1st lesson. Today, July 26, voters have already spoken at the polls and things remain as complicated as when Pedro Sánchez said on May 29 that he was calling elections to clarify the political situation and define the direction of the country. At the moment there is no probable majority government that can take the reins of the country in a feasible way and without distressing shocks, or crazy demands that endanger the functioning of democracy.
2nd lesson. The winner of the 23-J has been Núñez Feijóo and his 136 seats, a very important increase in votes and seats with respect to the results of Pablo Casado, who obtained 89, but very insufficient to govern in minority or with the company of his potential and only “partner”, the party of Vox, led by Santiago Abascal. The role of Feijóo since he took the reins of the PP has been the most positive, given the shock situation in which he found the party, and in a short time he has consolidated his leadership and his results: 47 seats more than his predecessor, and in the municipal and regional elections of May he had an unmitigated success, forcing Sánchez to hide his bad results with a forced electoral advance.
3rd lesson. If Feijóo fails in his complicated and desperate attempt to reach the 176 votes of the majority, the second on the list, all after the King pronounces, will be Pedro Sánchez and will have an opportunity to try to repeat his Frankenstein Government, Part II, with more parties as partners but with the caveat that the price they demand now will be much more expensive. The option of an agreement is possible but very unlikely given the political forces that it brings together: ERC, Bildu, Junts, PNV, without forgetting the pearl of the Cantabrian, Yolanda Díaz and her 15 mini-parties embedded in Sumar.
4th lesson. This option that Sánchez could try would end up being a disaster for Spain, and not because it is the acting president who leads it, but because he would be obliged to give in and grant actions that do not fall within his powers, such as, for example, a referendum on self-determination and an amnesty, which is what JxCat demands from the outset. and that immediately the Basque independentists would also claim although they are aware that leaving Spain, at least for them, is a bad “business”.
5th lesson. Another serious problem for the future socialist government will be to resolve the ballot of Mr. de Waterloo, former president Carles Puigdemont, who remains a fugitive from Spanish justice and is pending to face an arrest warrant issued by the Prosecutor’s Office. Puigdemont does not want to set foot in any Spanish prison, and wants to return to Catalonia as the hero who returns home after forced exile. The problem is not so much the attitude of the Executive that would not care anything to turn a blind eye, but the role and objections of Justice and the Spanish Constitution.
6th lesson. Puigdemont is willing to lose seats in Congress by forcing a new general election and then regain ground in next year’s regional elections. Converted into the only clearly pro-independence party, not pactist and that fulfills what it promises, regardless of the consequences: in this case, it will assume the blockade of the institutions of the State despite exposing itself to reduce its seats.
7th lesson. In JxCat they say what Puigdemont thinks: “We have lost much more not negotiating the councils of Barcelona, Lleida and Tarragona with the Socialists.” Therefore, the seats that can be left in Congress have little importance according to their strategy, a kind of “Manual of resistance” to the Catalan. According to them, not much is lost, only two or three seats, but “we won in vote loyalty and, above all, the party will be prepared for the onslaught of the European and regional elections next year.”
8th lesson. We have seen at the polls that half of Spaniards fear Vox more than a Frankenstein government, with Bildu, separatists and communists handling the cotarro. A circumstance that Abascal’s party should make itself look at. The way of acting and intimidating Vox, so unfriendly to voters, is rejected by its own followers (they have lost 19 deputies), and only benefits the “sanchismo” that is supposed to be its main enemy, although deep down it seems its great ally and each time it serves as an alibi for the Socialists to get rid of their political defeat.
9th lesson. What are Vox’s electoral purposes and aspirations? It will never be able to govern no matter how much it wants to play the role of antagonist of the PSOE. His mission is to be a crutch of the PP, as much as it bothers him, there is no other option. Vox has lost inIt has won 19 seats and has remained in 33 of the 52 it won in the 2019 elections. That shows that the future of Vox is going to resemble that of Ciudadanos because of its status as a party useless to satisfy the interests of voters, especially those who want to beat the left at the polls.
10th lesson. Vox has greatly harmed the PP starting with its excessive demands in the pacts of Murcia, Valencia and Extremadura. The first problem came through Valencia and then it was pointed out – immense error error – Mrs. Guardiola with her Extremaduran posture that made some sense if there had been new elections but she did not have it forming a pact with those of Vox taking chest.
11th lesson. The stubborn and extremist discourse of Vox politicians every day loses more meaning in a society that rides with other more tolerant and flexible objectives. Being conservative does not mean being retrograde and always living in yesterday, anchored in the usual clichés. You can keep the good of the past, which is a lot, but living and enjoying the present. If they do not like the Trans Law they have the right to change or repeal it when they come to power, but it is useless to put fear in the entire LGTBI world for a decision that they cannot change alone and that was taken by a crazy minister, Irene Montero, and that the vast majority of citizens do not support.
12th lesson. Those of Vox have become so fond of frightening the progressives that what they have achieved is that they mobilize before the possibility that leaders such as Buxadé, Ortega Smith, Abascal, occupy positions of responsibility in a national government. And his excessive ideological ambition, which reflects the eccentricities of his intellectual environment, has rather achieved the opposite: not only has he not achieved any success, but he has destroyed the chances of the right governing in Spain, something that many think is his hidden objective to continue thriving with the excuse of defeating the left.
13th lesson. If in a hypothetical case, Sánchez manages to form his Frankenstein II, and there are no elections at Christmas, Núñez Feijóo should remain as leader of the opposition in Madrid and prepare during the years that the legislature lasts to achieve the definitive leap, given the good results although insufficient, and already definitively without Abascal, and with a Vox in its lowest hours that will fall as voters see that their Proposals are useless and unrealistic, and they are also the stone that prevents the right from governing, and instead supports “sanchismo”.
14th lesson. As much as it hurts some nostalgic voters, the PP has only one solution to continue aspiring to a future victory: to give a blow and get rid of Vox at any price. The popular need to make it clear that they have understood what happened on 23-J and humbly recognize before the voters that they take good note of the polls and that they will act accordingly, and that they are willing to dispense with Vox assuming all the risks. Even, to prove it, they should break with them in the autonomies where they govern jointly. All this in order to recover its own centrality and disarm the left with the mantra that the extreme right is coming. A PP without the hindrances of Vox would manage to capture more votes from all the other center-left parties and even from the hard right but consistent with political reality, and would open doors to possible pacts with other parties of its ideological spectrum. Wherever you look, the future of the PP is to move away completely from Vox.
