Who are the candidates to preside over Extremadura?

CáceresFour parties have a chance of gaining parliamentary representation in the Assembly of Extremadura. In descending order of support, according to the polls, they are the PP, PSOE, Vox, and Unidas por Extremadura. We review their candidates for regional president.

María Guardiola

The person responsible for the early election

The leader of the Extremadura PP and current president of the region is responsible for this Sunday's snap election. It is the second time that María Guardiola (Cáceres, 1978) has run in regional elections. Two years ago, in her debut in 2023, she did not win the most seats, but was able to govern thanks to an alliance with Vox, which she initially resisted, until she was forced to comply with directives from the party headquarters in Madrid, after Carlos Mazón in the Valencian Community had yielded to the demands of the far right. This time, everything indicates that Guardiola will be able to unseat the PSOE, but she will not achieve the goal of ceasing to depend on Vox with an absolute majority, something the PP has never achieved in the region. Guardiola is the PP leader who has most confronted Vox. Throughout the election campaign, she has engaged in direct confrontations with Santiago Abascal, even accusing him of being "sexist." The far-right leader has threatened to demand his boss's support if the People's Party (PP) needs his votes in Extremadura after December 21st, which would leave them with an even more complicated prospect of governing. Within the PP, she is described as a "sensible" person who enjoys the confidence of the party leadership. According to data from the CIS pre-election barometer, she is the preferred candidate across all voter segments, generating the most support among those over 75. She holds a degree in Business Administration from the University of Extremadura. She worked as a regional civil servant before entering institutional politics as a city councilor in Cáceres.

Miguel Ángel Gallardo

The socialist candidate awaiting trial

"We'll go all the way until the end." Miguel Ángel Gallardo (Villanueva de la Serena, Badajoz, 1974) makes this statement in a conversation with ARA, aware that he starts with the disadvantage of having two swords of Damocles hanging over him: one political and the other legal. His nomination as candidate and his leadership of the Extremadura PSOE have been questioned internally. This comes against the backdrop of poor polling numbers and the fact that in the previous elections, in which the veteran socialist leader Guillermo Fernández Vara still ran, the PSOE obtained its worst result ever in Extremadura. Furthermore, in May 2026, he will have to go to trial for the hiring of Pedro Sánchez's brother at the Badajoz Provincial Council, an institution he presided over between 2015 and 2025. In the midst of an investigation for influence peddling and malfeasance, Gallardo made the leap to parliament. A move he himself acknowledges was a "mistake." While he justifies his actions as a desire for greater visibility in the regional parliament and the ability to directly confront Guardiola, it was interpreted as a ploy to gain parliamentary immunity and be tried by a higher court. Sources within his team highlight Gallardo's efforts in his first campaign as a regional candidate, traveling throughout the region and focusing on the local area. His 21 years as mayor of his municipality, always with an absolute majority (from 2003 to 2024), make him very adept at navigating the local scene. Other Socialist voices, however, consider his past as a "boss-like" style of governance to be defining characteristics. Sources within the Extremadura PP assert that it was widely known that, as a leader, he handpicked cronies for positions, accusations that Gallardo refutes as "false."

Óscar Fernández

The unknown man accompanying Abascal

In Vox's campaign posters, Santiago Abascal appears prominently and in the foreground. He is the one far-right supporters go to see at rallies, many of which have featured the party leader himself. "We didn't know who he was," some young people admitted at an event in Mérida during the last week of the campaign, referring to the Extremadura candidate. "What's his name?" "Óscar," one of them replied after hesitating, without adding his surname, which is Fernández. Until now, he had served as Vox's spokesperson in the regional assembly and as the party's president in the province of Cáceres. A nurse by profession, he worked for 25 years as a regional manager for a pharmaceutical company.

Irene de Miguel

The exception to the left of the PSOE

The candidate for Unides per Extremadura has achieved the unity that has so eluded the left wing of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) in recent times. Irene de Miguel is a member of Podemos and is running alongside Izquierda Unida (United Left) and Alianza Verde (Green Alliance). Sumar, which was left out of the coalition, also supports her. "She is an undisputed figure," say sources within the purple party, who emphasize that her colleagues recognize that, since 2015, when she first entered the Extremadura Assembly, "she has been hard work"And the entire territory has been covered." He is running for the third time as the lead candidate (he was also in 2019 and 2023) and, although he was born in Madrid and studied agricultural engineering there, he delivers a "very Extremaduran discourse" that Podemos hopes will boost them in that territory.