Spain’s governing Socialists have won the nations third election in four years but failed to win an overall majority. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s party polled 29% and will need the help of either left-wing Podemos and regional parties, or the centre right, to form a governing coalition.
The big story of the night however was the breakthrough of The Vox party which many in the mainstream media have taken to labelling as ‘far-right’. They have also reflected on how this marks the first time since the end of Franco’s rule at the end of the 1970’s a party such as this has come to prominence.
Sanchez saw the vote share for the socialists increase from 23% to 29% and this was mostly built on the back of urban and younger voters whilst support for Vox comes from rural areas of Spain.
Vox opposes multiculturalism, unrestricted migration, and what it calls “radical feminism”. Vox has been massively against the Catalan independence drive and the oppose any concessions to the Catalan separatist movement. Three years ago they won 47,182 votes, last night they won 2,654,200 votes. The two centre right parties took a massive hit in the Vox surge but they also appeared to take votes from the socialist groups as well.
This has led to a significant collapse in support for the conservative Popular Party (PP), which governed Spain until it was ousted from power in May 2018 in a no-confidence vote. The PP won just 66 seats, down from 137 in the previous parliament which marks its worst ever election result. Turnout was 75.8%, the biggest for several years and 9% higher than the previous election in 2016.
Vox are hoping for a very successful EU election and may in fact do better than this. Alongside Salvini in Italy, Le Pen in France, Orban in Italy and potentially Farage leading the polls in the UK the rise of populist parties continues
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