Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez boosted his support during the final days of the election campaign to deny his right-wing opponents a majority in parliament.
(Bloomberg) — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez boosted his support during the final days of the election campaign to deny his right-wing opponents a majority in parliament.
While the center-right People’s Party won the most seats, with 136, the right-wing bloc got only 170 in total, with 96% of the ballots counted. Sanchez’s Socialists returned 122 deputies and, with a wider range of potential partners, could potentially muster 172 votes.
That result leaves neither one of the main parties able to reach the 176 votes needed for an outright majority in the 350-strong chamber and potentially leaves a Catalan separatist group with a key role to play.
Sanchez could squeak through in a vote of confidence if Junts per Catalunya chose to abstain but Spain is most likely heading for an extended period of gridlock.
“Sanchez, ever the political survivor, lives to fight another day,” Federico Santi, an analyst at Eurasia Group, said in an interview. “Neither the right nor the left have a clear path to a majority. Currently, the most logical conclusion seems to be repeat elections.”
PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo had looked set to oust the 51-year-old Socialist when a polling blackout began on Tuesday, with the final surveys suggesting the right-wing bloc would win as many as 180 seats.
Speaking from a stage outside the Socialists headquarters in Madrid, Sanchez said the right-wing bloc had been defeated.
“We had to decide whether to go forward or backward, as the PP was proposing,” he said, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt. “Those who want Spain to go forward are many more.
His supporters chanted “no pasaran” — “they shall not pass” — a republican slogan of resistance from Spain’s civil war.
JPMorgan analyst Marco Protopapa wrote in a note last week that an inconclusive result “could be the least market and growth friendly outcome for the additional uncertainty it would trigger.”
Across town, the mood was more subdued outside the PP’s offices as conservatives tried to put a brave face on a victory that fell short of their expectations. Vox’s leader Santiago Abascal accused the PP of complacency and said Sanchez is now in position to stay in power.
The shock result vindicates Sanchez’s high-risk decision to call an early election after his party was given a kicking by voters in May’s regional elections.
Sanchez has led an economic rebound that pushed employment to its highest ever and eased double-digit inflation. All the same, the surge in prices over the past two years have left Spaniards with one of the sharpest drops in real income in Europe and some people are struggling to repay mortgages as market rates surge.
The premier has promised relief to mortgage holders by extending home loan in order to reduce monthly payments.
Miriam Nogueras, a lawmaker for Junts, said the party will demand the returned of exiled Carles Puigdemont, the exiled former president of Catalonia who has been living in Belgium since the failed attempt to break away from Spain in 2017. The group will also ask for a referendum on independence, she said.
“We will not make Sanchez premier in exchange for nothing,” she said.
Sanchez and his advisers spent the final days of the campaign focused on persuading Socialist supporters to turn up at the polls. The prime minister gave a string of interviews, including with journalists who he had avoided for years for considering them too critical.
One driving force to mobilize hard-core voters turned out to be the former prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who spent days in rallies and doing interviews, convincing voters of the necessity to turn up to stop the right wing bloc from winning. Zapatero belongs to the more left-leaning side of the Socialist Party, and has strong ties with parts of Sumar, the far-left party that is set to be Sanchez’s coalition partner if he manages to govern again.
Sanchez’s surge also relied heavily on strong showings in Catalonia and Andalusia, the Socialist party’s two traditional core constituencies and the two most populous regions in Spain. The result in Andalusia was all the more surprising, as the party had been losing support there ever since being kicked out of government in early 2019. But on Sunday, the Socialists were neck-in-neck with the PP.
–With assistance from Macarena Muñoz.
(Updates with Sanchez quote in eighth paragraph)
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