Vox sees its aspirations to enter the Government frustrated after losing 19 seats and not adding a majority with the PP

They suffer the greatest drop in deputies in CyL, the first CCAA where they entered to govern, and fall from first to third place in Murcia

MADRID, 24 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Vox has gone from euphoria to stupefaction this election night when it saw its aspirations to be essential for the formation of a new government that would evict Pedro Sánchez from the Moncloa Palace frustrated. Those of Santiago Abascal have lost 19 seats in Congress, from 52 to 33, and are far from adding an absolute majority with the Popular Party.

The formation attended these general elections as a "historic" appointment in which all its forecasts were considered essential for the PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo to be able to govern. However, the scrutiny of more than 99% leaves that possibility far away and what was announced as a party has given way to incredibility.

Vox called on its followers this afternoon to gather around its national headquarters, on Bambú street in Madrid, and announced music and celebration. However, the progress of the scrutiny has frozen the spirits and the supporters who have approached the venue watched the result on a giant screen installed for the occasion with a worried face.

Despite remaining the third parliamentary force, Vox has lost a third of its deputies, more than 600,000 votes (from 3.6 million in 2019 to 3 million) and the percentage has gone from 15.08 percent to 12.40 percent.

The fall has been widespread in most of the autonomous communities, although the greatest loss of seats has occurred in Castilla y León, the first place where they became part of a government in coalition with the PP. There they have lost five of their six deputies and only keep the one from Valladolid.

It also loses representation in the other two autonomies in which Vox has agreed with the 'popular' after the elections last May, Extremadura and the Valencian Community. In Extremadura, it has gone from two deputies to just one (it is left without the one from Cáceres) and in the Valencian Community it goes from seven to five (it maintains the one from Castellón and drops from three to two in Valencia and Alicante).

In Murcia, for its part, Vox has gone from three representatives in Congress to two seats. The party came in first place in the community in the 2019 elections and has now dropped to third place, in full conflict with the 'popular' for the formation of the regional Executive.

Another regional government still in the air after the 28M elections is that of Aragón, where Vox has managed to maintain the only seat it had for the province of Zaragoza. In the Balearic Islands, where there was also a PP-Vox pact, those of Santiago Abascal have lost one of their two deputies.

Meanwhile, Vox falls in Andalusia from twelve to nine seats, although it maintains representation in all its provinces, and in Castilla-La Mancha it goes from five deputies to three (it maintains those of Guadalajara and Ciudad Real, it goes from two to one in Toledo and loses that of Albacete).

Vox has also lost representation in Madrid, where it went from seven seats to five. This will allow the deputy secretary of Organization of Vox, María Ruiz, to sit in Congress; its spokesman the previous legislature, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros; Javier Ortega Smith and the hitherto senator Pepa Millán.

Ceuta is another place where Vox was in first place in 2019 and now it has also dropped to third position, remaining without a deputy and also without a senator.

Meanwhile, he manages to maintain the two deputies he obtained in Catalonia in the previous elections, both for the province of Barcelona. He also maintains the seat for Asturias, Cantabria and one for the Canary Islands. What he does not manage is to enter Congress for any of the Galician, Basque provinces and neither for Navarra nor La Rioja, the same as in 2019.

Vox's irruption into the Spanish political scene had its turning point in October 2018, when it managed to fill the Palacio de Vistalegre in Madrid in a massive event attended by more than 10,000 people. And that same year, in December, he made the great leap to the institutions with his irruption in the Andalusian Parliament with 12 seats, which would be key to allowing a right-wing government for the first time in democracy in this autonomous community.

However, the formation was born years before, in December 2013 with its registration as a political party in the Ministry of the Interior. In his presentation to the media a month later - where the former prison official José Antonio Ortega Lara appeared as one of his spokesmen - he already cleared up some of those that continue to be his star measures, such as ending the current autonomous State or the suppression of the law on gender violence.

The first elections to which he stood were the 2014 European Parliament elections, in which his candidate was the former leader of the PP Alejo Vidal-Quadras, who months later would resign from the formation. In those elections, Vox was left out of the European Parliament with 1.56 percent of the votes cast, although it was already the first extra-parliamentary party.

A year later, in the 2015 regional elections, Abascal's party was not represented in any regional Parliament, obtaining its best results in Madrid (1.17 percent) and Ceuta (1.22 percent). And in the municipal elections of the same day, he obtained a total of 22 councilors in all of Spain and three mayors' offices.

In the general elections, Vox did not obtain enough votes to enter Parliament either in December 2015 or in the electoral repetition of June 2016. In the first, it added just over 57,700 votes and a percentage of 0.23 percent; results that fell slightly six months later, when he lost 9,000 votes and his percentage remained at 0.20 percent.

However, after the Andalusian elections of 2018, the formation of Santiago Abascal experienced a progressive increase and in 2019 he managed to gain a foothold for the first time in the Cortes Generales: with 24 deputies and 10.26 percent of the votes in the April elections and 52 seats and a support of 15.08 percent in those of November.

Since then it has also achieved representation in all the autonomous parliaments except those of Galicia and Navarra and its municipal representation has also been on the rise. Vox exceeded 500 councilors with 3.6 percent support in 2019 and last May managed to triple this data, close to 1,700 councilors and 7.19 percent support.

However, his greatest milestone was the entry into coalition governments with the Popular Party. The first was that of Castilla y León in February of last year, when he managed for the first time to win a vice presidency and three councils in the Executive of Alfonso Fernández Mañueco.

This regional power increased after the elections last May and Vox has also managed to enter the governments of the Valencian Community and Extremadura, in addition to an agreement in the Balearic Islands. The pending duties are those of Murcia and Aragón, where PP and Vox have not yet managed to seal a pact that guarantees them the legislature.