As far as memory goes, a dirtier campaign is not remembered than the one that preceded this 28M. There wouldn’t be enough garbage trucks to remove all that slop. It will go down in history, for sure. Because of the mud in which some splashed. For the wasteful effort of others to contrast models. Because of the rain of millionaire ads. For the hoaxes Because of conspiracy theories. For the alleged purchase of votes. Because never before has Trumpism infiltrated the Spanish right-wing as it has done in the last fifteen days. Because Feijóo is playing the consolidation of internal leadership in his party. Because the last “change councils” that the alternative left achieved in 2015, after the success of 15M, are at stake. And because the future of Sánchez in La Moncloa depends to a large extent on the PSOE maintaining the institutional power it holds in the territories.
The result –and especially the subsequent alliances– could change the political sign of Valencia, Aragon, the Balearic Islands, La Rioja, Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura, although to a lesser extent in the latter two. In exchange, the PSOE is in a position to recover Barcelona, one of the most symbolic local squares and consolidate that of Seville, a historical reference for its parish.
The President of the Government and the leader of the opposition in any case have taken this appointment as the first round of the December general elections. And although in their respective parties they said that the data will not be extrapolated in any case, both have been deeply involved in the campaign beyond supporting their candidates in such a way that it has been installed in the political atmosphere that whoever wins this Sunday, will conquer La Moncloa in seven months. A thesis that for some has a historical basis and for others lacks any foundation.
In statistics you can find one thing and the opposite. In 1995, 2003 and 2011, the party that won the most votes in the municipal elections later won the general elections and forced a change of government. However, the greater number of votes for the PP in 2007 did not anticipate a victory for Rajoy in the legislative elections months later. Nor did the adjusted result between popular and socialists in 1999 predict the absolute majority that José María Aznar later achieved.
What has always happened is that conclusions have always been drawn from the overall result of some municipal ones in a national key and have caused background currents that have ended up conditioning the strategies with an eye on the general ones. This time it will be no different. If Sánchez holds out, he will make the Spanish presidency of the EU and his international profile, in addition to his social recipes for the crisis, his main electoral asset for December. And if he stumbles, there are already those who glimpse a foreseeable distancing from the Catalan and Basque independence movement which, according to all the qualitative ones, has been the main reason for his wear and tear. With Feijóo the same thing will happen. If he prevails, he will maintain the hard line and fight the cultural battles into which the extreme right has dragged him. And if not, he will try to be an emulator of the Andalusian Juanma Moreno and his transversality.
The socialists are the ones who play the most
The data for this Sunday will be read based on the global vote count, yes, but also according to the symbolic seats lost or won. And it is in this second framework in which the PSOE is at stake, without a doubt, much more than the PP, since it governs in nine communities while those of Feijóo only in two of which regional elections are held. Andalusia, Galicia, Euskadi, Catalonia and Castilla y León are only called to the polls to elect local corporations.
Losing governments would mean for Sánchez to a large extent also losing the organic tranquility with which the PSOE has led in the last six years. If victory is indisputable, there are never cracks, but when defeats come, entropy is a matter of days. If, on the contrary, the Socialists maintain the Generalitat Valenciana, the main object of desire of the popular, the story would turn against a Feijóo who seeks in that territory to turn it into a lever of change for the generals.
The leader of the PP, who has made it known by active, passive and periphrastic that only one opportunity is given to reach La Moncloa, also has a lot at stake. And even more so if the results, regardless of the global vote count, do not allow him to display as a trophy any of the most emblematic autonomous regions or mayoralties of the PSOE. If, in addition, Ayuso obtains the absolute majority in Madrid that he so desires, the Puerta del Sol will issue clear signals about the need for the current leader to enter discount time. Some have already launched in this campaign by straying from the script established by the national leadership both with regard to Feijóo’s proposal to let the list with the most votes rule and with the outlawing of EH Bildu. As if that were not enough, Baroness de Sol has dynamited with a single statement the only bridge that Genoa kept open with Basque nationalism by calling the PNV “racist”.
More clearly: if the results are mediocre for the PP, beyond the indisputable hegemonic position of Madrid, Murcia and lately Andalusia, there will be a new internal battle for the leadership of the party and the national project. And with much more virulence if, as everything indicates, the mud that the right has gone through these days to pay for anti-politics, the discrediting of institutions and the demobilization of the left ends up giving more votes to Vox than to the popular ones.
The elections this Sunday will also serve as an indicator of the mobilization capacity of the so-called alternative left – to the left of the PSOE – and of the strength or weakness of Podemos. If the latter manage to exceed the required 5% to obtain representation in the Parliaments of Valencia and Madrid, they will be in a better position to negotiate their representation in the Sumar space led by Vice President Yolanda Díaz for the general elections. If, on the contrary, they fail in this endeavor, those of Ione Belarra –and before Pablo Iglesias– will have to review their strategy both inside and outside the coalition government, where they will surely lose their ability to influence the course of government policies.
Beyond all this, the PP initially raised these elections from the perspective of a great anti-Sanchista wave that, even existing in some territories, does not seem to be going to decide clearly, according to the tracking of the parties, the final result of this Sunday. The data that they handle both in Ferraz and in Genoa speak of a very balanced distribution between both political forces, and not of a global collapse of the PSOE, as the popular ones announced.
The Socialists say they have had, beyond the shocks due to the supposed purchase of votes in small towns, good feelings throughout the campaign and they face the appointment confident that “the general framework will confirm the strength” of their brand. That does take for granted the progress of the PP in the global calculation compared to 2019, when it was 1,500,000 votes behind the PSOE. With the disappearance of Ciudadanos, which four years ago added 1,800,000 votes, and the practically total transfer of these votes to the Feijóo brand, no one doubts that the PP will be ahead of the PSOE. Of course, except in Madrid, where Ayuso has embraced Vox’s most ideological discourse, it will also be demonstrated that Feijóo does not add one more vote than those they recover from the oranges.
Nor does it escape anyone that, according to the latest polls, the PP will not wrest a single regional government from the PSOE if it is not with the votes of Vox. Something that Feijóo will have to manage and that will undoubtedly condition his transit to the generals. One thing is Castilla y León, whose coalition government with the extreme right can say that it inherited from Casado, and another are the alliances that have to be forged after 28M and that will have to have his blessing. Can you imagine a Spain with replicas of García Gallardo in various Communities? Well, that is what is at stake also this Sunday.
