Pedro Sánchez once again proved to be surprisingly good tactician

Contrary to pre-election polls and predictions based on them (including my own), Spain will not have a right-wing government this autumn and thus join the European conservative trend. Despite the People’s Party winning a relative majority, its leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has virtually no chance of forming a new Spanish government. The current Prime Minister and head of the Spanish Socialists Pedro Sánchez has somewhat better prospects of forming a new government, having appeared to be a predestined loser after extremely poor results in the spring local elections. However, he has once again proven to be surprisingly good tactician.

After the spring electoral defeat and the practical collapse of their previous coalition partner, the ultra-left Podemos, Sánchez, to the surprise of many, decided to call for early elections in the middle of summer and vacation season. Not only did he manage to avoid an even greater electoral defeat than in the spring local elections, but he also gained a minimal opportunity to form the next Spanish government despite losing the elections.

A series of interesting phenomena

The math is simple: despite the (narrow) electoral victory, Feijóo’s People’s Party, along with its ultra-conservative coalition partner Vox, does not have a majority in parliament, and Sánchez’s Socialists with ad hoc ultra-left platform Sumar have even less. However, there is a minimum chance for Sánchez’s left coalition to achieve some form of coalition partnership with the secessionist parties of Catalonia and the Basque Country, while Feijóo’s right coalition has almost no such possibility. Nevertheless, perhaps the most realistic option at the moment is new elections.

Beyond this simple electoral math, the Sunday parliamentary elections in Spain have highlighted a series of interesting phenomena that are applicable to political upheavals in other European countries, including Croatia, where, as in Spain, society is deeply divided between the political left and right. Furthermore, regardless of whether Sánchez manages to form the next government or Spain faces new elections, the country enters the next political cycle as a state with pronounced internal political upheavals and a very complex political scene – starting from the fact that the electoral winners are not in a position to govern, while parties advocating secessionist policies (Catalonia, Basque Country) decide on the government.

Today, from the position of a general after the battle, it is relatively easy to list what contributed to the Spanish electoral surprise. Conservative voters were on vacation at the time, and postal voting is still not a complete substitute for going to the polls. Here, Sánchez chose good timing. Pre-election polls, which announced a practically certain victory for the right coalition – the People’s Party and Vox – may have lulled their voters a bit. The famous D’Hondt system did its part, as in conservative provinces, the People’s Party and Vox mutually ‘devoured’ mandates.

However, the results of the Spanish Sunday elections once again showed that voters (especially in countries with a historical burden of national right) ultimately retreat before the possibility of an ultra-right party entering power at the national level, no matter how much they support its restrictive policies towards illegal migration, its opposition to green and transgender policies, its euroscepticism… At the moment of national elections, the vote still goes towards – the center. The People’s Party (right center) actually performed very well in these elections, while (ultra-right) Vox underperformed. Better connoisseurs of the Spanish political scene even believe that Feijóo’s tactical mistake was to announce a post-election partnership with Vox in advance, as he repelled more undecided voters than he attracted.

The model of a grand coalition

Another important message is that in the event of repeated elections due to the fragmentation of the political scene, Spain could resort to the German (Merkel’s) model of a grand coalition. This model has proven to be a short-term good solution (a stable government can be formed), but in the long run, it kills the vibrancy of politics and the essence of political competition, turning politics into a technique of coalition-building. In any case, after the electoral surprise (which some have also called a shock), Spain faces months of attempts to form a new government, and perhaps new elections. And this in a semester when it presides over the EU, led by Sánchez as a technical prime minister. It is not particularly dramatic. But it is an additional pebble in the mosaic of the EU as a community of states without leaders and without a political profile.