For the first time since July’s snap elections, the centre-right Partido Popular (EPP) could govern Spain with an absolute majority if new elections were held today, a poll by 40dB for El País and private radio station Cadena SER revealed on Monday.
The poll shows that the vast majority of respondents (60%) reject an amnesty law negotiated between PSOE and Catalan separatists that would benefit those involved in the 2017 secessionist attempt in Catalonia.
The law was pushed forward by the socialist PSOE party to be able to form a majority government but was firmly opposed by centre-right Partido Popular, the main opposition party.
But Sánchez’s drop in the polls has been happening since he took the prime minister’s office for the third time in 2018, with PP and Vox having gathered greater voter support, according to the 40dB poll.
And since the elections on 23 July, support for the PP has grown steadily, and if elections were held today, 35% of the electorate would vote for the conservative party, which would not only represent an increase of almost two percentage points since July but would also give it 147 seats – 10 more than now.
As for Vox, it would continue to be the third force in parliament, with 11.5% of the vote and 30 deputies, three fewer seats compared with the previous election, followed by Sumar, which would keep its position as the fourth strongest party in the Spanish chamber.
Dissatisfaction among PSOE’s more moderate voters
Adding a seat from the regional party Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN), the right-wing block (PP-Vox) would gain 178 seats, two more than the absolute majority set at 176 seats out of 350, the poll revealed.
If new general elections were held today, PSOE would gather 30.5% of the vote and 119 MPs, 1.2 points less and two seats less compared to the results from 23 July.
According to 40dB analysts, PSOE’s biggest losses came from its centre-left political wing, whose voters consider the future amnesty law to be “unfair” and a “privilege” and do not believe in Sánchez betting on dialogue and reconciliation to try to close old wounds between Madrid and Catalonia.
“The right-wing (PP and Vox) always looks for excuses to obstruct noble aims such as coexistence and territorial disputes. The amnesty is not being processed in a vacuum but in a concrete context with two dimensions: a global dimension, with the advance of the far-right in the world, and the other (dimension) is to see if, with the progressive government, we could come closer and improve coexistence in Catalonia”, Sánchez told Cadena SER on Monday.
The controversial amnesty law only received a sound “yes” in the 40dB survey from the Sumar voters and the Catalan separatist formations on whose support the stability of the government depends: the right-wing party Together for Catalonia (JxCat) and the left-wing separatist formation Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC).
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)
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