With a turnout of 49%, Alberto Nuñez Feijóo’s Partido Popular has increased its lead over the PSOE to 4 points (700,000 votes) (when in the general elections a year ago the lead was less than 1.5 points) and has won 22 of the 61 MEPs that Spain sends to the European Parliament. Yesterday, Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE held on, with 30% of the vote and 20 seats, largely at the expense of the debacle of the ultra-left with which it forms the coalition government in Spain: Sumar, the party of Vice-President Yolanda Díaz, won only 3 seats and Podemos, the party of Pablo Iglesias from which Sumar broke away, won only 2.
The third place yesterday went to Vox, with 9.6% of the votes and 6 MEPs (it had 4), and the Ahora Repúblicas alliance (of ERC, Bildu and BNG), the “Se acabó la fiesta” (“The Party Is Over“) voters’ group of the communicator and agitator Luis ‘Alvise’ Pérez, with 800,000 votes and another 3 MEPs, will also enter the European Parliament. Junts (Carles Puigdemont’s party, with one MEP) and the Coalition for a Europe of Solidarity of PNV and CC with another seat.
The newspaper headlines, of course, include different nuances. The pro-Sánchez daily El País explains: Ultra advance in the EU and Iberian exception, and how the PSOE’s results and the socialist debacle in Germany strengthen Sánchez in the eyes of the European socialists. El Mundo explains that Sánchez comes out weaker and the coalition government collapses. ABC reports that Feijóo wins again. La Razón speaks of an undisputed victory for the Partido Popular. El Español, that Sánchez loses his plebiscite while Feijóo contains the ultra-right. And Libertad Digital that Sánchez does not win even if he devours his partners.
It is not only in Spain that the right and the far right have risen. But despite their advance, with collateral effects such as the French elections, socialists and liberals will maintain a comfortable majority of 65% in the European Parliament.
