Conservatives aim to oust Pedro Sanchez in Spain’s summer election

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Spaniards are going to vote on Sunday with the choice of re-electing Pedro Sanchez and his rebel left-wing coalition or letting conservatives reverse the prime minister’s reforms in a possible deal with the hardline right.

Most polls suggest that the opposition People’s Party will win the snap general election but fall short of an outright majority. PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijoa will likely need the support of the Vox party to take office, meaning the hard-right could enter government for the first time since Spain returned to democracy following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

A Conservative victory would make Spain the latest European country to shift to the right, joining Italy – whose Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni appeared via video link at a Vox rally this month – as well as Greece, Sweden and Finland.

Fizzou took the oath with the aim of bringing competence and “dignity” to the government, restoring faith in institutions and repealing or revising laws ensuring transgender rights, decriminalizing euthanasia and dealing with the legacy of the Spanish Civil War.

He describes himself as a moderate, but an alliance with Vox would bring demands for radicalism. The far-right party led by Santiago Abascal is climate-change skeptic, opposes immigration and wants to overturn legislation strengthening LGBT+ rights.

Sanchez, who leads the socialist-led coalition, has been in a vulnerable position since suffering defeat in local elections in May. He insists that he will win “against all odds” and warns that PP and Vox will drag the country back to “1973” by 2023.

In an interview with El Pais newspaper, he said: “There is something that is more dangerous than Vox, and that is to have a PP that assumes Vox’s policies and postures.”

According to El Pais simulations, Sanchez has only a 15-16 percent chance of securing another term. A PP-Vox coalition has a 55 percent chance, but it is possible that Spain’s grouping of smaller regional parties means that neither the right nor the left bloc will reach an absolute majority of 176 seats in the 350-seat Congress. This will open the way for re-election, as happened in 2015-16 and 2019.

The prime minister wanted to contest the election on two fronts: the economy, which has inflation of only 1.9 percent and high employment by Spanish standards; and his legislative achievements, which include reforms to boost pensions, end the abuse of temporary job contracts, regulate housing rents, and improve access to abortion.

But he is trailing as the PP has campaigned about the character of the prime minister and the “Frankenstein” political alliance he forged to pass the law.

The outcome will depend on how many disaffected socialist voters the PP can woo, how many right-wingers it can pull back from Vox and whether Sánchez can energize left-wing voters with his warnings about extremists.

Pollsters estimate that more than 24 million voters will vote. Although a record number of beachgoers have voted by mail since Sanchez called the election over the holiday season, long lines are expected before polling stations close at 8 p.m. on Sunday.

Fizzoo offered some clear ideas such as cutting income taxes, reducing the size of government, and slowing the transition to more green energy. But his campaign has been mostly negative and has revolved around the goal of “elimination”.Sanchismo”, a political creed he defined as “the sum of lies, cunning and wickedness”.

Lorenzo Bernaldo de Quiros, president of Madrid-based consultancy Freemarket, said: “Elections are not won by the opposition. They have been defeated by the government. Feiju’s stand has been that the government has done a very bad job and should avoid making mistakes and become a force for peace.

The Prime Minister is hurt by Faizu’s message about Sanchez’s “lies”. Most damaging was Sanchez’s pledge not to work with political parties whose votes he relied on to pass legislation.

A controversial ally is the radical left-wing Podemos party with which he formed a shaky coalition in 2019 – the first such governing coalition in modern Spain. Podemos took the blame for the flawed sexual consent law that led to the reduction of prison sentences for more than 1,000 convicted sex offenders.

When Feijoa attacked Sánchez over the law in the pair’s only election debate, the prime minister lost his temper and, according to pundits, the contest.

The prime minister has also been wounded by his reliance on parliamentary votes from EH Bildu, a Basque separatist party led by a convicted member of the disbanded ETA terrorist group. He has also been criticized for promoting Catalan separatists by pardoning nine leaders jailed in the 2017 unconstitutional referendum.

In recent weeks, governing agreements between the PP and Vox at the municipal and regional level have underscored some of Sánchez’s warnings. Both parties have abolished environment departments, scrapped equality initiatives and banned LGBT+ flags on public buildings.

Feijoa was criticized for refusing to participate in a second debate with Sánchez in the final days of the campaign, and had to stop campaigning due to a bad back. He was also caught falsely claiming that PP had always increased pensions in line with inflation when in government.

Miriam Martinez-Bascuan, a political scientist at the Autonomous University of Madrid, said the campaign has taken Spain’s political polarization to a new level.

“What impressed me the most is that both sides use the same language,” he said.

“The word lie has no meaning anymore. There is a confrontation where they both are accusing each other of lying. We have a problem because he has lost those meaningful words.”