OPINION

Masterstroke

REGIONAL and municipal elections are always fascinating in Spain because it’s not just the Sunday night that’s interesting, but also the deals needing to be struck between unlikely bedfellows over the following days.

And if you don’t think local elections are important, then tell that to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

As the results came in, showing a huge swing to the right, the left-wing PSOE leader made up his mind to bring forward December’s planned general election to July 23.

It is being seen as a way of getting the smaller left-wing parties to get their act together or face a Partido Popular (PP) victory, perhaps with the far-right Vox in a coalition. This is the alarming scenario in the Balearics, as while the PP won the election, president-elect Marga Prohens did not have an overall majority and will now have to govern with at least a basic agreement with Vox.

It’s a similar scenario in Palma City Council, where to the surprise of many pundits, the largely popular socialist mayor Jose Hila was ousted with the PP becoming the top party (but again needs the help of Vox to form a government).

These island results, perhaps more than any other region, may have got Sanchez reaching for a strong brandy on Sunday.

And indeed it is alarming for the Prime Minister, as Spain is very different from the UK or Germany, say, when it comes to voting habits.

The difference being in regional elections, the locals vote on whether they like their mayor and not what party he or she is in.

Unlike say, Brexit, it is not used as a kind of protest vote on the national situation.

Sanchez must therefore be feeling that the PP landslide that some predicted could well run into the general election.

His masterstroke is to call it at the end of July, before the dust settles and the rot really sets in…and when many of the traditionally wealthier PP voters will already be on their holidays on the costas or abroad.

PUBLISHER / EDITOR

Jon Clarke, jon@theolivepress.es

Dilip Kuner dilip@theolivepress.es

Alberto Lejarraga alberto@theolivepress.es

Jo Chipchase jo@theolivepress.es

John Culatto

ADMIN Victoria Humenyuk Makarova (+34) 951 273 575 admin@theolivepress.es