These are the first elections of the new electoral cycle after 2 years without polls in Spain, and the results confirm what the surveys predicted: The PP will continue to govern in Extremadura after achieving 43% of the vote and 29 seats (up from 28). Meanwhile, the PSOE collapses (dropping from 28 seats—equal to the PP’s previous count—to 18), and the fringes on both sides are rising: the right (Vox…
One hundred thousand people, according to the Popular Party (PP), which organized the rally, and 50,000 according to the government, the target of the protest, gathered yesterday in Madrid’s Plaza de España to protest against the ongoing institutional degradation and demand immediate elections. As the PP leader stated, “No one voted for him to do this.” “This” refers to the grotesque spectacle that has been dominating the front pages of…
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…
The Partido Popular (Popular Party) has published this Tuesday the proposals with which the party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo aspires to win the next elections on 23 July. In their 108-page programme, the Popular Party has briefly outlined the axes that will mark the course of their policies. The commitment to adjust the deficit and reduce the debt is the leitmotiv of the document. Changes in legislation on squatting,…
Fernando González Urbaneja | If achieving power is difficult, losing it is bitter; few know how to lose. When Felipe González lost, he did so with the sweet feeling that it was a close call, thus mitigating a defeat that had been foretold; he knew how to lose, half-heartedly; and it did not take him long to realise that his time was up. On Sunday in Seville almost none of…
Juanma Moreno Bonilla, the leader of the PP in Andalusia, will be able to govern the autonomous community with a comfortable absolute majority (58 seats out of a total of 109) after winning 42% of the vote, more than one and a half million ballots, against a PSOE that won less than one million, 25% of the vote, and 30 seats, three fewer than in the previous legislature. Vox, the…
The new leader of the Partido Popular (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has promised the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to fulfil “all the milestones negotiated by the Spanish Government” for the receipt of the Next Generation Funds, “even if Pedro Sánchez does not inform us of anything”. The meeting between the two focused “on Spain’s economic issues”, a serious concern for the PP and Brussels, since…
Fernando González Urbaneja | All the polls (except those of the CIS) improve the voting expectations of the PP with Feijóo at the helm and worsen those of Sánchez’s socialism. In fact, they sketch out a tie at around 30% of the vote for each. And all the polls show that the Prime Minister’s rating is below that of the party and some of his ministers. These ratings seem to…
Fernando González Urbaneja | The same PP leaders who last year closed ranks with Casado as a firm candidate for the Moncloa (the polls were favourable to them at the time) have applauded with the same intensity another leader who emerged from a fratricidal internal crisis that was hardly exemplary. A crisis with a few victims (Casado and his few loyalists) that has weakened the party, several of its leaders…
Fernando González Urbaneja | From Núñez Feijóo we expect seriousness, consistency, experience… he himself has reiterated this is what can be expected of him at this stage of his political career. He is not lacking in evidence and reasons, although national politics, that which is called Madrid, has its handicap for those of us who come from outside. For those in the PP, Feijóo’s direct attack on Sánchez, with the…