Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Election in Spain: Faustian pact with far right looms?

Bonnie Field and Sonia Alonso 19th July 2023

Parliamentary elections this weekend in Spain could see the far-right party win a share of power.

election,Spain,far right
The far-right leader, Santiago Abascal—his centre-right counterpart, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has sought to sidestep questions on his likely dependence on Vox to win power (Alvaro Laguna / shutterstock.com)

Spain goes to the polls this Sunday. The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, unexpectedly called an early general election after the parties of the governing coalition—the socialist PSOE and the radical-left Unidas Podemos (United we Can)—suffered a stinging defeat in the regional and local elections in May.

The outcome remains uncertain, including how a July election will affect turnout. Most opinion polls however put Spain’s conservative Partido Popular (PP) in the lead and the national right parties, including the far-right Vox, ahead of the national left parties.

In Spain’s polarised party system, a grand coalition between the two largest parties, the PSOE and PP, is unlikely—the right has made ‘Sanchismo’ a campaigning target. A government of either the right (bloc) or left (bloc) is more plausible. Or parliament could fail to form a government, leading to new elections, as occurred in 2015 and 2019.

Collaboration not new

Today, the PSOE says it would govern with allies to its left. In contrast, the PP is attempting to sway voters to give it enough votes to govern alone and has called on the PSOE to accept that the party with the most votes should govern.

The PP is likely to need Vox to reach a parliamentary majority or get close to it. If so, the party will need to decide whether it will govern with Vox. A split from the former in terms of some of its leadership and voter base, Vox stresses Spanish nationalism, nativism, ultraconservative social values and a neoliberal economic policy. It is staunchly anti-feminist and advocates dismantling progressive gender and LGBT+ policies.



Don't miss out on cutting-edge thinking.


Join tens of thousands of informed readers and stay ahead with our insightful content. It's free.



This would be the first time the PP (and Vox) would make such a decision nationally. Yet collaboration between the party and Vox on governance is not new. It has been common in the subnational arena since Vox’s electoral breakthrough in 2018. This has helped normalise the far-right party as a political actor—as Vox hoped it would.

Changes hastened

The subnational elections in May confirmed and hastened changes in Spain’s party system, previously characterised by fierce competition among three national right-wing parties. Now there are only two.

The PP was the big winner, increasing its vote share in the local elections to 32 per cent, from 23 per cent in 2019, and taking control of several regional governments from the left. Vox also increased its share in the local elections and its representation in several regional parliaments—it will now govern in more regions. Once a strong challenger to the PP, the results for Ciudadanos (Citizens) were so poor that the party decided not even to present candidates in Sunday’s election.

On the left, the socialists’ loss in terms of votes was not major. They did however suffer a severe loss of governing power at the local and regional levels. Podemos’ poor electoral performance and the calling of an early national election by Sánchez hastened the formation of Sumar (Join), a new leftist electoral platform launched by the popular minister for labour, Yolanda Diaz, which includes a severely weakened Podemos.

Based on an average of polls, in this weekend’s election the PP is forecast to win around 34 per cent of the vote, followed by the PSOE (28 per cent), Vox (13) and Sumar (13). This would deny the PP a majority in parliament, yet it projects the bloc of national right parties ahead of the national left in seats. While the parliamentary arithmetic is tricky (and a small electoral variance could meaningfully alter it), one of the likely scenarios is that the right bloc could win an overall majority.

Formal agreement signed

The PP has demonstrated a willingness to ally with Vox to govern when necessary, including in Spain’s politically powerful regions. When Vox first entered Spain’s democratic institutions in the 2018 election in Andalusia—the largest region and historically a socialist bastion—it became relevant for determining who would govern. While Vox was not yet interested in governing, the PP brokered a deal in which Vox would support a PP-Ciudadanos minority coalition. The PP saw the arrangement as a way to govern in more places at a time when it was in electoral decline. It signed with Vox a formal agreement cementing their commitment.

Vox was again relevant in the 2019 regional elections, this time in Madrid and Murcia. It still did not prioritise gaining government posts, although it was a more forceful negotiator. While the PP had already accepted Vox as a legitimate ally in Andalusia, Vox pushed Ciudadanos to give it more recognition than the latter preferred. Ultimately, the PP and Ciudadanos secured Vox’s support for minority coalitions of the pair, which the PP called ‘governments of freedom’.

In all three regions, the PSOE was the lead party and the left refused to provide any support for the formation of right-wing, PP-Ciudadanos governments. Ciudadanos in turn shunned alliances with the PSOE because it then sought to become the lead party on the right. The PP’s willingness, meanwhile, to govern when the PSOE won these elections shows that its current call to let the lead party govern is inconsistent.

No cordon sanitaire

Vox became Spain’s third largest party in the general election in November 2019. A right-wing government, however, was not numerically possible. Instead, the current left minority coalition formed.

After an early election in Castile and Leon in 2022, Vox was ready to govern and for the first time formed a regional coalition with the PP. While negotiations are continuing after the May 2023 regional elections, PP and Vox have formed coalition governments in Valencia and Extremadura, and the new PP executive in the Balearic Islands relies on a programmatic agreement with Vox.

Thus, if circumstances put the right parties in a position to govern Spain after Sunday’s election, there is no cordon sanitaire to be broken on inclusion of the far right. This in a country which suffered nearly four decades of right-wing dictatorship under Francisco Franco until 1975.

Still, Spain’s smaller, regionally-based parties could again be key to governance. If the national right parties come out ahead but do not win a majority or come very close to it, many of Spain’s minor parties would refuse to support a government that contained Vox (or even the PP in some cases). After all, the Spanish-nationalist Vox advocates banning substate nationalist parties and eliminating Spain’s decentralised constitutional arrangements stemming from the democratic constitution of 1978.

Given the salience of territorial and national-identity issues in Spain, particularly in Catalonia and the Basque country, the left parties would have a better chance of cobbling together support from substate nationalist parties, as they have done since 2019.

Bonnie Field 1
Bonnie Field

Bonnie N Field is a professor of global studies at Bentley University, Massachusetts and co-editor of South European Society and Politics.

Sonia Alonso
Sonia Alonso

Sonia Alonso is an associate professor of political science at the University of Deusto, Spain. Previously, she was associate professor of government at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u42198344ce 92c9 4f54 9a14 edee35fb9221 3 Europe’s Quest for Technological Sovereignty: A Feasible Path Amidst Global RivalriesChristian Reiner and Roman Stöllinger
u4219834670ab 1 Reclaiming Sutan Sjahrir: The Quiet Moral Core of Democratic Socialism in Southeast AsiaDeny Giovanno
u421983467 4b96 a2b4 d663613bf43e 0 A Fair Future?  How Equality Will Define Europe’s Next ChapterKate Pickett
u42198346742 445d 82f2 d4ae7bb125be 2 A Progressive Industrial Policy for the Global South: A Latin American PerspectiveJosé Miguel Ahumada and Fernando Sossdorf

Most Popular Articles

u4219834676 bcba 6b2b3e733ce2 1 The End of an Era: What’s Next After Globalisation?Apostolos Thomadakis
u4219834675 4ff1 998a 404323c89144 1 Why Progressive Governments Keep Failing — And How to Finally Win Back VotersMariana Mazzucato
09d21a9 The Future of Social Democracy: How the German SPD can Win AgainHenning Meyer
u421983462 041df6feef0a 3 Universities Under Siege: A Global Reckoning for Higher EducationManuel Muñiz

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Summer issue of The Progressive Post is out!


It is time to take action and to forge a path towards a Socialist renewal.


European Socialists struggle to balance their responsibilities with the need to take bold positions and actions in the face of many major crises, while far-right political parties are increasingly gaining ground. Against this background, we offer European progressive forces food for thought on projecting themselves into the future.


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss the transformative power of European Social Democracy, examine the far right’s efforts to redesign education systems to serve its own political agenda and highlight the growing threat of anti-gender movements to LGBTIQ+ rights – among other pressing topics.

READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

S&D Group in the European Parliament advertisement

Cohesion Policy

S&D Position Paper on Cohesion Policy post-2027: a resilient future for European territorial equity

Cohesion Policy aims to promote harmonious development and reduce economic, social and territorial disparities between the regions of the Union, and the backwardness of the least favoured regions with a particular focus on rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition and regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as outermost regions, regions with very low population density, islands, cross-border and mountain regions.

READ THE FULL POSITION PAPER HERE

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

With a comprehensive set of relevant indicators, presented in 85 graphs and tables, the 2025 Benchmarking Working Europe report examines how EU policies can reconcile economic, social and environmental goals to ensure long-term competitiveness. Considered a key reference, this publication is an invaluable resource for supporting European social dialogue.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
The evolution of working conditions in Europe

This episode of Eurofound Talks examines the evolving landscape of European working conditions, situated at the nexus of profound technological transformation.

Mary McCaughey speaks with Barbara Gerstenberger, Eurofound's Head of Unit for Working Life, who leverages insights from the 35-year history of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS).

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

BlueskyXWhatsApp