Far-right politics has gained a firm foothold in the Spanish region of Andalucía with the Vox party winning 12 seats in the regional parliamentary elections.
The Socialists remain in power, taking 33 of the 109 seats, but have been dealt a body blow by the upstart far right that has been campaigning against Catalan independence, immigration and abortion.
Vox may not have won outright but the country is shocked that it did so well and now holds the key to the inevitable power-sharing deal that needs to be arranged for the regional government to be able to function.
Susana Díaz, heading the regional PSOE Socialist Party, said the weekend’s election result were the worst in the party's history and showed a serious loss of ground to the extreme right, a shift that is being witnessed in many European countries.
If the Adelante Andalusía coalition, now with 17 seats, backs the PSOE, it would still be short of the 55 seats required to hold a majority in the regional parliament.
If the conservative People’s Party joined the centre-right Ciudadanos party and jointly backed Vox, this grouping would have 59 seats and a clear majority in one of Spain’s largest regions.
During the campaigning, all parties said they would refuse, if asked, to back the PSOE in creating a majority power-sharing coalition. This leaves Susana Díaz with a political headache with little relief on the horizon.
The Vox candidate, Francisco Serrano, focused his campaign on Catalan independence and on the flow of refugees arriving on Spanish beaches and has been highly successful at appealing to widespread nationalistic feelings.
In Madrid, the new socialist government under Pedro Sánchez had expected another PSOE victory in Andalucia. The PM now faces the threat of a far-right thorn in his side and certainly will have scratched any thoughts of holding a snap general election.
The focus now is on what happens next in Andalucía and on May’s municipal, regional and European elections.
Sánchez tweeted, “My government will carry on with its pro-European renovation project for Spain. The results in Andalucía strengthen our commitment to defending democracy and the constitution in the face of fear.”
The PSOE has governed this largest and most populous of the Autonomous Communities for the past 36 years.
The Andalcuían elections are an important test for the socialist minority government in Madrid, which came to power six months ago and now is formulating plans for the local, autonomous and European elections in May, 2019.
The Autonomous Community of Andalucía is not some rural backwater, it covers more than 87,000 square kilometers, almost the size of Portugal and has eight million inhabitants compared to Portugal’s 10.3 million.
A Socialist Party loss on this scale shows what can be achieved by the right wing in Spain, a movement without power since the Franco dictatorship which ended in 1975.
