In at the deep end

IT’S widely accepted that expats don’t want to know about Spanish politics. 

There is also a Spanish saying which translates roughly as “If you don’t like soup, you get two bowls” and Brits are now on their second helping, following the May 28 municipal elections in which they were allowed to vote.

Next up is a snap general election on July 23 where they don’t get a say, but whether they’re interested or not the results are going to affect them, however tangentially.

So let’s throw you in at the deep end, with some facts and figures.

If Spain’s general election had been held on June 29, the Partido Popular (PP) would have received 33 per cent of the vote, occupying 139 seats in the national parliament.

Add the 41 seats that the Datos RTVE poll assigned to Vox, and Spain’s Right would have comfortably exceeded the 176 seats needed for an overall majority.

The Left, currently in power, would limp home with 101 seats for the PSOE and 38 for Sumar.

Anything can happen between now and July 23 and statistics can shift one way or another, making a different pattern with the shapes in the kaleidoscope. As a British PM once said, a week is a long time in politics, and the same could be said for three hot summer weeks in Spain.

My word!

IT was a foregone conclusion that PP and Vox would create alliances to take over town halls and autonomous governments following the municipal and regional elections.

Vox, naturally enough, wants something in return in the shape of a modicum of power in the autonomous regions and local councils it has helped to bring to power.

This is causing friction amongst some – but not all – PP voters owing to Vox’s anti-immigration, anti-LGTB, anti-abortion and anti-EU views, plus its insistence on referring to inter-family violence instead of sexist violence.

It came to a head when Maria Guardiola (PP) needed Vox’s support to become regional president of  Extremadura.

She declared that she would not govern with “those who denied gender-based violence, dehumanised immigrants and threw the LGBTI flag into the rubbish bin”, preferring to hold another election rather than pact with Vox.

Although many openly or silently cheered her, while the Left took vicarious pleasure in the PP’s discomfort, neither the party nor the majority of its Extremadura voters felt the same way.

Guardiola was allowing the chance to govern the region for the first time in eight years to slip through her fingers, and pressure was applied from the PP’s Madrid headquarters.

On June 30, she announced that Vox could, after all, enter the regional government and  Angel Pelayo Gordillo would head the Forestry and Rural Affairs departments.

“My word is less important than the future of Extremadura,” Guardiola said.  “I suppose many people will be disappointed. I understand and accept that.”

“My principles are the same. I do not assume the postulates of Vox and Vox does not assume those of the PP,” she added.