“Prudence”, they claim in the PSOE. Prudence and caution at the close of the polls, before some polls that already predict a hard hit. “Everything is in a fist, but we have good feelings and expectations,” they allege. The Popular Party, according to their analysis, tries to impose the framework that wins the municipal elections, in the general calculation. “But the important thing is not to win, but to govern,” they warn in Ferraz. “And that will be in a seat up or down in several territories,” they admit. Among the autonomous governments that they see in the air is the Valencian Community, Aragon and the Balearic Islands. “But you have to wait for the scrutiny,” they insist.
“There is no blue wave”, they emphasize in the leadership of the PSOE. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, follows the election night from Moncloa, while the leadership of the party and the Government are meeting in Ferraz, among them the ministers Félix Bolaños, MarÃa Jesús Montero, Pilar AlegrÃa, Teresa Ribera and Luis Planas, or Santos Cerdán, the organization secretary of the PSOE. All of them, for now, hold their breath.
Once Pedro Sánchez politically survived the coronavirus pandemic, and an economic catastrophe that swept him away was not unleashed either, as happened to José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, the PP launched a great blue wave, through early elections in three of the autonomous communities that governed and where the re-election of their presidents was guaranteed. In May 2021 in Madrid, where Isabel DÃaz Ayuso swept; in February 2022 in Castilla y León, where Alfonso Fernández Mañueco revalidated the position; and in June 2022 in Andalusia, where Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla already reached an absolute majority.
The objective of the popular with this anticipated electoral calendar was to get rid of Ciudadanos, which it fully achieved, and to stop the rise of the extreme right of Vox, finally achieved in Andalusia. But the great underlying objective was to roll out a great red carpet that would take Pablo Casado to Moncloa and expel Pedro Sánchez into hyperspace. The PP ended up finally ousting Casado and replacing him with Alberto Núñez Feijóo. But the municipal and regional elections of this 28-M could become an insurmountable wall into which this blue wave of the PP would crash, and reinforce the PSOE, or a socialist tragedy that would point Pedro Sánchez to the exit door before the elections General meetings scheduled for next December. Everything, for now, is to be decided.
Two hours after the closing of the polls, with the counting advanced, a black panorama began to be drawn for the Socialists. With two hard blows, by losing the jewel in the crown of its municipal power, Seville, and also Valladolid, a place that they never saw at risk. In Ferraz, however, they note that the PP won the 2007 municipal elections, by 155,000 votes, over the PSOE, and in the 2008 general elections, Zapatero achieved his highest record, with more than 11 million votes, and a million ballots ahead of the popular. “There are still six months leftâ€, warn the PSOE, for the next general elections.
