Returning Spain to the First World
In his desperate search for the day's headline, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has said he wants to come to power to return Spain "to the First World." The phrase is meant to be clever and provocative, but coming from Feijóo, it falls flat and limp. The more he indulges in hyperbole—and the more time he spends suffering the wear and tear of public exposure—the less Feijóo resembles a presidential hopeful and the more he resembles a pathetic, lost soul. He has the curious ability to make his adversaries (Ayuso, Vox) grow in stature while he himself diminishes. This even happens with Pedro Sánchez: many citizens, without feeling any particular sympathy for Sánchez, have ended up valuing him in contrast to the attacks—fanciful, exaggerated, and rude—that he receives from the leader of the opposition. Feijóo has a chilling effect.
The idea of returning Spain to the First World also makes it easy fodder for jokes, not only for Feijóo's and the PP's detractors, but also for all those who don't share the Spanish right's enthusiasm for being Spanish. The outburst, in any case, is unequivocally Trumpian: when others govern, the country enters an agonizing and profound decline; when we (the right) take power, a new and golden dawn will begin. The message is so Manichean and puerile that it's embarrassing even to state it explicitly, but supposedly it works. Will it work for Feijóo?
For now, he has had to accept that if he ever reaches La Moncloa (the Prime Minister's residence), he won't be able to do so alone, but rather hand in hand—under the tutelage—of Vox. His remarks about the First World were intended to pressure the candidates for president of Extremadura and Aragon, María Guardiola and Jorge Azcón, to finalize their respective governing agreements with Vox. This suggests that, within the PP (People's Party), they prefer to reach a bad agreement with the far right rather than prolong the negotiation period, which erodes the PP and could even lead to a repeat election.
If this were to happen, if elections had to be repeated in any of these regions, it would confirm what has already been seen: that the idea of bringing forward elections in several regions governed by the PP, with the dual objective of cornering Sánchez and distancing themselves from Vox, has backfired. Sánchez is no more worn down than he already was by the poor results obtained by the PSOE in Extremadura and Aragon. In contrast, the PP has not managed to distance itself from Vox. On the contrary: it depends on it more than ever, and this means that the far-right Spanish nationalist party (a highly hierarchical and presidential party, in which nothing moves without the approval of its leader, Abascal) is imposing more and more conditions and raising the price of its support. I don't know if they will bring Spain back to the First World; I can say, from direct experience, that where they govern, the regression in all aspects (social, educational, cultural, and environmental policies, but also economic ones: these people are still stuck in the Spain of Fraga, with its construction boom and state-run hotels) is brutal. Yes, it is a return, but to backwardness.