Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he was optimistic about regaining regional power in Galicia with a first round in 2024 against his Popular Party (PP/EPP) rivals scheduled for 18 February after his party PSOE lost in last year’s local elections.
The latest polls suggest that the PP will obtain its fifth absolute majority in Galicia and that the PSOE will come third.
“A full ballot box, sure change, so vote next February 18 for that change led by José Ramón Gómez Besteiro (the PSOE candidate in Galicia)”, Sánchez said on Sunday in his closing speech at the PSOE convention that began last Friday in La Coruña (Galicia), where the party’s priorities for the coming years were set, Euractiv´s partner EFE reported.
Since the transition to democracy in Spain after the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in the late 1970s, Galicia has been an electoral fiefdom of the right, first with the defunct Alianza Popular (AP) party and then with the PP.
This year is marked by crucial elections in Spain: in Galicia, in the Basque Country (northeast), still without a specific date, although 21 April is being considered, also possibly in Catalonia (northeast), and the elections to the European Parliament in June.
PSOE sources told EFE on Sunday that they have a good feeling about the elections in Galicia and the Basque Country but admit their uncertainty ahead of the European elections on 9 June, an election the party considers crucial to halt the “worrying advance of reactionary forces” and the far-right in Europe.
In his speech, Sánchez called on PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, head of the centre-right opposition in parliament, to abandon his regional alliances with the far-right Vox party, the third largest force in the Spanish Chamber.
“I ask Mr Feijóo to rectify his alliances with (Vox leader Santiago) Abascal and to open up to major national agreements for the benefit of the Spanish social majority, our hand is outstretched”, the PM stressed.
The PSOE’s goal in Galicia is to approach the 29% of votes it gathered in that region in the national elections of 23 July, which were won by Alberto Núñez Feijóo (former president of the Xunta), although he was unable to govern because he felt short of the absolute majority.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)
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Source: euractiv.com
