Regional Elections, Right?

The regional elections in Castilla y León are upon us, with voting due on Sunday February 13th. The likely winner will be the current president of the autonomy Alfonso Fernández Mañueco and his party, the PP. However, he will almost certainly need the support of a second party as he did back in 2019 with Ciudadanos.

This election was precipitously called just after the Ciudadanos councillors were ejected from the government by Mañueco, so he certainly won’t be planning to rely on that party. Furthermore, generally speaking, Ciudadanos is currently melting faster than snow on a hotplate.

Mañueco’s only likely ally following the election returns will be Vox – and what will be their price?

Vox is something of a dark horse. We know that it is far-right, or fascist, or Nazi (I’m misquoting a judge here), but it is bringing in around 20% of the vote at the present time. The only way to lower that is to move the Partido Popular further to the right, banning abortions, gay marriage and euthanasia and maybe even ‘tourism from other races’ (here). They would also need to support bullfighting, hunting, the armed forces and religious lessons in school – nothing too harsh, but gentle signs on the road towards extremism.

Pablo Casado visits a cow

The results in 2019 in Castilla y León – an area of nine provinces (the largest region in Spain) which holds the cities of Burgos, Salamanca and Valladolid – gave the PSOE 35, the PP 29 and C’s 13. Vox got just one seat. Current projections give the PSOE 27 and the PP 36. Ciudadanos might get 1, Unidas Podemos maybe 3 and Vox appears to be standing at 10. All the latest poll results are at Wiki here.

A further wrinkle in the region is the brand new party that represents – or claims to – the empty forgotten bits of the countryside: the España Vaciada.

Nationally, the single-province version of the Forgotten Spain, Teruel Existe, supports the PSOE/IU Government.

Following from a supposed PP/Vox victory, we would then expect something similar in Andalucía this summer, possibly with a modest Ciudadanos presence (the date hasn’t been set, but it could be as early as May). How would the national government, and indeed the Spanish people, react to such a couple of major wins for the right, righter and rightest?