Spanish Opposition Set to Oust Sanchez But Will Need Far-Right

Conservative opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo enters the final week of campaigning on course to become Spain’s next prime minister but he also faces difficult negotiations with the far-right group Vox.

(Bloomberg) — Conservative opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo enters the final week of campaigning on course to become Spain’s next prime minister but he also faces difficult negotiations with the far-right group Vox.

Feijoo’s People’s Party is set to win 151 seats in the July 23 election, according to a poll by GAD3 for ABC newspaper, the largest tracking poll carried by Spanish media. That will leave him 25 seats short of an outright majority, meaning he’ll most likely need support from Vox, which is projected to win 29 seats. 

Polling numbers have been stable since start of July, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists set for about 115 deputies, according to GAD3. Monday is the final day that Spanish media can publish polling data ahead of the vote.

Feijoo is set to return the PP to power five years after Sanchez seized control in the aftermath of the Catalan secession crisis with a patchwork alliance of leftists and separatists from Catalonia and the Basque country. The emergence of Vox during the Socialist administration means that a Spanish nationalist party looks likely to shape the government’s direction for the first time since the end of the Franco dictatorship. 

During the final days of the campaign, Feijoo is focused on trying to reach 160 seats, a number that he thinks would give his party enough clout to negotiate support from Vox without folding the party into a formal coalition, according to party advisers.

To achieve this, the PP is striving to boost its vote in 18 of Spain’s smaller provinces, where it can be easier to deny seats to Vox. There are 50 provinces in Spain spread across 17 regions. The small provinces send between three and five deputies to parliament.

Govern Solo

Feijoo has repeatedly said that he wants to govern by himself, without a coalition partner, as his party has managed to do in Spain’s largest province, Andalusia, since last year. Meanwhile, the PP and Vox have formed coalitions in several other regions since local elections were held on May 28. 

Polling shows a clear advantage for the right-wing bloc, with the combined votes for PP and Vox yielding a result in excess of the parliamentary majority of 176 in the vast majority of polls. Meanwhile, the surveys show the left grouping of Sanchez’s Socialists and far-left partner Sumar on course to win around 135 seats. 

To be sure, polls in other media show it may prove trickier for the PP and Vox to form government. A poll by 40dB for El Pais newspaper has the PP at 135 and Vox at 38, three short of the required majority, while the Socialists stand at 110.

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