Extremadura, mediocrity

In Extremadura, the results of a mediocre campaign, featuring mediocre candidates with even more mediocre platforms (if any platforms at all, really: Extremadura was merely a pretext; it was simply being used as a barometer for what might happen in Madrid), have been seen. Even voter turnout was mediocre. With such mediocrity, the outcome was predictable: a blow to the two major parties in the Spanish political system, favoring the far right, on which the PP depends, once again, to govern this region. Podemos also benefited, experiencing a slight, albeit insignificant, increase in support.

The prospect of the PSOE acting as an alternative to PP-Vox pacts (by offering itself as a partner, whether permanent or temporary, to the PP) has long been ruled out. First, because the PP has already rejected this same alternative repeatedly in other regions, such as the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community. The PP has a preferred partner, Vox, and it cultivates and nurtures this relationship, among other reasons, because Vox is a dangerous and unstable partner that requires constant monitoring. But above all, because the PP lacks the flexibility to play the game of shifting alliances. Blocs and polarization have become entrenched in Spanish politics—driven primarily by the right wing and its judicial and media allies—and the two-party system has been forced (or has forced itself) to accept its natural interlocutors: the PSOE with the left, the Catalans, and the Basques, as it has done so many times before; and the PP with the far right (from which, after all, it largely emerged). There is, now more than ever, a red line between these two political spaces, and crossing it means losing the support of their usual partners. In other words, if the PP were to try to reach an understanding with the Socialists, it would pay the price by losing Vox's votes. In fact, this already happened in mid-2024, barely a year after the regional and municipal elections that brought PP-Vox agreements to power in both autonomous communities and city councils (and the general elections, which again resulted in a government led by Pedro Sánchez, precisely because of the PP's inability to garner more support than Vox). The agreement wasn't formalized again until last May, when the insufferable Mazón managed to pass the Valencian budget (the one for the post-storm recovery plan, with 29 billion euros on the table) with Vox's votes.

The People's Party (PP) is facing the regional elections as an attempt to revitalize Feijóo's flabby leadership and his troubled path to the Moncloa Palace (the Prime Minister's residence). In Extremadura, after announcing they should sweep the elections, they too have ended up in the minority and could only celebrate a (also predicted) setback for the Socialist Party (PSOE). Given such uninteresting results, they could at least spare us the shouting and insults for the coming year. Especially those who insult the intelligence of the citizens.