javier Tajadura, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of the Basque Country, told Spanish website Newtral that “the referendum serves as a form of citizen control of what the Cortes want to carry out, and it must be carried out after the votes [in both houses] have been taken.”

If, after all the votes in Congress pass with suitable majorities, the referendum also results in a yes and it is undeniable that Spaniards want to change from monarchy to republic, Spain would become a republic.

Then the debate would shift to whether Spain would need an entirely new constitution, or it would need to make some (pretty huge) changes to the pre-existing constitution of 1978.

So, yes. Spain could, in theory, become a republic. Clearly, the Spanish system has a lot of checks and balances embedded within it that makes moving from a monarchy to a republic constitutionally complicated, politically unlikely, and, in realistic terms, very improbable to the point of being almost impossible.

As Miguel Ángel Cabellos, Professor of Constitutional law at the University of Girona, puts it: “Beyond the fact that it is a change of an essential and core element of the political system, which would also radically divide society, the truth is that from a legal point of view the difficulties are very notable, one could almost say insurmountable in practice.”

READ ALSO: The one thing to know about each of Spain’s ‘crazy’ kings and queens

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