The rise of regionalism dengra to the PSOE and puts regional and municipal governments at risk

The elections of Castilla y León celebrated a week ago returned to reveal the electoral recoil of the coalition government. The PSOE and united can be left ei

The rise of regionalism dengra to the PSOE and puts regional and municipal governments at risk

The elections of Castilla y León celebrated a week ago returned to reveal the electoral recoil of the coalition government. The PSOE and united can be left eight seats and 150,000 votes, most corresponding to socialists. A sangria in a new electoral call that, if the PP crisis does not prevent it, confirms a fixed trend since the coalition government was formed in January 2020 and that it has gone parallel to the rise of left nationalisms and regionalisms, where They have gone to a good part of the votes lost by the national parties.

There are five autonomous communities that have celebrated elections since that date: Galicia, Basque Country, Castilla y León, Community of Madrid and Catalonia. With the exception of the latter - where, however, there is for the first time an ERC president, that is, from the left independence, in the rest the two government parties have skidded while nationalists and regionalists have achieved their best electoral results .

Galicians and Basques were those who inaugurated this trend in July 2020. In Galicia, the BNG achieved 23.8% of the votes and was the second most voted force and the first on the left. It grew 15 points against a PSOE that was stagnant remote from the nationalists and one in tide, the local brand of United Can, which disappeared from the Galician Parliament after losing 220,000 votes.

In the Basque Country, Eh Bildu achieved its best historical result with 27.9% of the votes, taking 14 points to the PSOE and consolidating as the first left party of the community. Again, we can evidenced his decline, losing half of his vows.

These two autonomies celebrated elections a few weeks after the worst of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and domicile confinement, so that the PSOE was able to value that it had suffered a normal wear and tear for the country.

The following elections that were held, which were in Catalonia in February 2021, could in fact show a socialist recovery, since the PSC won for the first time some Catalan elections and, although it did not manage to govern, it breathed optimism in the ranks of Pedro Sánchez . It was, however, a mirage.

A few months later elections were held in the Community of Madrid, after a failed political operation orchestrated by the Moncloa against the PP in Murcia and in which he put his leadership leadership at stake. What happened in those elections is known: the leader of We can abandon politics, the PSOE suffered a hard blow and the right consolidated a new leadership in Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who prompted the PP throughout Spain, at least until this week.

But the Elections in Madrid also supposed the consolidation of a regional brand, the most Madrid, linked to a national project, that of Íñigo Errejón, but with strong localist dyes. As in Galicia and the Basque Country, the PSOE succumbed before another left strength and could only be third, suggesting continued electoral wear and that the result in Catalonia was more an oasis than a recovery signal.

The last blow suffered on the left was a week ago in Castile and León. Especially for the PSOE, which has not managed to revalidate its 2019 electoral victory and who has seen new regionalisms to your left in Soria and León arise or resurface.

In the first, the Soria platform Now! It emerged by 42.5% and three procurators of the five in dispute, while the PSOE lost 22.6 points. An unprecedented fall. In León, with the resurgence of union of the Leonés people (UPL), the Socialists lost 6.8 points while the Leoneists grew more than 11. In addition, UPL was the most voted force in the provincial capital.

Why is this widespread trend of falling from the parties on the left while regionalism grows? "I link it with a certain demobilization, especially in the case of the PSOE, and with some wear in terms of illusion or change," says the political scientist Eduardo Bayón.

"If they are removed votes because they are not giving solutions to certain problems, for example, the PSOE in Castilla y León has put on the same step the fiscal policy and Spain emptied, instead of making it a campaign vertebrator axis," argues Ana Salazar politician.

Both experts recognize that this growth of regionalism can wear out to the PSOE and the United can in general elections. "They can be maintained as long as they do not disinfluence, because when entering the institutional policy they will have to make decisions that force them to position themselves before their electorate," concludes Bayon.

This recoil has a lot to see, in fact, with the strategy launched this week by Pedro Sánchez to demand the PP that breaks with Vox throughout Spain in exchange for a supposed socialist support for the popular in Castile and León. It is true that the offer was before the outbreak of the war between Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Pablo married, but revealed a fear that has been installed in Ferraz: that in the autonomic and municipal elections of next year, password prior to generals, can Lose dozens of town halls and may be an autonomous community before PP-VOX pacts.

Date Of Update: 19 February 2022, 21:23