Things Just Got Tricky (updated)

 Pablo Casado and candidate Alfonso Fernández Mañueco

The Castilla y León elections duly went forward on Sunday and the results were a victory for the right.

Or maybe, as we shall see, for the far-right.

The Partido Popular rose by two seats to 31 and the PSOE fell by seven to 28. The problem for the PP is that they can no longer count on a partnership with Ciudadanos (which has all but disappeared anyway with just one seat) and must therefore pact with Vox with its 13 seats. Andalucía’s president Juanma Moreno Bonilla will have taken note.

The focus is on Pablo Casado. His plan to push certain regional elections forward in the hope of showing his strength has backfired. His party rival Ayuso won Madrid handily, but the CyL election has driven some PP support towards Vox while other fringe parties have arrived on the stage (the various ‘regionalist’ groups and others took seven seats between them, mainly drained from the PSOE, with ¡Soria Ya! taking 40% of the vote in that province). In short, with hindsight, the election should never have been called.

The Vox leader in the region is 31 year old Juan García-Gallardo, known for his xenophobic and homophobic tweets. Will he be able to calm down and be – as his price for supporting the PP government in Valladolid – a useful vice-president? His two non-negotiable conditions: drop the ‘left-wing’ regional laws on gender violence and the decree on historic memory (to do with revealing excesses from the Franco regime). No call by Vox, it says here, for something a bit more practical – like more schoolteachers or doctors, or better roads or working conditions for farmers…

A poisoned chalice indeed. As we read here: ‘Sr Casado, you may now kiss the bride’.

With Vox finally in government as an acceptable partner of the PP, will those who stay at home on the left continue to do so in future elections?

About the only other choice for Mañueco is a minority government, with the other parties called on as necessary for specific points (on a quid pro quo basis, no doubt). Or maybe – ah… fresh elections?