The left holds and blocks the path to PP and Vox, according to the ARA survey
The tie between the blocs would again give the key to Moncloa to independence
BarcelonaThe conservative tsunami that seemed to point to the result of the 28-M elections in Spain –with the vast majority of autonomous communities and large cities dyed the blue of the PP and the green of Vox– could end up becoming a wave that dies on the coast this July 23rd. The push of the populars, who dream of surpassing 160 deputies, seems to have been diluted in recent weeks, and, according to the survey that the Opinòmetre Institute has done for ARA, despite winning the elections with between 125 and 140 deputies, Alberto Núñez Feijóo would have it very difficult to access Moncloa. Not even the sum with Vox (between 22 and 30 deputies) would be enough to surpass the 176 seats that mark the absolute majority in Congress. Even at the high end of the range, the two parties only add up to 170 parliamentarians.
This scenario would give an opportunity to the leader of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, who would manage to emerge from the polls with options to retain the Spanish government. The socialist leader is hot on Feijóo's heels and would obtain between 110 and 130 deputies –he currently has 120–, a figure that, combined with the results of Sumar (between 30 and 40 seats), would leave the progressive bloc at the gates of Moncloa. In fact, at the upper end of the range shown by the poll, Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz would sum up exactly the same number of deputies as the best expectation for the PP-Vox bloc: 170.
The poll, conducted between June 27 and July 4, reinforces the trend of recent surveys in which it is observed that Sánchez has managed to curb the rise of the conservative bloc and that the party is still open. Once again, taking risks would have paid off for the socialist leader, who, with everything against him after the PSOE's defeat on May 28, decided to call the Spanish people to the polls in a kind of second round in which citizens would celebrate a sort of referendum on his figure. Five weeks after that announcement, Sánchez would be in a position to battle to retain Moncloa against a Feijóo who would be paying the price for the regional and municipal agreements that the PP has signed in recent weeks with the far-right Vox.
![La cap de llista del PSC al 23-J, Meritxell Batet, en un acte de campanya](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 16 9"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
The decision of the separatists
At this point, the governability of the State would once again rest mainly in the hands of Catalan and Basque pro-independence parties. With any pact involving Vox ruled out, because Santiago Abascal's party directly includes the outlawing of these formations in its program, the debate in Esquerra, Junts per Catalunya, CUP, EH Bildu, and PNB would be the same: what price should be put on a new investiture of a coalition government of Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz. The strength of each would depend, from the outset, on how many seats the PSOE and Sumar ultimately achieve. If they are at the high end of the range and approach 170 seats, these two parties would be very close to Moncloa, as they could have enough with one of these parties – for example, the PNB – and some other minority force such as Terol Existeix or the BNG if they achieve representation.
However, the further away Sánchez and Díaz are from those 170 seats, the more complicated their negotiation will be. If we take, for example, the average of the range of the two parties, we would find that between the PSOE and Sumar they would only reach 155 seats (three less than now), which would require 21 more votes to achieve an absolute majority, which would force negotiations with several parties at the same time. Likewise, in the lower range of the forecast, the parties that currently form the coalition government would be left with only 140 deputies (18 less), which would force them to agree with practically all the rest of the formations beyond the PP and Vox. A hellish scenario for Sánchez, taking into account that formations like Junts per Catalunya and the CUP have already warned that they will not give their votes to the Spanish president unless it is in exchange for a referendum in Catalonia. In this context – and ruling out the option that Sánchez would facilitate Feijóo's investiture – the hypothesis of a repeat election would gain traction. It would, in fact, be the same as what already happened in 2016 and 2019.
Together, against the blockade
However, if we analyze what voters of pro-independence parties would want them to do if they were decisive for the investiture, a repeat election is by no means the preferred option. Not even among Junts voters – who in the campaign have opted for a blockade in Congress – is the path of forcing new elections the majority one. Only 9.8% choose it as their preferred option, compared to 52% who opt for a government led by the PSOE where pro-sovereignty parties are decisive and 13.9% who even prioritize a PSOE and Sumar government exclusively over returning to the polls. Similar figures are shown by Esquerra voters, where 10% prioritize the blockade but up to 59% prefer the option of conditioning a government of Sánchez and 17.7% opt directly for a PSOE and Sumar executive without the weight of other parties. Even among CUP voters – see graph – the investiture of a government that stops PP-Vox is prioritized over a repeat election. The same happens in Euskadi with Bildu and PNB, although in the case of the jeltzales they prefer a PSOE-PP agreement to a pact between the socialists and Sumar.
The poll, therefore, would leave an open scenario but where the best cards to retain Moncloa would be held by Pedro Sánchez ahead of Feijóo. And this despite the fact that when it comes to rating the work of the current coalition government, 66.4% judge it as fair to very bad and only 32.6% as good or very good.
- The survey was conducted by the Institut Opinòmetre using a multi-channel interview (CATI + CAWI) in which 32% of the sample was conducted using the telephone methodology. 1,521 surveys were carried out, 502 of which in Catalonia, with people over 18 years of age with Spanish nationality. Data was collected between June 27 and July 4, 2023. For a confidence level of 95.5%, and P = Q = 50%, the margin of error is ±2.51% for the entire sample in Spain and ±4.37% for Catalonia.
