Look Right, look Left

SPAIN, which was not due to hold a general election until December this year, will go to the polls on July 23.

Following dismal results for the governing PSOE and Unidas Podemos (UP) coalition in the May 28 local and regional elections, the president of  Spain’s government, Pedro Sanchez, announced the new date the following morning.

Which way will the Spanish vote?

Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Workers’ Socialist Party) Written and referred to as PSOE (pronounced pay-soee) it is Spain’s oldest political, founded in 1879 by Pablo Iglesias.

Middle-of-the road un-radical socialism, although the party shies away from mentioning or laying claims to being a centrist party.  It has been in government since June 1 2018 after a no-confidence vote defeated Partido Popular president Mariano Rajoy. In power thanks to an uneasy alliance between the PSOE and far-left UP, which itself is a coalition of the Izquierda Unida and Podemos parties.

Party logo: a fist clenched round a red rose.

Partido Popular (People’s Party) Written and referred to as PP (pronounced paypay), the Partido Popular dates back to 1989 as the result of a rebranded Alianza Popular, founded in 1977 to stand in Spain’s first democratic general elections.  Middle-of-the-road conservatism now headed by Alberto Nuñez Feijoo who was president of the Galicia region between 2009 and April 2022 when he took over as the PP’s president.  The PP was phenomenally successful in the May 28 municipal and regional elections, and now controls all but two of Spain’s regional governments and most of its important city halls.

Party log: a blue seagull.

As neither the PSOE nor the PP is likely to wake up on July 24 with an overall majority, Sanchez will have to look further to the Left and Feijoo to the Right if either is to form a government.

Sanchez already knows that he will have backing from

Sumar A coalition of 15 parties to the Left of the PSOE that was only registered on June 9.  Created by minister of Labour Yolanda Diaz, who belongs to Izquierda Unida and consistently overtakes Pedro Sanchez in popularity polls.

Feijoo will have no problem in enlisting the help of

Vox Formed in 2013 by Santiago Abascal, Vox  entered the Spanish parliament in 2019. It is old-school, anti-immigration, anti-LGTB, anti-abortion, anti-EU.  Although he knows Vox’s cooperation will be forthcoming, Feijoo also knows this could cloud the PP’s centre-right reputation and ambitions.