Spanish acting Prime Minister and Socialist leader Pedro Sánchez will face centre-right opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo in their first TV debate on Monday night in a highly polarised political campaign, two weeks before the country’s general elections.
The dialectical confrontation between the two has generated enormous expectations, while analysts wonder whether Sánchez’s media appeal and fluent oratory will be able to change the latest dire predictions for the left camp, which point to a PP victory, albeit without an absolute majority of seats (176, out of a total of 350), which would force it to pact with the far-right Vox party (ECR).
The Spanish media popularly call this TV debate a “cara a cara”: a duel exclusively between the two aspiring heads of government, EURACTIV´s partner EFE reported.
The PP would win around 140 seats in the general election and could govern with a majority if it concludes a pact with Vox, even though the far-right party would obtain between 32 and 39 deputies, compared to the current 52 (it is the third force in Spain), according to an Ipsos poll for La Vanguardia, published Sunday.
Another poll by ABC published Sunday also predicts a victory for the PP, which would win in 43 Spanish provinces, that is, in 83 % of the constituencies. Meanwhile, the PSOE would be the most-voted force in only five.
The official election campaign began Friday, 7 July, marked by polarisation and confrontation between the two main blocs, that of the centre-left PSOE and the new progressive platform Sumar, and that of the PP with the far-right Vox party.
The PP and Vox want to “oust” Sánchez and erase any trace of his policies, while PSOE and Sumar aspire to maintain the power they have held for the past four years in their coalition between PSOE and Unidas Podemos (EU Left).
Abolishing “Sanchismo” or allowing Vox’s “Trumpismo”
Núñez Feijóo speaks openly of “repealing Sanchismo (Sánche´z “personalist” way of ruling and his policies)” and has even announced in his electoral programme that he wants to repeal some of the laws approved by the coalition government, many of them of a social nature, and others related to sensitive issues such as the Catalan political “hot potato”.
Sánchez warns that an alliance PP-Vox, as both have done at the regional and municipal levels, will cause Spain to fall into “Trumpism”, alluding to the populism of former US President Donald Trump, for example with the denial of climate change, his xenophobic attitudes, or his ultraconservative views on women’s rights.
The debate, organised by media group AtresMedia, will begin at 22:00 and will have four main themes: economy, social policy and equality, pacts and governability and state, institutional and international policy.
Of the four thematic blocs, Sánchez will open the first and close the last, while Núñez Feijóo will begin the second and third blocs.
This single debate has been possible thanks to intense negotiations between the teams of both parties, and following the PP’s refusal to participate in another debate with four candidates, organised by RTVE and which will only be attended by Sánchez, the Employment Minister and Sumar candidate, Yolanda Díaz, and the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal.
This debate will be held on 19 July at 22.00 on RTVE between PSOE, Vox and Sumar leaders. Núñez Feijóo has refused to attend because, in the PP’s opinion, it is an “incomplete” and “uninteresting” debate.
In short, before the elections on 23 July, three electoral debates will be held in Spain. The fourth duel between the four main political leaders, organised by Prisa media group (publisher of El País) for 14 July, has had to be cancelled because neither the PP nor Vox have agreed to take part.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es)
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