Spanish elections on Sunday likely to swing to the right
If the weather forecasters are right, voters in Spain will elect the 15th Cortes Generales, or national parliament, this Sunday in temperatures approaching 40 degrees celsius.
Turnout is always a factor in elections. Last time out, in 2019, a little under 70 per cent of Spanish voters went to the polls, meaning that nearly three in ten of those eligible couldn’t be bothered to register their choice, if indeed they had made one. And that was in November. This time round, it is easy to imagine elderly Spaniards or those with young children or who live in especially torrid parts of the country opting to stay home and turn up their ceiling fans.
Given that the national mood looks to be for change, it may be that the lines outside the polling stations will reflect an increased appetite for meaningful democracy no matter the conditions. But the last time a general election was held in mid-summer was 1839, when suffrage extended to just three percent of the adult population, and it could be that the turnout this time will fall below 65 per cent.
The question then becomes, which side will show the greater grit? Will the right – currently well ahead in the polls – venture out in greater numbers to demand a change in direction, or will the left, with centrist support, make the effort necessary to hold back the tide?
We shall see. The outgoing government, led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, is a coalition of the centre-left Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) and Unidas Podemos, a vaguely left-wing populist movement. No such formation had run Spain since the final defeat of the Republic by Franco in 1939, and the strains of office quickly became apparent. Sánchez, who doubles as President of what remains of the Socialist International, first scrabbled his way to the premiership in 2018, confirming his role in the following year’s general election in combination with Podemos. But no sooner had he been sworn in by King Felipe VI than Covid became the only show in town.
The new government probably did as much as any other to contain the pandemic, but the effort resulted in a considerable loss of momentum. The economy suffered, unemployment grew, and issues remained over the status of Catalonia, which Sánchez regards as integral to Spain. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the next blow to fall, leading to a sharp spike in food prices but an overall inflation rate that compares well with the EU average, standing at 5.9 per cent for the twelve months to June.
Any fair-minded assessment of the coalition’s performance would have given Sánchez the confidence to ride out the storm, as he always intended, until the autumn of 2024. But voter resentment over Covid lockdowns and continuing high levels of immigration, together with a general feeling that all is not well, produced stinging defeats for the government parties in June’s regional elections, causing Sánchez to go for broke by calling a snap election.
On the right, the assumption is that Spain will follow the prevailing trend across Europe by ditching “progressive” policies in favour of self-interest, most obviously in the case of immigration. Led by the former Galician regional president Alberto Feijóo, the People’s Party (PP) has allied itself with Vox, a decidedly far-right, nationalist faction, whose leader, Santiago Abascal, a federalist Basque, plans to expel all illegal immigrants and to build high walls round the North Africa enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.
Feijóo is a standard-issue conservative, whose accession to the premiership would raise few eyebrows in Brussels. He has a reputation for modesty and honesty. Abascal, by contrast, has spoken of a second Reconquista to rid Spain of Muslim influence. He believes claims of climate change to be fraudulent and, if he could get away with it, he would abolish Spain’s regional parliaments in favour of an all-powerful central administration.
The combination of the two is a disturbing prospect for Brussels, already reeling from the emergence of Giorgia Meloni as the prime minister of Italy and the steady rise of the right in France, Greece, Sweden, Finland, Austria, even Germany, beneath the benevolent gaze of the nationalist governments of Poland and Hungary.
The European Union is a “progressive” and essentially centrist political construct. It cannot easily coexist with nationalism or with policies that seek to erect walls between the member states. It is entirely based on the liberal consensus. How a European Commission would develop if its top table was dominated by representatives of the Brothers of Italy, Vox, France’s National Rally, Poland’s Truth and Justice Party, Alternative für Deutschland, Hungary’s Fidesz and, say, the Dutch far-right Freedom Party can only be imagined, but the prospect is no longer fanciful, it is real.
Bucking the trend, meanwhile, is the UK, which appears almost certain to swing left in next year’s general election. The distinguishing factor, post-Brexit, is that the current leader of the Labour Party is Keir Starmer, not Jeremy Corbyn. Had Corbyn remained in charge, the Tories might have had a fighting chance of holding on to power. But Starmer is New Labour in Old Labour’s clothing. If the NHS did not exist, he would almost certainly not have invented it. He will change course in favour of a more progressive economic agenda, but he is not expected to frighten the horses.
Reassuringly, the same might prove to be true on the right. If Vox’s Abascal, rather than the PP’s Feijóo, were to lead Spain, there is no telling how far he would go. But by far the greater likelihood is that he will “toughen up” a Feijóo-led coalition without actually taking it in a radically new direction. Power is a great leveller. Heads of government and their top people quickly discover that their carefully thought-out manifestos are no more than wish-lists when actually in office.
Take the example of Meloni. Cast by the media and her opponents as a born-again fascist, she has so far done little to distinguish herself from her predecessor, the ex-banker and political moderate Mario Draghi. If anything, she has charmed Europe’s establishment, including Rishi Sunak, encouraging them to look again at seemingly intractable problems (such as mass immigration) without threatening revolution.
Like Marine Le Pen in France – now thought of as a more than plausible contender for the presidency in 2027 – Meloni has had to adjust to the constraints of what we used to call Realpolitik. She will no doubt fight her corner at summits and look for allies across the Continent, but she is no Mussolini, and Feijóo, even in tandem with Abascal, is no Franco.
A measure of how far the right has advanced should become apparent next year when EU governments are asked to nominate the new Commission, due to take office for a five-year term in January 2025. The incumbent, Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen, has proved an able-enough administrator but a decidedly under-par visionary, more anxious to hold her team together than to take Europe to the next stage, whatever that might be. She could, of course, cling on, always assuming Joe Biden doesn’t tap her as Nato secretary-general. But if she doesn’t, then the door will be open for Meloni, working with the existing mavericks of Poland, Hungary and, very possibly, Spain and the Netherlands, to take consensus down a different track.
As ever, everything hinges on who wins what and when. A clear victory for the right in Spain this Sunday could prove exactly the accelerant the right in Europe has been waiting for for the last 20 years. Marine Le Pen – potentially the biggest game-changer – would certainly show a spring in her step. Conversely, should Pedro Sánchez somehow manage to hold on to power, the gaze will switch to elections in the Netherlands later in the year, when Mark Rutte stands down after ten event-filled years as prime minister. The revolution that never quite arrives never stops trying.
Write to us with your comments to be considered for publication at letters@reaction.life