Partido Popular signs governing pact with far-right

Partido Popular (PP/EPP) leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has changed his narrative as the centre-right formation has signed pacts with the far-right Vox (ECR) in several regions, implicitly accepting its radical political principles, which include setbacks in women’s rights and social policies.

For the next four years, the PP will govern in 30 of the 50 Spanish provincial capitals – it obtained an absolute majority in 14 – and the socialist party (PSOE) in ten, EURACTIV’s partner EFE reported.

Feijóo, whom many analysts praised a year ago for his moderate and conciliatory tone, claimed until recently that he would prefer not to make a pact with Vox and would feel uncomfortable with that party at his side.

“I do not share Vox’s discourse”, “sometimes it is better to lose the government than to win from populism”, or “they (Vox) have never managed a single public euro in their lives” are some of Feijóo´s recent expressions, Spanish media reported.

After the crushing defeat of the socialist party and its junior coalition partner Unidas Podemos in the regional and municipal elections on 28 May, the PP’s discourse has been moving faster and faster towards that of Vox, with which the PP will govern in many regions, including the strategic Valencian Community (East).

After the May elections, Spain’s regional and municipal political map will change profoundly. According to some polls and analysts, this may be the prologue to what could be repeated at the national level in the general elections on 23 July, with a hypothetical PP-Vox coalition government.

Confronted with that possibility, on Sunday, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (PSOE/S&D) warned that there is something “much more dangerous than Vox”, and that is a PP that assumes its “premises and policies”.

In an exclusive interview published Sunday in El País, Sánchez said that Spaniards now have the information they did not have before: “PP and Vox already unambiguously assume that they have to govern in a coalition.”

The Community of Andalusia has ceased to be a bastion of the PSOE, which had dominated it for almost 40 years before it passed into the hands of the PP in several big cities, including Seville.

The PP has tripled its regional strength compared to the previous elections in 2019 and has so far signed agreements with Vox in six provincial capitals, while the socialists have lost more than half of the city councils they held four years ago, although they have had a pleasant surprise in Barcelona.

Asymmetric ‘cordons sanitaires’ and cross vetoes

The latest elections have provoked a strategy of asymmetric ‘cross vetoes’ or ‘cordons sanitaires’, with some municipalities blocking the entry of Vox, while others have put emergency brakes on the entry of pro-independence forces into local governments.

A case in point is Catalonia, one of Spain’s most prosperous regions. Last weekend a historic agreement was reached whereby the socialist Jaume Collboni (PSC) will become mayor of the Catalan city thanks to the support of the PP and Catalunya en Comú, a left-wing party that is nationalist but not pro-independence.

The PP-PSOE-Catalunya en Comú alliance has prevented the pro-independence candidate Xavier Trias from governing the city together with the Catalan separatist Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), a force that Pedro Sánchez has relied on to govern in Madrid together with other pro-independence formations in Parliament.

Another example is the Basque Country, where the PP has given its votes to the PSOE in the city of Vitoria, and in five other city councils, it has offered them to the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) to prevent the separatist EH Bildu, which recently generated bitter controversy for having added 44 former members of former terrorist group ETA on its local election lists, from entering government.

The PP rolls out a ‘red carpet’ for Vox

Apart from the reciprocal blockades, the toughest political debate focuses on the PP-Vox regional pacts due to the repercussions they could have in the general elections if the PSOE fails to join forces with the new progressive platform Sumar led by the current minister of labour, Yolanda Díaz.

The PP’s progressive rapprochement with Vox means that the centre-right party, which already governs with Vox, amid controversy, in the community of Castilla y León, has had to accept some of the radical political principles of the far-right party, currently the third largest force in Spain.

In an ironic tone, Economy Minister Nadia Calviño said last week that the PP “has gone from drawing red lines (to govern with Vox) to rolling out the red carpet” to the far-right party led by Santiago Abascal, a friend of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and close ally of Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.

Dismantling equality policies

One of the most sensitive issues is Vox’s stance on gender equality policies implemented by the progressive coalition government PSOE-Unidas Podemos. Its government programme includes eliminating or reducing such policies, defended by controversial Equality Minister Irene Montero.

Last week, José María Llanos, Vox’s deputy in the regional parliament of the Community of Valencia, assured the Spanish public broadcaster RTVE that “gender violence does not exist, male violence does not exist.”

However, data shows that the number of victims of gender violence in Spain increased by 8.3% in 2022, to 32,644, according to recent data from the National Statistics Institute (INE), which includes acts of physical or psychological violence in its register. According to the INE, 49 women were killed by gender violence in 2022.

Llano’s controversial words are a clear example that for the PP, Vox may be, in the run-up to 23 July, a very uncomfortable travelling companion, a hefty burden in its rucksack, but the price it will have to pay to “oust” Sánchez from the government: PP’s ultimate ambition.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es)