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The Graphic Truth: Spanish political gridlock
Spain's snap election on Sunday yielded another hung parliament, which means no party or coalition has a majority of seats to form a government. So, what might happen next?
Here are four scenarios, ordered from most to least likely.
#1 — Election redo. In the coming days, King Felipe VI will ask the leader of the party with the most seats in parliament to try to form a government. That would be Alberto Núñez Feijóo from the center-right People's Party, which came in first with 132 out of 350 MPs.
Unfortunately for Feijóo, the PP and the far-right Vox Party together failed to win an outright majority. The same goes for PM Pedro Sánchez from the left-wing PSOE party, who also doesn't have enough votes along with the far-left Sumar (Add) coalition backed by two Catalan and Basque progressive separatist forces.
If no candidate gets an absolute majority in the first round, the second round only requires a simple majority (more yes than no votes). And if no government is formed two months after the first vote, Spain's constitution mandates going to the polls again, as the country has done twice following similar parliamentary messes in 2015-2016 and 2019.
#2 — Left-wing coalition government. The current left-wing coalition government (PSOE + Podemos, or We Can, now rebranded as Sumar) could stay in power if Junts (Together), a right-of-center Catalan secessionist party, votes for Sánchez in the first round or abstains in the second round. But negotiating with Junts top honcho Carles Puigdemont might prove toxic for the PM.
In case his name doesn’t ring a bell, the shaggy-haired former Catalan president is a fugitive of Spanish justice since Oct. 2017, when he fled to Belgium after unilaterally declaring independence following a sham referendum. You can bet that in exchange for his seven votes, Puigdemont will demand that Sánchez allow the restive region to hold a (legal) plebiscite — a political death sentence for any Spanish prime minister.
Still, the self-proclaimed martyr for Catalan independence might settle for a return home if all charges against him are dropped. This would have been unthinkable for anyone but Sánchez, who already pardoned the Catalan politicians who tried to secede with Puigdemont, and watered down the crime itself.
#3 — Center-right minority government. This one is a bit of a stretch, but the numbers do add up. Feijóo could try to cobble together a razor-thin majority of votes by wooing the moderate Basque Nationalist Party, or PNV, a traditional post-election kingmaker for both the PP and the PSOE.
To do so, though, the PNV will probably ask for the PP to govern alone. In other words, without Vox, a hard-right party that wants to strip not just the Basque Country but all Spanish regions of their autonomy and recentralize power in the national government. It'll also be a tough pill to swallow for Vox, whose voters might prefer to take their chances in an election redo over backing Feijóo pretty much for free.
#4 — Grand coalition. Imagine the PP and the PSOE taking one for Team Spain by setting aside their many differences to form a coalition government that would represent almost two-thirds of Spaniards who voted for either party. It's been done many times in Israel and most recently in Germany.
But alas, not in Spain, where Feijóo and Sánchez would rather keep voting over and over again than work together. As the popular Spanish saying goes, Es lo que hay (It is what is).
Spain's PM and PSOE party leader Pedro Sánchez delivers a speech on the day of the general election in Madrid.
Who will govern Spain?
Two months ago, when Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez responded to a crushing regional election defeat by calling a snap national election, we gave him slim odds of keeping his job. But we did point out that Sánchez had the survival skills of a political cockroach.
His gamble paid off.
On Sunday night, Sánchez did it again: When the right seemed on the cusp of returning to power after five years, the ruling left-wing PSOE party outperformed its best expectations by improving its 2019 result and coming in a close second to the right-wing People's Party. Meanwhile, the far-right Vox Party lost 19 seats, and the conservative bloc fell just short of the outright majority most polls had predicted.
But the PSOE — along with the Sumar (Add) coalition of far-left forces — also didn’t win enough seats to repeat the so-called "Frankenstein" left-wing coalition government backed by some Catalan and Basque pro-independence parties that the PP and Vox had vowed to replace.
So, what happens next? Good question.
For the PM to get the votes he needs to stay in power, he'd have to negotiate with Junts (Together), a hardcore Catalan secessionist party that will demand an independence referendum in exchange. PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo could also try to win support from the moderate Basque Nationalist Party, which has backed them in the past but would require Vox be out of the government. Don’t count on either happening.
If the hung parliament fails to deliver a government two months after the first vote, Spaniards will have to do it all over again — for the third time since 2015.Vox leader Santiago Abascal speaks to the crowd with Spain's national flag in the background at a campaign stop in Barcelona.
Ahead of the Spanish election, the political pendulum is swinging right
More than three years ago, Spain ushered in its first coalition government since democracy was restored in the late 1970s. But that experiment — a minority government led by the left-wing PSOE Party with the far-left Podemos Party as a junior partner, backed by nationalist and separatist forces — might soon give way to another coalition that'll swing the country sharply to the right.
On Sunday, Europe's fourth largest economy holds a snap parliamentary election abruptly called by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez just hours after the PSOE got trounced in a regional vote in mid-May. And, unless the polls are completely off, he’ll be ousted from office by the combined forces of the right-wing People's Party and the far-right Vox.
You might think that after Italy, Finland, and Sweden, Spain is only the latest European country where the extreme right is on the rise, and that it probably also has to do with immigration. You’d be wrong — and not because Vox is fond of migrants.
Spain's lurch to the right is actually driven by uniquely Spanish culture wars over what conservatives refer to as "gender ideology" and Spanish nationalism (a catchall term for fierce opposition to the Catalan and Basque independence movements).
First, the PP and Vox have called out the left-wing government for going too far on gender equality. Two poignant scandals were the botched drafting of the controversial "Only yes means yes" sexual consent law — which resulted in more than 1,000 convicted sex offenders getting their sentences reduced — and passing a law that allows anyone over 16 to change sex without parental consent.
Second, the conservative opposition has blasted Sánchez for pardoning the Catalan politicians who attempted to secede in 2017, and for watering down the crime of secession. He also stoked Spanish nationalist flames by cutting deals with Bildu, a far-left party which still considers Basque terrorism a legitimate "armed struggle.”
That was the price the PM had to pay for pro-independence parties voting sí to his budget. And it’ll likely cost him dearly at the ballot box.
If, as expected, the PP and Vox together win a majority of seats in parliament, their leaders will be strange bedfellows in a coalition government. In contrast to the gender-fluid and easily offended perroflautas (which loosely translates as "hippies") of Podemos, Vox leader Santiago Abascal styles himself as the classic macho ibérico: a tough-talking alpha male who loves bullfighting and hunting as much as he hates COVID vaccines and city bike lanes.
Yet Abascal is also the polar opposite of his likely future partner, PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, a bookish former tax inspector whose calm demeanor seems out of the place in the maelstrom of Spanish political fights. Indeed, the two are so different that Sánchez failed to convincingly merge them into a single political bogeyman during his only campaign debate with Feijóo.
One thing that Feijóo and Abascal can agree now on is that, together, they can beat Sánchez. They can figure out how to govern later.
Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez addresses the media after casting his vote in the municipal and regional elections in Madrid.
After opposition sweeps local polls, Spain gets early national election
On Monday, Spain's PM Pedro Sánchez responded to the ruling left-wing PSOE party's losses in local/regional elections by calling an early national vote for July 23.
We predicted a big loss for the PSOE, but not this bloodbath. The right-wing People's Party clinched outright majorities in Madrid and flipped control of PSOE stronghold regions and big cities — although the PP will need support from the far-right Vox Party. Thanks to the collapse of the centrist Citizens Party, the PP surged by nine percentage points in the popular vote.
Calling a snap election is a surprise move and a gamble for Sánchez. For one thing, waiting six months until December was probably not enough time to turn around the bad result. For another, the PM might be trying to scare far-left voters into backing the PSOE as their best hope to stop the Vox bogeyman.
It's the PP's election to lose. But never rule out Sánchez, who has the survival skills of a political cockroach, an incumbent’s bag of tricks, and a tolerance for risk unmatched in recent Spanish political history.
A protester holds a portrait of former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont during a protest in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
What We're Watching: Catalan separatist off the hook, Biden's special counsel, Oz-PNG deal, Czech election, nukes for South Korea?
Spanish justice gives up on Catalan fugitive
After trying for more than five years to bring fugitive ex-Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont to trial for sedition, on Thursday a Spanish judge threw in the towel and dropped the charge. Why? The left-wing government of PM Pedro Sánchez has watered down the crime of sedition so much that it no longer covers what Puigdemont did in Oct. 2017: declare Catalonia an independent republic before skipping town when he was about to get arrested. And why did Sánchez tweak the law? Because he needs the votes of Catalan separatist parties in the national parliament to stay in power (which also explains why he pardoned the other politicians who tried to secede along with Puigdemont.) The judge's decision has big political implications in an election year. On the one hand, it's vindication for the Catalan independence movement, which has been losing steam since its failed secession bid. But on the other, it's a poison pill for Sánchez, whom the the Spanish right has long accused of pandering to Catalan separatists. The PM will get a sense of what Spanish voters think of his Catalonia policy in local and regional elections in late May, a dress rehearsal for a general vote in December.
Biden gets a special counsel, too
US Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed a special counsel to lead the investigation into the discovery of two batches of classified files allegedly taken by President Joe Biden when he was VP. The White House has promised full cooperation. Garland has followed his playbook from a similar probe involving former President Donald Trump, who stashed 300+ classified files from the White House at his Mar-a-Lago pad and gave the Feds a hard time about it. While Garland’s move is unsurprising, the appointment of the special counsel can hurt Biden in two ways. First, it gives Republicans fodder to investigate the president in the House, regardless of Trump's own mishandling of sensitive government information. Second — and perhaps more importantly — it might mess with the Justice Department's own case against Trump and weaken the political argument to prosecute him as a presidential candidate in 2024. Even if the probe ends up not recommending charges for Biden, expect it to drag on for months and for the GOP to make a big stink about the whole thing. On another note, seriously, what's up with US presidents/veeps and classified files? Is it so hard to leave office without taking your past homework with you? Let us know what you think.
Oz & PNG working on security agreement
It's an open market for security pacts in the Pacific. Nine months after China clinched a controversial deal with the Solomon Islands, Australia is negotiating its own with Papua New Guinea and expecting to sign a security pact by June. This comes at a time when the US and its allies in the region are worried about Beijing's growing clout in a part of the world the West has long neglected. The leaders of the two countries promised transparency to contrast with China's secrecy, but so far the Aussies are keeping the details as much under wraps as the Chinese did. Regardless, the talks are quite a milestone for Australia-PNG relations given the messy legacy of Canberra's colonial rule. What's more, striking a deal would be a big win for Australia in its race to counter China because PNG has a lot of natural resources — fossil fuels, minerals, you name it — that Beijing is eager to get its hands on. We'll keep an eye on this in case the deal has any effect on Australia-China ties, now enjoying a warm-ish spell after years of frostiness.
Czech elections: round one, fight!
Czechs vote this weekend in the first round of a presidential election featuring three very distinct frontrunners. Leading the polls is Petr Pavel (“Peter Paul”!), a retired general and former top NATO official who’s running as a safe, Europhile pair of hands and a strong supporter of Ukraine. Just behind him is Andrej Babiš, a Eurosceptic populist agriculture tycoon who was prime minister from 2017-2021. Babiš has been dogged by allegations of corruption, though he was cleared this week by a Czech court. His ANO party, popular with older and more rural voters, remains the largest in parliament. Lastly, economics professor Danuše Nerudová, a progressive on social issues, has highlighted the importance of electing her as the country’s first female president. Czech presidents have limited powers, but they play a role in forming governments and represent the country abroad. Outgoing President Miloš Zeman, an ally of Babiš, fomented controversy throughout his 10 years in power, not least because of his overt sympathies for Russia. No one is expected to win outright in the first round — a runoff will be held in late January.
Wait, why did “Czechoslovakia” split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia 30 years ago? Read our recent explainer here.
South Korea mulls nuclear weapons ... again!
Nuclear rhetoric is heating up again on the Korean Peninsula, but this time the push is coming from South Korea. President Yoon Suk Yeol says that if the threat from the North continues, Seoul could develop its own nukes, or push the US to deploy them. Washington pulled its tactical nukes from South Korea in the 1990s, and it is unlikely to redeploy them. But Yoon isn’t coming out of left field. He has serious public support for developing nukes, and he’s not the first South Korean leader to have such ambitions. But considering the last time a South Korean leader proposed nuclear proliferation was in the 1970s, Yoon is the first one in decades to do so. He was elected last year with a mandate for a tough stance against Pyongyang, which has been amping up its missile tests and even flying drones into the South. Analysts say it’s unlikely that Yoon will actually go down the nuclear route. It’s more likely this stance could trigger China to convince its friends in the North to tone down the aggression, while also possibly push the US to extend its deterrence umbrella to the South.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi upon his arrival in Cairo.
What We’re Watching: MBS on tour, Lithuania vs. Russia, Spain’s moderate swing
MBS makes BFFs ahead of Biden visit
With barely a month until his controversial summit with President Joe Biden, the Saudi crown prince is on a regional tour this week to show that he’s hardly the “pariah” that America’s president once promised to make him. In Jordan, Mohammed bin Salman will look to patch up a monarchy-to-monarchy relationship that became strained last year over allegations of Saudi involvement in a plot to overthrow King Abdullah II. The Jordanians hope MBS’s visit leads to a resumption of lavish Saudi financial support. In Egypt, Crown Prince Mohammed will be highlighting Riyadh’s tight relationship with the Arab world’s most populous country. Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi enjoys strong backing from the Saudis, who have gifted or invested billions of dollars in Egypt in recent years. But the most significant stop on MBS’s tour will be in Turkey, where always-dicey relations between the regional rivals nearly broke off entirely over the Saudi government’s 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. But with Turkey looking for financial help to right a listing economy, and MBS looking to shore up ties with a mercurial member of NATO, it seems that bygones are bygones.
Kaliningrad set to be next flashpoint?
Leaders of NATO countries have taken extraordinary steps to ensure that Russia’s war against Ukraine doesn’t extend into NATO territory. So far, they’ve been successful. But the Russian government says it’s furious that Lithuania – a former Soviet Republic that’s now a NATO and EU member – is blocking Russian goods shipments to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave set between Lithuania and Poland that’s hundreds of miles away from the rest of Russia. Kaliningrad, home to about 1 million people, is a strategically important spot. It’s home to Russia’s Baltic Fleet headquarters and, though Russia denies it, there may also be nuclear-capable Iskander missiles stored there. Lithuania is now blocking rail supplies from Russian territory to Kaliningrad, which Russia claims is a violation of international law. Lithuania says it’s simply enforcing an EU ban on the transport through EU territory of a range of Russian products, from heavy machinery to luxury goods. If Lithuania keeps it up, Russia would be forced to ship the equipment to Kaliningrad’s port on the Baltic Sea. But Moscow warns that Lithuania will face “serious” consequences unless it allows the trains to pass. The EU has backed Lithuania’s refusal to resume the rail shipments, so it’s up to President Vladimir Putin to decide how high tensions will rise.
Spain swings to the center
In late 2018, an election in the southern region of Andalucía upended Spain's politics after Vox became the first far-right party to win representation since the late 1970s. Vox later exploded nationwide and is now the third-largest force in parliament. But on Sunday, another vote in the same bellwether region, Spain's largest and most-populated, saw the traditional center-right People’s Party secure an outright majority for the first time, while Vox fell short of expectations. What's more, the ruling center-left PSOE party, which until recently dominated Andalusian politics, got its worst result ever there. The PP has been riding high in the polls since it picked the moderate Alberto Núñez Feijóo to lead the party following a messy internal crisis, and now its odds of returning to national power in 18 months are looking good. Amid an increasingly polarized political environment and rising inflation, Feijóo is pitching himself as an anti-populist nerd to voters fed up with parties that won’t talk to each other, and as a pair of safe hands to manage the economy in turbulent times. Will making Spanish politics boring again take him all the way to La Moncloa?
A truck is towed from in front of Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
What We’re Watching: Canada freezes protesters’ assets, Spanish right in turmoil
Canadian protesters see accounts frozen. Authorities have started blocking accounts of people linked to Canada’s trucker convoy and protests in accordance with the Emergencies Act invoked last week by PM Justin Trudeau. Royal Canadian Mounted Police froze more than 200 financial products, including bank and corporate accounts, linked to vaccine mandate protesters who have brought chaos to Ottawa and US border crossings in recent weeks. Opposition leaders and a Canadian civil rights group question the legality of the move, which Trudeau says is necessary for restoring order. American truckers and President Joe Biden, meanwhile, will be watching closely as a similar convoy gets underway in the US this week. Plans are reportedly in place to set up perimeter fencing around the US Capitol building ahead of Biden’s State of the Union address on March 1 for fear of similar protests plaguing the nation’s capital.
Spanish conservatives implode. Spain’s center-right Popular Party was on an upswing in May 2021 after obliterating the left in Madrid’s regional election. But thanks to a messy public fight between the PP’s somewhat unpopular leader and the Madrid regional president, who controls the base, the party has seen those gains wiped away in recent polls. Who benefited? The far-right Vox Party, which could now be on the cusp of overtaking the PP as the main opposition party in the eyes of Spanish voters. Vox’s big boss Santiago Abascal, who recently played host to fellow EU far-right leaders such as Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán and French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen, increasingly sees himself as Spain’s next leader. Could the PP get relegated to junior coalition partner? Such a move would trigger a political earthquake in the last Western European country to overthrow a far-right dictatorship (in 1975), currently run by a fragile leftwing coalition government backed by Basque and Catalan separatists. Buckle up for turbulent months ahead in Spanish politics.
People wave separatist Catalan flags and placards during a demonstration following the imprisonment of Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart in Barcelona, Spain.
Why is Spain pardoning Catalan leaders jailed for sedition?
On Tuesday, Spain's leftwing coalition government will pardon nine Catalan politicians jailed over their failed attempt to secede from the rest of the country less than four years ago. It's a huge gamble for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who's fighting for his political survival against a majority of popular opinion, an opposition on the rise, the courts, and even part of the Catalan independence movement.
What's all the fuss about? The politicians were sentenced in December 2019 to lengthy prison terms for first organizing in October 2017 a referendum on independence, illegal under the Spanish constitution, and later unilaterally declaring independence. The national government responded to Catalonia's short-lived independence bid, which triggered Spain's most serious political crisis in decades, by (briefly) suspending the region's autonomy and arresting many of the separatist leaders.
Catalonia is a prosperous region in northeastern Spain with a long history of nationalist sentiment. Popular support for independence in Catalonia (source Spanish) has risen significantly since Spain's economic crisis in the early 2010s, but it remains just short of 50 percent. However, the country's political representation system — which favors nationalist parties — has allowed pro-independence coalitions to rule there for almost a decade, putting a lot of pressure on Madrid to allow them to vote on breaking away from Spain.
The PM knows the pardons are deeply unpopular. Just a week ago, tens of thousands of Spaniards who defend Spanish unity against Catalonia's dream of secession gathered in Madrid to protest the decision, calling out the PM for pandering to Catalan nationalists. Most Spaniards oppose granting clemency to those who attempted to break away from Spain: a recent survey found that more than 60 percent are against the move. (By contrast, roughly 70 percent of Catalans say it's the right thing to do.)
So, why is he doing this now? Sánchez, who needs the votes of Catalan nationalist parties in the Spanish parliament to stay in power, likely hopes the pardons can keep his already fragile coalition government intact long enough to get most of the population vaccinated against COVID and for the economy to rebound — thanks mainly to EU pandemic recovery funds — ahead of Spain's next general election in December 2023. He also hopes the Catalan "problem" might fade away as soon as Spaniards go on summer vacation.
But his critics know the pardons are hurting Sánchez. Since the government signaled its intention to grant the pardons, the ruling PSOE party — half of whose voters oppose them — has been slipping in the polls and losing ground to the PP, the main conservative opposition party. Both the PP and the far-right Vox party, which rose to prominence in the aftermath of the 2017 crisis because it advocates for a much tougher line on Catalonia, will surely gain more support if the current row over the pardons drags on.
Also, Spain's top court, which oversaw the months-long sedition trial, has unanimously rejected the pardons because the politicians have shown no remorse. Although that ruling is non-binding, the court's opinion will be cited in future legal challenges that could go all the way to the constitutional court, which will have the final say and could send the politicians back to prison.
What's more, the pardons are not enough for Catalan separatists. Pere Aragonès, the head of Catalonia's regional government, has welcomed the reprieves as a "first step" toward reconciliation. But he insists on an amnesty that would completely absolve the "political prisoners," as pro-independence Catalans refer to the jailed politicians, of all responsibility over actions that, in their opinion, were political in nature.
Meanwhile, more hardcore separatist leaders say they won't make any concessions until Madrid grants Catalans the right to decide their own future in a legal and binding plebiscite, similar to how the UK allowed Scots to vote on independence in 2014. One of them is the influential Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan president and current MEP who fled Spain to avoid prosecution and now lives in Belgium.
Either way, it's a bold move for Sánchez, who faces an impossible choice. On the one hand, he's making an unpopular decision that could hurt him and the PSOE politically. On the other hand, his minority government cannot survive without parliamentary support from Catalan nationalist parties.
Looking ahead. Those who oppose the pardons fear they will only encourage pro-independence Catalan leaders to try again to secede in the near future. But Sánchez is playing the long game, and Catalan nationalists know they have a lot to lose with him out of office.