The People’s Party won the European elections in Spain but with a minimal margin over Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s PSOE. If the exit polls are confirmed, the Spanish result reflects that of the political elections of 23 July 2023 with one substantial difference: the advance of the right. In addition to Vox, the new entry of the anti-European party and the ultra-right ‘Se acabò la fiesta’, the party is over (Salf), by Alvise Perez, is growing at 10.4%.
The People’s Party, led by Dolors Montserrat, with an estimated 32.4% of the votes would obtain 21-23 of the 61 seats that Spain elects in the European Chamber. A good result compared to the 20.3% and 12 seats obtained in 2019, thanks to the annexation of the liberals of Ciudadanos who obtained 12 seats 5 years ago and have now remained outside the European Parliament. But the blue wave of the PP, after having won the political elections with 33%, does not break through in the electoral test that the leader of the PP, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, had set up as a referendum on the government of Pedro Sanchez. The PSOE, led by Deputy Prime Minister for the Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera who aspires to the position of Commissioner of Energy and Climate as Vice President in the next European Commission, stands at 32.4%, obtaining between 21 and 23 seats. A hold compared to the 33.1% and 21 seats obtained five years ago, when the socialists presented themselves with Josep Borrell as the leader.
Vox, with Jorge Buxadé, candidate for the second time as head of the list, among the founders and former militant of the Spanish Falange, obtains 10.4%, which allows him to obtain between 6 and 7 deputies in the European Parliament, doubling the 3 of the 2019, when he obtained 6.2% of the votes.
An affirmation for the far-right party of leader Santiago Abascal, a member of the Conservative and Reformist ECR family, which aspires to be decisive in the European Parliament. Abascal was among the first to respond to the invitation of Marine Le Pen, his guest at the right-wing convention in Madrid, to form a right-wing maxi-group in Brussels. But Vox has found a competitor in the radical right of Salf (‘The party is over’) by Alvise Perez, the 34-year-old from Seville, anti-European and xenophobic, scrapper of the party system and emulator of the Argentine president Javier Milei, who on his debut obtained, second the exit polls, 3.9% of the votes, winning 2-3 seats.
On the opposite front, the left-wing platform Sumar, of the deputy prime minister for Labor Yolanda Diaz, is in fourth place with 6.3% (3-4 MEPs), ahead of the former members of Podemos, who would stop at 4.4 %. In coalition, the left-wing lists had obtained just over 10% in 2019. Junts, of the former MEP Carles Puigdemont, with the list leader Toni Comin would obtain only 1 seat, halving the representation of 5 years ago. From a national perspective, the result confirms the polarization of the Spanish electorate, which has already emerged from the national polls. But the victory is lower than expected for Nunez Feijoo’s popular party, who according to polls from a month ago had an advantage of at least 10 points. The opposition to the controversial amnesty law and the controversy raised by the judicial investigation involving Begona Gomez, the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, have moved the vote against the socialists to a certain point. Who also mobilized the electorate on the diplomatic crisis with Buenos Aires after Argentine president Javier Milei’s accusations of ‘corruption’ against the progressive government and Sanchez’s wife.
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