Spanish Elections: Socialists win despite far-right gains for Vox party | News from the world

Spain's ruling Socialists garnered the largest number of votes but did not win a majority in Sunday's early general election, a run marked by the breakthrough of the far-right Vox party and a disastrous traditional conservative party of the country.

The Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) of Pedro Sánchez won 123 seats, the conservative People's Party (PP) 66, the center-right citizen party 57, the anti-austerity Unidas Podemos and its allies 42 and Vox 24.

Although this was the country's third general election in less than four years, the turnout was 75.8%, well above 66.5% two years ago.

Sánchez praised the result and the high voter turnout as proof of Spain's desire to move forward and reject the reactionary politics of some of its right-wing opponents.

"We did it," he told supporters in Madrid, echoing the slogan of the PSOE campaign. "We sent the message that we do not want to regress or reverse. We want a country that looks forward and advances. "

However, the PSOE will still have to seek support from other parties to reach the 176 seats needed to form a government in the 350-seat Spanish Congress of Deputies.

Even with the support of Unidas Podemos and related groups, it would still have 11 seats less than the majority and would need the help of smaller regional and nationalist parties.

The head of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, has already expressed his enthusiasm for an agreement with the PSOE. He said that even though his party would have liked a better result – he lost 29 seats in the last election – "it was enough to stop the right and build a coalition government of the left."

The triumph of the PSOE – it won 38 more than in the last general election of June 2016 – was part of the persistent fracture of the Spanish right.

Vox has slightly exceeded expectations, but nevertheless managed to become the first far-right group to win more than one congressional seat since Spain's return to democracy after the death of the general Franco in 1975.

The PP, on the other hand, had the worst results in its history, with its support collapsing and 71 seats bleeding. Before the vote, party leader Pablo Casado called the elections "decisive" for the country in recent years.

Although Casado has ruled out resigning in case of poor performance, the pressure on him will increase as the party proceeds to post-mortem on its failed strategy of trying to thwart Vox and Citizens by moving further to the right.

The victory of the PSOE was described as "ephemeral" by Vox, whose right-wing deputies are heading to the congress.

Party leader Santiago Abascal said Vox had kept his promise to start what he called "a reconquest of Spain" – a reference to the long campaign against Moorish rule that ended in 1492 and resulted in the expulsion of Spanish Jews.

PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers Party)

The Spanish Socialist Workers Party has been running Spain since the Conservative People's Party was ousted last year by a vote of no confidence. But he struggled to achieve his ambitious program because it is a minority government, which occupies only 84 of the 350 seats of the Spanish Congress. Opponents claim to be weak and indebted to the Catalan separatist parties, whose support it has relied on to gain power.

Partido Popular (People's Party)

The right-wing party ruled from 2011 to last year, when it was finally defeated after a lawsuit that laid bare corruption. In the case, Mariano Rajoy became the first prime minister on duty to testify in a criminal case. He was replaced at the head of the party by Pablo Casado, who dragged the party far more right in the hope of seeing the challenge launched by Vox.

Podemos (We can)

The anti-austerity party, born of frustration and outraged This move seemed to have to leapfrog the PSOE and become the dominant left-wing political force in the 2016 general election. But mixed messages, internal quarrels and an alliance with the United Left – a coalition comprising the Communist Party – have been less welcome than expected. Podemos helped strengthen the Sánchez government, but public internal quarrels blunted his message and weakened his image.

Vox (voice)

Vox, led by Santiago Abascal, gun bearer, ended four decades of Spanish exceptionalism in December when his results in the Andalusian elections made him the first far-right party to win seats in Spain since the return to democracy of the country after the Franco dictatorship. Abascal spoke of a "reconquest" of Spain – a reference to the long campaign against Moorish rule that ended in 1492 and which also led to the expulsion of Jews from Spain. Vox, who was trained by disgruntled members of the PP five years ago, raged against it.supremacist feminism and gender totalitarianism& # 39; and the party complained that existing domestic violence laws are unfairly weighted against men.

Photography: Juan Medina / X01625

Sánchez called for the election in February, after Catalan separatists joined the right-wing parties to reject his 2019 budget.

The PSOE has ruled Spain since last June, when it used a vote of no confidence to oust the PP torn by corruption.

But the minority government of Sánchez fought to advance its legislative agenda, with only 84 out of 350 seats in Congress.

Opponents of the Prime Minister accuse him of being weak and too indebted to the parties of Catalan independence that have supported the success of his motion of censure. They argue that he should take a much tougher stance on the issue of independence, which dominates Spanish politics since the secessionist attempt of the regional government in the fall of 2017.

The territorial crisis also fueled the emergence of Vox, which was until last year a marginal party without the necessary support to win congressional seats. This changed last December when he exceeded expectations, winning 12 seats in the Andalusian regional elections.

Vox then demonstrated its capabilities as a manufacturer king by agreeing to support an Andalusian regional government between the PP and the citizens, thus ending decades of PSOE control in the southern region of Spain.

Vox's uncompromising position vis-à-vis Catalonia, which includes proposals to ban pro-independence parties, has helped it build momentum, as well as its attacks on feminism and what it calls politically correct.

The party has managed to shape the political agenda in recent months as the Spanish right continues to fragment. Casado and Rivera, the leader of the citizens' party, removed their parties from the center in an attempt to prevent voters from abandoning them in favor of the Abascal group.

Sánchez had warned that the party could then try to repeat its Andalusian strategy to build a right-wing tripartite coalition government with the PP and the citizens.

"Nobody thought that Trump would be president in the United States, nor Bolsonaro in Brazil," Sánchez said. tweeted Friday. "And people thought that Brexit would not happen either. A vote for the PSOE makes the difference between a Spain looking to the future and a Spain that is 40 years down. Nobody should stay home on Sunday!