The November 10 elections have not ended the political uncertainty. The rise of VOX is bad news. Profound changes are needed.
On Sunday we voted once again and the population’s weariness left its mark with participation falling from 75.76 to 69.88%. With the final results (1), the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) triumphed again, but lost almost 800,000 votes (7.5 to 6.7 million), three seats and the absolute majority in the Senate. United We Can (UP) took 3,097,185 votes, falling by more than half a million votes and losing seven seats.
The “Trifacho” has not become a majority and there have been modifications inside. The Popular Party (PP) had a partial improvement, since it has advanced from 4.3 to 5 million votes (66 to 88 seats); while it had 137 deputies with Mariano Rajoy in the presidency. Citizens (Cs) fell sharply. It lost more than two and a half million votes and 47 seats, leading to Albert Rivera, its main leader, resigning from all his positions and retiring from politics. Thus, the phenomenon of the recycled right that was until a few months ago the most dynamic, has sunk in the middle of an erratically reactionary policy. The ultranationalists of VOX, who obtained their first institutional representation in Andalusia eleven months ago, jumped from 2.6 to 3.6 million votes, which meant that they passed from 24 to 52 seats and became the third force in Congress. It is a bad sign, which will surely sharpen a response from the most combative and democratic sectors.
In Catalonia, the pro independence sectors continued to grow by registering 42% of the votes, four points more than in April, which demonstrates the vitality of the process for self-determination and freedom of political prisoners. The distribution of deputies is as follows: Catalonian Republican Left (ERC) 13, (Socialist Party of Catalonia) PSC-PSOE 12, (Together for Catalonia) JxCat 8, UP 7, PP 2, (Popular Unity Candidacy) CUP 2, VOX 2 and Cs 2. We highlight as a very positive step that the CUP has appeared for the first time in national Spanish elections and has obtained two deputies: comrade Mireia Vehí and comrade Albert Botrán. From Socialism and Freedom (SOL) we have been part of the CUP campaign to be “ungovernable” also in “the heart of the beast.”
The role of reformism
Repeated elections have been the result of government and regime crises. With the failure of Pedro Sánchez´s investiture, social democracy bet on a new election, calling on Spaniards to “speak more clearly”, alluding to obtaining more votes to govern alone. They relied on eventual extra support for the exhumation of the dictator Franco from the Valley of the Fallen and adding votes from the Cs debacle, but it did not turn out as expected. The “miscalculation” forces them to resume negotiations to form a government in worse conditions than before.
Pablo Iglesias and his partners also paid the price of plunging into an adaptation to the regime that will deepen if they form a bourgeois government with the PSOE. Purple (Podemos-UP) leaders are generating a great disappointment in broad social sectors that considered them a different alternative to old politics.
Normalizing the extreme right
There are those who cynically argue that VOX has grown in response to the Catalan demand. The truth is that there is a social sector that communes with Franco and the monarchy, with repression, xenophobia and homophobia and, as a consequence, finds affinity with the VOX message. Those led by Santiago Abascal are also mounted on people´s unsatisfied needs and false patriotic consciences. However, the magnitude of VOX´s rapid growth is increased by the attitude of those who call themselves “democratic” but normalize the presence of the extreme right. The Supreme Court allowed VOX leaders to develop the role of popular accusation in the show trial of the independence leaders. Though they all dispute a common space, the PP and Citizens catapulted VOX, by ruling in coalition with them in Madrid and Andalusia.
Social democracy and the center-left cannot wash their hands. They use VOX to polarize, scare people and win votes in that way, when they should focus on defeating them in the streets and close them off from all political and social spheres. VOX also found dissemination in some mass media, who compromise their elementary antifascist dignity in order to increase their audience.
Investiture, act II
Post elections, the negotiation circuit resets. On Tuesday afternoon, just 24 hours after the elections, the PSOE announced the signing of a pre-agreement with UP, to “unlock the government.” They do so in order to reassure the regime, the markets and the European Union.
For its part, the right-wing block does not offer the possibility of forming a government. There may be crossed supports and/or abstentions, nobody knows how this new investiture chapter can end. What is clear is that no force that calls itself of the left or progressive should support the investiture of Pedro Sánchez or any other presidential candidate of the regime and the capitalist system.
Today it is clear that a government crossed by contradictions will emerge, a government of support of the unity of Spain and obedient to the impositions of the Troika. It will be a government of double speak, because those who, until a few months ago spoke against the caste, today wash the face of the PSOE, yielding to its program and the interests of the regime. Faced with this situation, the allies of UP of the United Left (IU) have already said that they will unconditionally support the PSOE-UP government and show satisfaction in agreeing with the regime. One question remains, what will Anticapitalists do?
They are playing with fire as social weariness increases and, seeing the riots in Ecuador, Chile, Hong Kong and other parts of the world, it is shown that the irruptions of the mass movement do not come with prior notice. And the situation in Catalonia does not seem to bring them peace of mind on the horizon.
A regime in crisis and exhausted
The monarchist-parliamentary institutions inherited from Franco are anti-democratic and anti-workers. With the Constitution of ’78 in hand, they have allowed the institutionalization of a party that is against human, democratic and social rights, which deploys its hatred against the poor, immigrants, progressive youth, women and LGBT people. We are in the presence of exhausted and anachronistic institutions that have nothing to do with a “consolidated democracy”. That applies the Gag Law, cuts funding for education and health care, makes housing and employment unattainable, applies austerity, endorses disastrous labor reforms and miserable pensions. The fundamental problems will not be solved by simply changing the president: everything must be turned around, with a free and sovereign constituent assembly to debate and decide everything democratically.
Meanwhile, the sentence condemning political prisoners has generated a revolt in Catalonia with permanent mobilization, massive disobedience, general strikes and resistance to police repression; with the youth, the CDRs (Committees for the Defense of the Republic) and other social groups in the front line. The calls by Democratic Tsunami have collapsed the El Prat Airport, they launched massive days of “reflection” on November 9 and have cut the border road with France in La Jonquera and El Perthus. There will be new actions that we call to support internationally.
A triumph of Catalan self-determination over the regime would be immensely progressive, though insufficient; revolutionary socialists will continue to push farther. We mobilize for democratic conquests as an indispensable step in the strategy of breaking with the imperialist bloc of the EU, satisfying the social needs of work, health care, housing and education to qualitatively improve the living conditions of the great majority in the Spanish State. In short, we fight for the strategy of a government of the workers and the people and a free Federation of Socialist Republics of the Iberian Peninsula.
Rubén Tzanoff, SOL Spanish State
1. https://resultados.elpais.com/elecciones/generales.html