The PP's hope with Extremadura

MadridA few hours before to announce the early elections in ExtremaduraMaría Guardiola took a photo in Madrid with Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Isabel Díaz Ayuso. She was at the Association of Self-Employed Workers (ATA) awards ceremony this Monday morning. The PP leader presented an award to the president of Extremadura for a program to stimulate and consolidate self-employment in the autonomous community. After applauding her on stage, Feijóo returned figuratively at dusk in a message to X for the "responsibility" and "courage" shown by Guardiola in the face of the "blockade" by the PSOE and Vox of her regional budgets for next year. The leader of the PP in Extremadura also received the approval of the Madrid president.

"I think it's a great decision," Ayuso said Tuesday at a press conference in which she hoped that Guardiola could follow in her footsteps - the Madrid native recalled that Vox also overturned some of her public accounts when she was governing in a minority - and manage to govern with an absolute majority as she has been doing since 2020. A fluid relationship with Vox unlike other PP-controlled autonomous regions, is to break a dependence on the far right that already led her to have to extend the 2024 accounts a year ago. Feijóo's endorsement of the movement is explained by several factors, one of which is the fact that Guardiola is the first to be subject to scandals in Castilla y León and Andalusia, which according to the calendar should be the first.

On the one hand, the prospects for Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, the Castilian-Leonese president, who governs in a minority in a territory where Vox is strong, were complicated by the controversial handling of this summer's fires. However, one of the party's mainstays, Juanma Moreno, is currently in the spotlight due to the breast cancer screening crisis. According to the latest polls, the absolute majority that has allowed the Andalusian president to dispense with Vox until now could be in jeopardy. A strong showing for Guardiola in Extremadura, where the PSOE is weakened by the legal case targeting Pedro Sánchez's brother, would give the PP a boost heading into this new electoral cycle. Mañueco said on Tuesday that he maintains his intention to exhaust the deadline for calling elections, which would put the elections in March 2026, and Moreno has until June.

For the time being, Guardiola's decision to call early elections does not affect these two autonomous regions, which already have elections scheduled in the short term, but it does put Aragon in the spotlight. The president of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, is in the same situation as the president of Extremadura. If he fails to pass the 2026 budget, it will be the second consecutive budget extension; precisely the reason Guardiola has given for calling elections that weren't supposed to be held until 2027. For now, Azcón has distanced himself and refused to follow in Extremadura's footsteps. The president of Aragon asserted this Tuesday that, in his case, there are still options for passing public accounts and that early elections are "the last option." Feijóo argued that it is "coherent" for Aragon to try while it is still drafting them, just as it was "coherent" for Guardiola to throw in the towel when he saw no options for passing them once they were presented.

Supports Genoa's argument

When I had been talking for weeks about a possible overtaking of Vox in the PP and when the national polls indicated that Feijóo is further away from governing alone in the State, the Extremadura perspective allows the PP leader to shift the focus from himself as well. In Extremadura, Vox is far from the PP. Two years and a bit ago, Guardiola obtained 28 seats – the goal now is to reach 33 – tied with the PSOE, while the far right remained at 5. No poll predicts exponential growth of the far right, while the Socialists have the handicap of a candidate, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, who will be Álvaro.

The PP has a golden opportunity, on the one hand, to pressure the PSOE on the corruption flank and, on the other, to put the Socialists and Vox in the same bag for having both put spokes in the wheels in the regional budgets. They are the parties of the "anti-change pincer movement," Feijóo said this Tuesday, who, at the same time, sees Guardiola helping him bolster his argument against Sánchez for not calling elections when he has also failed to pass a new budget and is facing a third extension. However, the main victim of this "coherence" that Génova now wants to boast about may be Azcón, who, if he fails, will have a difficult time resisting calling elections. Unlike Aragón, and despite also governing in a minority, Murcia, the Valencian Community, and the Balearic Islands have managed to pass budgets with Vox since the pacts were broken in July 2024.