Alex Trelinski
CARLOS MAZON will be the new Valencian government president after the Partido Popular(PP) topped the poll in Sunday’s regional elections.
Needing 50 seats to grab power in the Valencian parliament- Les Corts- the PP became the largest single party with 40(up 21 on the 2019 elections).
The far-right Vox party increased its representation by three seats to 13, and it remains to be seen whether they will be part of a formal coalition with Mazon or simply support him with votes in Les Corts.
The PP-Vox combination totals 53 seats, as opposed to 46 for the remaining two parties.
Mazon-the current Alicante Provincial Council president- will submit his name to become president at June’s plenary meeting at Les Corts.
After Sunday’s results came in, Mazon promised a ‘stable’ government for everybody, ‘whether they voted for us or not’.
To people who supported the PP, Mazon said: “Thank you for having made change possible and this great and clear victory is an exemplary day for democracy.”
The PSOE under current president Ximo Puig, had governed for eight years in coalition with left-wing parties Compromis and Unidas Podemos.
He said that his ‘conscience was clear’ and that he had presided over some ‘very important years’ for the Community which his government has ‘left stronger’ compared to when they came into office in 2015.
Puig’s party’s representation actually went up by four seats to 31 but the regional Compromis party was down by two to 15.
Crucially, Unidas Podemos failed to get the required 5% vote minimum to qualify for seats- it had eight in the current legislature- which in effect killed off the chance for a third term of the so-called ‘Botanic’ coalition.
Centrists Ciudadanos suffered from the threshold problem as well, and lost all 18 of their Les Corts seats- with the PP as the overwhelming beneficiary.
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