The PSOE won. The PP, CS and VOX will not be able to govern together. We need to build a new alternative. The PSOE imposed itself in the general elections, after 11 years of trying. It won 123 seats (28,70%) while it had 85 in the previous legislature. With this result, Pedro Sanchez is the only one that is able to form a majority to govern. Social-democracy, which had returned to power with the motion of censure against Mariano Rajoy, is ready to continue its residence in La Moncloa. In the Senate, the triumph of the PSOE was also broad.
It is a resurgence from the ashes, in which the two-party system has recovered one of its legs, at least temporarily; After all, the electoral system is designed for the bipartisanship of the PP-PSOE. More than by its own merit, a large sector voted the PSOE as the “lesser evil”. Warning against the ghost of the nationalist right and posing itself as the best “progressive” and “dialogist” tool possible worked for the PSOE.
Unidos Podemos had 71 representatives and fell to 42. This means a significant setback of 1,300,000 votes, which confirms the crisis in its drift into adaptation to the regime, the limits of capitalism and the mandates of the PSOE. Nonetheless, this result constitutes a comeback from where they were before 28A. The televised debates allowed Pablo Iglesias to recover a little and continue in the race with his policy of being part of the PSOE government. In his first post-electoral intervention, he commented on his dialogue with Sánchez: “this is a sufficient result to build a government of a coalition of the left”.
Beyond the contradictions of the election, the “trio of Colón”, Casado-Rivera-Abascal, bit the dust and cannot form a government, which is satisfactory. The PP sank, went from 135 seats to 66 (16.68%). It lost more than 3,500,000 million votes, fell in his Galician stronghold, obtained a single deputy in Catalonia and lost all representation in the Basque Country.
The short leadership of Pablo Casado received a blow. In his after election assessment, he accused Ciudadanos and VOX for the division and defeat. He “forgot” about the population’s being fed up after so many years of corrupt and undemocratic governments that applied several austerity plans. What will happen to the party of Aznar, Rajoy and others? Who knows. The dustbin of history would be a good destiny.
Ciudadanos is the right wing organization that is in the race to occupy the space of the PP, which lost many votes to it. Albert Rivera´s followers celebrated winning of 57 seats (15.84%), 25 more than they had, leaving only 9 PP deputies and facing the possibility of leading the opposition since, according to their leaders, “there will be no government with Sanchez.”
With the emergence of VOX in the Parliament, Spain has ceased to be one of the relatively important countries that did not have the far right in its institutions. The fascists led by Santiago Abascal went from 0 to 24 deputies. Though far from the figures assigned by the media and with little capacity to influence in a decisive way, they define the result as the “beginning of the reconquest”. This group has also capitalized on the loss of votes of the PP.
ERC obtained 15 seats with a significant increase, JxCat fell to 7, the PNV rose to 6 and Bildu doubled, with 4 deputies. In “Resultados 28A” you can find the detail of the election results by region, party and House, in addition to the comparison with the previous elections. The upcoming municipal elections and the European Parliament elections that will be held on May 26th will reconfigure the political map of the coming years.
These figures are what the press reflects as the “triumph of the left bloc”, with 18 deputies more than the “fragmented right”. The majority of the people feel a bittersweet taste: on one hand, the satisfaction of having prevented the “Trío de Colón” from winning and, on the other, the sour taste of the results of VOX.
Thus, the PSOE is the only one that is almost able to form a government. Through the first statements of current vice president Carmen Calvo they warned that “the PSOE will attempt to form a government alone,” though there would be “no problem” in agreeing with Podemos. This last variant would tally 165 deputies, while they need 176 to obtain an absolute majority, an objective that could be achieved with the support of the PNV or another formation.
Another option is negotiating with Ciudadanos, reaching 180 seats. In this sense, the same night of the celebration at the headquarters of the PSOE, the militants sang repeatedly “Not with Rivera, not with Rivera”. To which Sanchez responded with an evasive: “The Spanish clearly want the PSOE to govern and lead the country”. All this referred to the first round of investiture in Parliament because, if it fails, there will be a second round, which is defined with a simple majority. Those involved already announced that negotiations will take time and the PSOE will not decide before the municipal and European elections of 26M.
A victory of the PSOE and one of the right and the ultra right are not the same, it would be a mistake to ignore this reality. It would also be a mistake to believe that the new government is going to bring the basic changes that the majorities need. None of the involved parties intends to end the regime of ’78 and open a democratic debate to call for a constituent assembly in which workers and the people can participate and decide whether or not to keep the monarchy, the institutions molded by the Franco regime and the transition, if they want to continue in the European Union of the troika, the banks and the austerity plans, or annul the labor reforms and recover lost conquests, if they want the freedom of oppressed peoples or continue being their jailer. Not to mention a government that really is of the workers and the people.
No blank check should be given to Sánchez and his deceptive “double discourse”: progressive, leftist and dialogist on one hand, while the other holds unfulfilled promises, servility to IBEX 35, the regime of ’78 and the capitalist system. No trust should be given to the parties that are running as possible government partners, in any of its variants.
Reality has opened a great political debate, whose correlation is the growth of participation by 9% in the whole of Spain and double in Catalonia. A sector has left its indifference behind, debated, gotten involved and voted with the tools they found at hand in the absence of a revolutionary leadership with mass influence.
Women played a leading role, mainly against the fascists that are popping up. They were the first to mobilize in Andalusia, rejecting patriarchal machismo and boycotting VOX in every place they presented themselves, as they did in their closing ceremony in Madrid.
The open political debate, the growing participation and the perspective of struggles for the needs of the workers and the people; all these reaffirm the opportunity and the strategic need to build something new: an anti-capitalist, internationalist left alternative with progressive social, cultural and political organizations, with feminist collectives, with the youth and coherent workers in the struggle to turn everything upside down, as our international organization, the Anticapitalist Network, proposes.
SOL- Spanish State