Centre-right party Partido Popular (PP) will try to avoid forming a coalition with the far-right party VOX as it would be very difficult to govern alongside them, PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo said ahead of the general election set to be held at the end of the year.
“Coalitions between PP and VOX can be avoided, and I will certainly try to do so; I will avoid them”, Nuñez Feijóo said in an interview with Cope radio, where he unveiled some of his party’s targets for the new year, with two key elections on the agenda.
“(…) It is better to have a government alone with the PP than with VOX (…) but as far as it depends on me, I will try to have a government on my own”, he added.
A fresh poll released on Monday by private radio station Cadena SER and El País revealed that if elections were held today, the PP would obtain 28.9% in voting intention, 7.9 points more than in the general election held in November 2019.
According to the poll, PSOE, the governing socialist party of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, would lose almost nine-tenths of a percentage point in voting intention compared to a previous SER and El País survey. The PP now leads the polls with two points above PSOE.
In terms of seats, PP’s advantage has increased from eight to 13, with the socialists losing three seats (109) and the PP gaining two (122), the poll revealed.
Since the 2019 general election, in which the PP obtained their worst electoral result (89 seats), the conservative party would have gained 33 seats, the barometer shows.
Meanwhile, VOX is currently the third political force in parliament.
In March 2022, Vox entered for the first time a Spanish regional government, in Castilla y León, Europe’s largest region.
In case the PP wins the December election, the centre-right formation would try to form a “solo” government but is open to holding talks with all the parties “that have received the fewest votes”. And if they fall “just short” of an absolute majority, the PP would seek a “legislative pact”, that is, external support to govern, Núñez Feijóo stressed.
The leader of the PP pointed out that he would seek the support of VOX voters, because according to the polls, with a unified centre-right, both parties would have reached an absolute majority.
If elections were held today, PP and VOX would have a combined result that exceeds 45%, a percentage with which former Spanish Prime Ministers José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy (PP) governed alone, he recalled.
Spain will hold its municipal elections in May, which many believe will be the first litmus test for socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s governing coalition with left-wing Unidas Podemos (Gue-NGL).
After that, the parties will have to face the general election set for December.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es)
Source: euractiv.com
