Spain’s far-right Vox party has emerged as potential kingmakers in the May 17 regional election that took place in the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia.
The southernmost province of Spain, Andalusia is the country’s most populous region, and has previously been dominated by Spain’s governing Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) since the restoration of democracy in the 1970s.
This dominance was brought to an end in 2018, when the centre-right, conservative People’s Party (PP) came out on top.
The election held this month was one where the PP were expected to retain their majority, albeit only narrowly following a campaign dominated by issues around prominent failings in public health and rising unemployment.
Whilst they remain the largest party in Andalusia, the PP have now lost their absolute majority, meaning they may require the support of Vox to govern. The number of seats held by the PP in Andalusia fell from 58 to 53 – just two seats short of the 55 needed for a majority in the regional parliament – while the number of seats held by Vox rose to 15.
Vox is a right-wing, national conservative party founded in 2013, but has since 2019 risen to become Spain’s third-largest party.
Juan Manuel Moreno, Andalusian Regional President and leader of the People’s Party of Andalusia, had previously ruled out any kind of a deal with Vox, stating prior to the election that a government which included Vox would be an “impossible” one.
However, the PP has recently worked with the far-right in other regions such as Extremadura, Castilla y León, and Aragón. The PP had also previously worked with them in Andalusia under Moreno in 2018, prior to the PP gaining an absolute majority in 2022.
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Vox’s price for support
In previous deals made with the PP, Vox has pushed for greater controls of key regional departments, insisting that Spaniards should have automatic priority over foreigners in all allocations of resources for public aid and healthcare.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described this as “a kick to the constitution,” stating that such prioritisation was discriminatory and undermined the principle of equal treatment.
Since the election earlier this month, Moreno has insisted that the PP will still be able to govern on their own:
“We are the preferred choice of the Andalusians; we hold a resounding majority, and it would only make sense for us to govern on our own. We have won the elections in 75% of the towns and municipalities of Andalusia. I trust that there will be no deadlock and that we all act with responsibility,” he said on X.
Regardless, governing without an absolute majority would require abstentions from Vox, which commentators have described as “unlikely.”
The election in Andalusia also saw a historic blow to the fortunes of the PSOE, which recorded its worst-ever results in an area that had formerly been one of its key heartlands; the party gained just 28 seats, equating to around 22.7% of the vote.
A bellwether for Spain?
This comes just a year away from Spain’s next general election, when Sánchez and his PSOE-led government will be going up for reelection after nine years in office.
With the PP currently leading in the polls nationally – and with Vox in third place – various commentators have speculated as to whether the election in Andalusia could prove to be a reliable bellwether for how the national elections might go. Already, stakeholders within the PP have debated the degree to which they will collaborate with Vox – a prospect that has gained support from some on the right spectrum of the party.
This also comes just over a week after local and regional elections were held in the UK, where, similarly, the governing Labour Party lost a significant number of council seats, whilst large gains were made by the UK’s own right-wing populist party, Reform.
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With similar shifts also being seen in countries such as Denmark, the question is whether this might be a wider trend across Europe, increasingly farther from the old social democratic parties and towards populists on both the left and the right.
Featured image: Vox campaign closure in Seville.
Source: Santiago Abascal via X.
