Socialism wins in Spain but must accept, and PP suffers historic defeat

MADRID

The Socialist Pedro Sanchez won the parliamentary elections yesterday in Spain and must agree to continue to govern in a Parliament that will have a large group of right-wing deputies.

According to almost definitive data, Sánchez's PSOE obtained 123 of the 350 seats in the lower house, far from the absolute majority, spread over 176 seats. A result that was held at the party headquarters in Madrid, amidst applause and the euphoria of his supporters.

"The Socialist Party won the parliamentary elections, which helped win the future and lose the past," he said from the balcony of the room.

I would add a total of 80 parliamentary seats to citizens (57 seats), a difficult option given the hard campaign against them by the Liberals and their leader, Albert Rivera. Sanchez did not rule out the possibility last night, although during the celebration, his supporters shouted at him: "With Rivera no, with Rivera no!", And the party leader Citizens himself spoke about doing "opposition".

During the campaign, the radical left of Podemos asked Sanchez to govern together, but with only 42 deputies, there are only 165 left. The possibility of a left-wing government would depend on an agreement with the Catalan independence parties, possible but laborious.

"We would have liked a better result", but we will work "so that there is in Spain a coalition government of the left", promised the leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias.

FALL OF THE POPULAR PARTY

For its part, the far-right party Vox, big surprise of these elections, enters the Congress of Deputies with 24 seats. This is not what I thought, although the parliamentary group obtained is meritorious. "We can calmly tell Spain that Vox has come to stay," said its leader, Santiago Abascal.

The biggest loser of the evening was the Conservative People's Party, which with its young President Pablo Casado gave more than half of the seats and remained at 66. "I do not mind, the result was very bad," he acknowledged. The PP thus does not add to Citizens and Vox, as it was Casado's objective, and also lost control of the Senate, which pbades to the hands of the Socialists according to provisional results.

Participation was high and was around 75%. A total of 13 political options entered the lower house.

In an election presented as a struggle between the left and the right, the intermediate possibility of getting along with Albert Rivera, leader of Ciudadanos, would prevent Sánchez to rely on Catalan separatist parties.

They asked in return for something that the Socialist strongly opposes: a referendum on self-determination. However, Sánchez and Rivera have had a very tough relationship in recent months, which should be completely rebuilt.

THE CATALAN QUESTION

During the campaign, much of the political debate revolved around the Catalan political conflict.

In June, Sanchez relied on the Catalan parties to thrive the motion of censure with which he expelled the conservative Mariano Rajoy from the government.

The maneuver was well worth while PP and the citizens accused of being "a traitor" and "a public danger" and were giving wings to the far right.

The outgoing president said that it was the separatists and the right who overturned their 2019 budget in February and forced this electoral advance, the third parliamentary elections in just three and a half years. (AFP, AP and EFE)