The one in Galicia will certainly be the first electoral test in Spain after the formation of the amnesty Government in a climate of strong political tension. That test will not take long to carry out. The Galician regional elections could take place during the first half of March. The machines of the Popular Party and the Socialist Party are already in motion, with the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) waiting for its moment. There will be movements on the board.
On one of the fronts, as La Vanguardia has learned, the PSOE is studying the possibility of going with Sumar, at least in the provinces of Lugo and Ourense, although the second vice president of the Government and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, has ruled out this possibility and has assured that they will attend alone. And in the other, the Popular Party has just asked Vox not to run in those elections so as not to put at risk the absolute majority of the conservatives (42 deputies out of 75) in the old Pazo do Hórreo, headquarters of the Galician Parliament in Santiago of Compostela. Those from Santiago Abascal have already responded that they plan to attend the Galician regional elections.
The machinery is being oiled. Elections could be called very soon, in mid-December or early January. The news that comes from Santiago is intermittent: some days there is a big rush; others, the Galician PP seems to want a little more time. The Galician Parliament plans to approve next year’s budgets on December 20. From that date the elections could be called. An immediate call after Christmas could place the date of February 18 on the calendar. A call in January would place the elections in March.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo wants a defeat for Pedro Sánchez as soon as possible, nor for it to be partial. And the PSOE is not going to shy away from the battle. On the contrary. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is going to devote himself to this campaign along with other leaders. The socialists contemplate the possibility of overthrowing the absolute majority of the popular in their oldest fiefdom.
Both parties look around and do not want blind spots. The Socialist Party does not want unproductive votes on its left and the Popular Party would like to compact everything that is against Pedro Sánchez and the amnesty in a Galicia always somewhat removed from the volcanic eruptions of Madrid DF. When he was president of the Xunta, Núñez Feijóo never wanted regional elections with high political tension. The less noise, the better. This time it’s different. This time Feijóo is in a hurry and the new Galician president, Alfonso Rueda, his former lieutenant, cannot say no.
This time it is not likely that the elections in Galicia will coincide with those in Euskadi. The Basque Nationalist Party, which has just announced the replacement of Iñigo Urkullu by Imanol Pradales, a still little-known candidate, wants peace of mind. The PNV thinks about the end of March or the beginning of April. “There is no rush,” they say at Sabin Etxea. The Galician and Basque elections have been held simultaneously since 2009, without any regulation requiring this. The coincidence contributed to enhancing the image of calm elections in both scenarios.
The novelty is now in Galicia. The PSdG-PSOE is studying offering a coalition to Sumar, or welcoming them on its lists, at least in the provinces of Lugo and Ourense, where the possibilities of the platform led by Yolanda Díaz are zero. Their votes can be lost in the canyons of the Sil River, as happened in the last general elections, last July, in which Sumar’s meager results in Lugo and Ourense, some ten thousand votes in each province, did not obtain representation and They left one deputy to the Socialist Party.
When consulted by this newspaper, official Sumar sources yesterday expressed surprise at this possible offer, which they claim to be unaware of and which they did not want to evaluate yesterday. Their priority, they explain, is to advance their territorial implementation process in Galicia.
PSOE-Sumar Coalition, or Sumar candidates on the PSOE lists, at least in the two most difficult provinces for the left. It is a formula that the Catalan left already experienced in the 1999 Parliamentary elections, when PSC and Initiative-Verds shared the lists of Lleida, Tarragona and Girona. An election in which Pasqual Maragall won the number of votes over Jordi Pujol, but he could not gain a majority of seats.
Sumar is fragile in Galicia and Yolanda Díaz does not have good memories of the last elections to the Galician Parliament, in which the tides suddenly went out, the moss was exposed and the candidacy that she sponsored, Galicia en Común-Anova-Mareas, He did not get any deputies. It was the consequence of a succession of fights, splits and leadership changes since in 2012 the Galician Alternative platform of Left, headed by the telluric Xosé Manuel Beiras, from the Galician Nationalist Bloc, and Díaz herself, on behalf of Izquierda Unida , gave the surprise, knocking out BNG. The irmandiños platform in some way was the germ of Podemos. Pablo Iglesias participated in those elections as an advisor to Díaz, sent to Galicia by IU from Madrid. Iglesias took note and after a year and a half, in January 2014, he founded Podemos.
Díaz and Iglesias are very opposed today, as is well known. If Sumar approaches the PSOE, even in two provinces, Podemos will move away. Sumar’s official position at the moment is to attempt a candidacy with Podemos and Izquierda Unida: a sum of weaknesses.
Podemos is also very weak in Galicia – residual knowledge of local politics maintains – and could opt for an approach to the Galician Nationalist Bloc, which does not seem very feasible in the short term. The objective of Podemos demediado, which has five deputies in Congress, is to act autonomously with respect to Sumar, without breaking even sharply with Sumar, to compete in the European elections in June and to strengthen relations with EH Bildu, ERC and BNG.
The headache is not minor for the PP. Vox does not intend to withdraw, and it is almost certain that the populist mayor of Ourense, Gonzalo Pérez Jácome, will attend the elections at the head of the platform called Democracia Ourensana, with the purpose of obtaining two or three deputies, leaving the PP without an absolute majority. and force him to negotiate. [To take this firm step, the mayor of Ourense should resign from his position, since the Galician electoral law establishes that a mayor is ineligible as a deputy of the Parliament of Galicia. This is a unique clause in Spain. A Galician mayor can be a deputy in Congress, but not in the Parliament of Santiago. The mayor could delegate to other people and could also end up negotiating with the PP to withdraw from his list]. Becoming dependent on Pérez Jácome, known as the Donald Trump of Ourense, before the astonished eyes of Manfred Weber, would not be a great finishing touch for Feijóo.
More context information. Feijóo has just appointed Miguel Tellado, a tough brawler, former organizational secretary of the Galician PP and an accredited woodcutter, as spokesperson in Congress. This indicates that the PP wants to communicate the political tension of Madrid DF with the Galician scenario. The elections will not take long to be called.
