Alex Trelinski
FAR-RIGHT party Vox won 13 seats in yesterday’s Castilla y Leon regional elections which will make it kingmaker in a Partido Popular-led coalition.
The PSOE socialists of Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, lost ground in a region that has been governed by the Partido Popular(PP)since 1987.
The centrist Ciudadanos party, which had been in coalition with the PP, were wiped out and the far-left Unidas Podemos lost ground.
The PP secured 31 seats, under a proportional voting system- two more than it had before but still not enough for an overall majority.
That means a coalition with far-right party Vox, which secured 13 seats(up 12), will be needed to govern.
The PSOE took 28 seats in yesterday’s election which saw a 63% turnout.
So far, Vox has backed PP-led regional governments from the fringes, but if Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, PP leader in Castilla and Leon, accepts, it would be the first time Vox would have ministerial positions in any of Spain’s 17 regions.
Alfonso Fernández Mañueco said: “I am going to talk with everyone, to form a government that includes everyone and serves everyone.”
Vox national leader Santiago Abascal said that to back the PP, his party’s Castilla y Leon candidate Juan García-Gallardo would have to be appointed vice president of the regional government.
“Vox has the right and duty to form a government in Castilla y Leon,” Abascal told supporters following last night’s results.
Regional elections are notoriously unreliable barometers of what might happen in a national election, but the Castilla y Leon results support suggests that Ciudadanos are in severe trouble compared to their position five years ago under ex-leader Albert Rivera.
READ MORE:
- ANALYSIS: The meteoric rise of Spain’s far-right party – how far can VOX go?
- Fact-check: Eight times Spain’s far-right VOX party was caught out lying in 2021
- Vox voting young men: Survey reveals the profile of Spain’s anti-vaxxers
