Feijóo comes out reinforced to contest the presidency, while Sánchez will have to reorient his strategy after the failure of the campaign
Vox becomes essential for the PP to govern in many places, Cs disappears and Podemos and Sumar have suffered a serious defeat
The Popular Party has led a reversal in today’s municipal elections, winning the PSOE by nearly 750,000 votes and recovering six autonomous communities, including the emblematic Valencian Community. The new political map is a great triumph for the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo and places him in a great situation to challenge Pedro Sánchez for the presidency in the general elections in 6 months.
The head of the Executive, for his part, will have to reorient his strategy after the failure of the campaign, while Vox has become essential for the popular to govern in many places. Ciudadanos disappears and Podemos and Sumar have suffered a serious defeat.
Pedro Sánchez emerges weakened from these elections to face the general elections. He attempted an advertising campaign that he later approved in the Council of Ministers, to measure himself against the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who had been rising in the polls since he became president of the PP.
But the result has not been what he expected and he has lost important fiefdoms, including the jewel in the crown, the Valencian Community, as well as Aragon, the Balearic Islands, La Rioja and probably least expected of all, the Government of Extremadura.
It is foreseeable that the Canary Islands will join them, since the Canary Islands Coalition joins both the PSOE and the PP to govern and its president Fernando Clavijo, has already proclaimed that the Canary Islands “want change”. In Navarra, the Socialists have maintained their support but Bildu has risen and Geroa Bai has fallen, with whom they will have to understand to form a government.
Of the ‘barons’ that have been examined today, the only one who has resisted has been the president of Castilla La Mancha, Emiliano García Page, one of those who had most opposed the landing of Sánchez in his territory and has most criticized the pacts with Bildu and with the independentistas. Today, some leaders lamented that the campaign has gone national.
The PSOE has not only left the Government of at least five CCAA, but its municipal power has been seriously touched, after losing the municipal ones. It has fallen to second place with 413,236 votes less than four years ago (with 99.84 percent counted) and has not managed to be the first force in Barcelona, ??a city that Pedro Sánchez aspired to and in which Pedro Sánchez has devoted himself, in addition to losing the mayors of Seville, Palma and Valladolid, among others.
PP WINS IN MUNICIPAL AND 6 AUTONOMOUS GOVERNMENTS.
The president of the Popular Party, for his part, comes out reinforced for the general elections after achieving the objectives he had set. In the first place, to win the municipal elections, being the first that the PP wins in 8 years and secondly, to win the Valencian Community, as the first step to win the general elections in December, as well as Aragon, the Balearic Islands, La Rioja, Cantabria and , with 96 percent scrutinized, also Extremadura. All this added to the absolute majority of Ayuso in the Community of Madrid.
Today, the PP has turned around the results of 2019, in which the PSOE got 1.5 million votes from them. Now, Feijóo’s party has garnered more than 7 million votes, compared to 6.18 million for the PSOE, which gives it an advantage of almost 750,000 support. With 98.26 percent of the votes counted, the advantage of the ‘popular’ is 3.39 points over the Socialists.
In other words, those of Feijóo have managed to add 2.25 million votes to their 2019 results, after absorbing a good part of Ciudadanos, which practically disappears from the regional parliaments and from most of the consistories.
Some results that reinforce the position of the PP just half a year after the general elections were held and that clearly indicate a change in the cycle, which had already been taking place since the regional elections in Madrid, when Isabel Díaz Ayuso swept and almost achieved an absolute majority in 2021, and with the overwhelming victory of Juan Manuel Moreno in Andalusia a year ago.
On this occasion, in addition to achieving an absolute majority in the city of Madrid, which will prevent Almeida from depending on Vox to govern, the popular ones have managed to be the first force in 28 provincial capitals and, what is more important, they have achieved key positions such as Valencia, Seville, Valladolid or Palma de Mallorca, maintaining the government of others such as Malaga and Zaragoza, becoming the party that governs a large part of the country’s large cities.
In the case of Andalusia, it is the first force in all the capitals except Jaén and has achieved an absolute majority in Cádiz; It has also placed first in the three Valencian capitals, the two in Extremadura, and in Albacete, Ciudad Real and Toledo.
VOX, THIRD FORCE AND DECISIVE IN 18 CAPITALS
Of course, in some of them it must have the support of Vox, which has positioned itself as the third force in these elections, occupying the position that Ciudadanos achieved in 2019, with 1.59 million votes, 7.2 percent compared to to 3.56 four years ago.
Which leaves Abascal’s party in a strong position in the face of the generals to achieve the objective they have set themselves of being decisive in the Government of Spain as well.
At the moment, it has become decisive in the six autonomies that the PP will be able to govern with its support, since it has increased seats in all of them, in some, such as Extremadura and the Balearic Islands, it has won 5 seats.
It will also be to add absolute majorities in 18 provincial capitals. In Andalusia, the PP will need him to be elected in the first round in Seville, Huelva and Córdoba. In the case of Castilla La Mancha, they will be necessary in Toledo, Guadalajara and Ciudad Real. In addition to Cáceres; Valencia, Castellón and Alicante, the three provinces of the Valencian Community; and in Segovia, Valladolid and Burgos in Castilla y León.
There would also be a majority of PP-Vox in the Oviedo City Council; in those of Huesca and Zaragoza in Aragon; and in the Palma City Council, in the Balearic Islands, where it went from zero seats in 2019 to seven in these elections.
WE CAN KEEP BLEEDING OUT.
In the case of the purple ones, they have continued to bleed to death in all the territories, with which both the leaders of Podemos and Yolanda Díaz herself will arrive depleted of strength to launch the SUMAR platform that the vice president intends for the generals.
The division within Podemos with a two-headed campaign between Belarra and Díaz has once again taken its toll on the purple formation, which has not achieved any of its objectives, among which were to be decisive in some City Councils and CCAAs.
It has been left out of the Community of Madrid and the Valencian Community, it has lost power in the executives of the Balearic Islands and Aragon –remaining almost testimonially in their parliaments– and it has not managed to enter the parliaments of Castilla La Mancha or Cantabria as they had proposed.
As for the municipal ones, the support of Yolanda Díaz has not served for Colau to revalidate the mayoralty of Barcelona and neither for the Compromís candidate to do the same in Valencia. Two candidates who support the Vice President’s Sumar project. And furthermore, its weakness in Andalusia has led to the loss for the PSOE of the Seville mayor’s office.
ERC LOSES FELL AND BILDU WINS IT
Today has not been a good day for ERC either, which has lost almost 305,000 votes and has gone from 829,005 to 524,244 supports in Catalonia, losing numerous councilors. In Barcelona, ??Ernest Maragall’s candidacy went from 10 to 5 councillors, making him the fourth force in the consistory. On the contrary, EH Bildu has had historic results.
