Jorge Azcón, the President of Aragon for the last two and a half years, called early elections following the refusal of Vox—the far-right party—to support his 2026 budget. “Because we are not like them,” he said yesterday after winning the election with 26 seats (two fewer than he previously held). He was referring to Pedro Sánchez’s administration, which is still governing with the 2023 budget approved in 2022 during the previous legislature.
“Today, from Aragon, we say loud and clear: Tick tock, tick tock, Sanchismo is coming to an end,” Azcón summarized following another defeat for the PSOE. Led by Pilar Alegría—who served as the Sánchez government’s spokesperson until the start of this campaign—the party matched its worst historical result in Aragon with 18 seats, five fewer than before. “This is not a good result,” Alegría admitted.
The major leap was made by the radical right-wing party Vox, which doubled its seats from 7 to 14 and has already expressed its willingness to form a coalition for the new regional government with the PP (People’s Party).
On the left, the regionalist party Chunta Aragonesista obtained 6 deputies, while Teruel Existe-Aragón Existe lost one, leaving them with two seats. Sumar, the radical left-wing force, secured one seat, while Podemos—the party of Pablo Iglesias and his wife, Irene Montero—has vanished from the Aragonese parliament. This brings the total to nine autonomous communities where they now have no representation.
The results in Aragon—marked by a PP victory, a PSOE collapse, a surge for Vox, and the near-disappearance of the far-left—seem to be a replica of those seen this past December 21st in another Spanish region, Extremadura.
They reflect the dead end facing the Government of Spain, which since 2023 has been determined to govern without having won the elections, relying on parliamentary groups ranging from Puigdemont’s radical pro-independence Catalan right to the far-left of Podemos. This situation is preventing pending legislation from moving forward and is fueling a sharp rise in the far-right—even as Pedro Sánchez insists that he holds office precisely to do the opposite: to stop them.
