Vox and Sumar are fighting for third place and the doubt persists if one of the blocks will add to govern or there will be a blockade or electoral repetition
MADRID, 6 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Tonight the electoral campaign of the general elections will begin in which the PP candidate for the presidency of the Government, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, starts as a favorite in the polls, while Pedro Sánchez is trying to come back with an atypical campaign of high exposure media to counteract the image, in his “false” opinion, that has been created of him in this Legislature.
While Sumar and Vox are fighting to achieve the third force in Parliament and be decisive for the formation of the Government. The great question is whether one of the blocs, PSOE-Sumar, plus the pro-independence and nationalist partners of this legislature, on the one hand, and PP-Vox on the other, will be able to join in order to govern, thus avoiding the blockade or electoral repetition.
Thus, the campaign that begins today starts with the polls favorable to the PP –some give it up to over 150 seats, while the CIS between 122 and 140–, mostly reflecting the great progress that this party has achieved in the municipal and regional elections on May 28 and with Feijóo’s objective of governing alone and “repealing sanchismo”.
The PP campaign is focused on this aspiration of its leader, who has set 160 seats as the figure that would allow him not to be forced to put Vox in the Executive.
To do this, it is trying to attract moderates who on other occasions have been able to vote for the PSOE, warning of the possibility of a repeat of a “Frankenstein II” government, but also those who could vote for Vox, appealing to the useful vote. To do this, the PP is alerted that the division of the center-right vote can put almost twenty seats at stake in the provinces in which three or four deputies are distributed.
The ‘popular’ are optimistic in achieving their objectives despite the controversies they have had during the pre-campaign for the pacts with VOX to access the autonomous governments in the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands and Aragon, but above all, due to the stumbling block in Extremadura .
The contradictions of the PP candidate María Guardiola – first denying the inclusion of Vox in the Government and then giving in – slowed down the rise of Feijóo as reflected in most of the polls published at the beginning of the week. However, the PP believes that after the end of the controversy with that community they resume electoral growth.
Pedro Sánchez, for his part, is in a race for a comeback, knowing the distance that the polls give him with the ‘popular’ candidate -some, just over 100 seats, although the CIS gives him between 115 and 135- – and after his party lost 400,000 votes in municipal elections. The Socialists think that repeating in the Government is possible because they believe that the loss of institutional power on 28M has been greater than that of support for the Government’s action.
For this, Sánchez has designed a pre-campaign with high media exposure, granting interviews to many of the media that had been denied it during the Legislature and asking for up to six ‘face-to-face’ debates with Feijóo. He has even become an interviewer for his own ministers.
The forecast is to continue with this strategy during the campaign because the Socialists believe that it has more impact than traditional rallies and is managing to mobilize its electorate. Above all, they believe they are profiting from the discourse against the PP pacts with Vox, with the warning that they are those of “shame” and are taking Spain back 20 years.
In fact, the polls at the beginning of the week gave a slight growth to the PSOE and the Socialists believe that they still had not picked up the full impact of the effort these days. In this situation, the PSOE only contemplated a dozen public acts by Sánchez until 23J, and has already canceled those of the first weekend of the campaign, which it will dedicate to preparing the ‘face to face’ with Feijóo on Monday.
In interviews in the media, the president has tried to dismantle the concept of “sanchismo” that he considers “false” and attributes to the right, assuring that they are trying to dehumanize him. He has even claimed that they have nothing against him and that he is a “clean” person.
And in many of them the same questions have haunted him: what he himself has called “changes of opinion”, not lies, about Catalonia -with the suppression of the crime of sedition, the reduction of embezzlement and pardons- -; the agreements with Bildu and ERC; the sentence reductions for violators of the Law of the only yes is yes; the change of position with the Sahara, the use of the Falcon and his accusations against the conservative media and the demoscopic survey companies.
The third place is being disputed in this electoral campaign by VOX and Sumar. The polls give Abascal’s party, which in this Legislature has had 52 deputies in Congress, a significant drop, with polls that place it at 40 seats and others below 30. Vox’s objective is to join the PP , that your affirmative vote is necessary for the investiture and enter the Government.
They claim not to believe the polls and highlight the “massive” attendance at their events. Abascal’s strategy since the pre-campaign has been to do a daily double, influencing the squares in which the last seat is disputed with Sumar or even with the PP, and multiplying his presence in the media.
In recent days, he has already visited three provinces of Castilla y León and has chosen Valladolid for the great campaign opening ceremony on Friday. As for the message, they focus on issues such as immigration, language policy, security, the prices of basic products, energy or housing.
Sumar, for his part, presents himself as the revulsion of the left and aspires to snatch third place from Vox, aware that this position ensures that he will obtain seats in the medium-sized constituencies. A result that, added to the PSOE, could prevent Feijóo from forming a government. Some surveys place him in the environment of the 30 seats that they give to Vox, although the CIS gives him between 43 and 50.
Its candidate, Vice President Yolanda Díaz, has some twenty events planned, in which she will not have Irene Montero, who was removed from the lists, but she will have Ione Belarra, Alberto Garzón, Ada Colau and Mónica García.
With a different style from Podemos, Sumar emphasizes the proactive facet and avoids a belligerent tone, although marking differences with the PSOE, such as his star proposal of a universal inheritance of 20,000 euros for each young person who turns 18, something that has rejected Nadia Calviño.
A good part of the polls give the sum of PP and Vox to govern, some very tight, compared to the CIS that grants a majority of seats to the left and brings it closer to an absolute majority.
The truth is that with these data, the campaign begins with doubts about whether one of the blocs will manage to add enough to be able to govern and avoid the blockades or the repetition of elections, which is the fear of the PP and the trick with which play the PSOE. Precisely and to avoid this, Felipe González himself already proposed this week that the list with the most votes should be allowed to govern if there was no other option.
