In The Manual (Contraluz) to qualify a public policy as priority 1, it must meet five requirements: it must be a matter that is “unique, media-friendly, necessary, urgent, and important.” We say this in light of Vox’s national priority, a success of tactics and cultural warfare, but not of strategy or cognitive warfare. For we already know very well what a vice-president is worth in Spain and the pacts on agreements-disagreements, as well as the hermeneutics that sustain them. The social fabric of our country is always fascinating. You never get to the end of it, and it always overflows with great irony. Therefore, ideologues should not underestimate this plurinational State in the south of the EU that resides within us. We are a country tied electorally, at least, since the technical fall of bipartisanship back in 2012 (the official one was in the European elections of 2014).
Read more Josep Oliu resigns as Puig director seven months before the end of his term
Since then, neither the left nor the right has definitively imposed itself on the other side, although the news industry tries to explain the opposite to us every day. The reality is that Rajoy was president in 2016 due to the abstention of that mahogany PSOE that no longer exists. And with the same Congress, Sánchez was president after the 2018 motion of no confidence. Spain tied yesterday, today, and very probably in a year, that is, tomorrow, when the general elections are held impeccably, as always.
Vox with its national priority advances in narrative, but awaiting the Andalusian result and event
In such a tied country, therefore, the result will be decided in the small details, as they say in football jargon. Reality is always dynamic: to Vox’s internal crisis and its strategic blunder with the return to regional governments, we must add the impact of Trump’s atrocity and Abascal’s silence to understand how Vox has gone from a strong 20% in February of this year –when it was transversal like Podemos in 2015– to 17% of voting intention this April. A trend that, if the Andalusian projection is confirmed –we will get to that now–, will make them land at 14/15% in July, the same electoral threshold it had when it made the decision –now amended– to withdraw from the autonomous communities. Back then, two years ago, the PP was at 32% and the PSOE almost at 30%. It wasn’t a tie, but it wasn’t a tie-breaker either.
Vox, with its national priority, for now, advances in narrative, but awaiting the Andalusian result and event, which will surely send us some profound messages about the 2027 elections. Beyond the success that the re-election of Juanma Moreno’s absolute majority would entail, which he has almost secured today with a wide margin, we will all also focus on Vox’s result, which may, indeed, decrease in Andalusia, and we will compare it ipso facto with the sum of the two left-wing candidacies: Por Andalucía and Adelante Andalucía. In the great nation of the south, it might perhaps happen that the sum of these left-wing parties surpasses Abascal’s. A bad sign. And the opposite situation could also occur, that even with that, the sum would not surpass the least competitive Vox remembered. Another bad sign, given a Sánchez who is the preferred president for 31% of Spaniards and has become a leader of the global left.
Read more Princess Leonor will study Political Science at the public university Carlos III of Madrid
However, the president does not have a problem with his left, because the formula to his left will yield what it yields. The voter has already discounted it. And Andalusia will give us the details. Nor will he have a problem with mobilization. The left-wing voter will emerge from their lethargy after the first round, which will be the municipal and regional elections on May 23, 2027. Sánchez’s problem lies with the more than 700,000 voters from three years ago who say they will vote for the right-wing bloc, now more for the PP than for Vox. That is priority 1, which is not ideological but technical, strategic, and political. It is in housing, in insecurity, in guaranteeing life projects, in the resurgence of the middle classes. Understanding the reason and reducing that contingent to zero is “unique, media-friendly, necessary, urgent, and important.” That day, Sánchez will be in a position to win the elections and govern again.
Next week
Context and kinetics
If we analyze it from the narrative and ideology, from the premises of old consulting, we will find an explanation for Vox’s moment of retreat, but from the context and kinetics, it doesn’t make sense. Before the attack on Iran, the balance of cross-votes between the PP and Vox was favorable to the latter by more than 1,250,000 votes. Today, that balance is below 800,000 votes. It loses votes everywhere, although it remains above four million votes. The right-wing bloc has 12 million votes, as in 2011 with PP and UPyD.
The hawk’s eye
Youth and abstainers
During these two years of strategy to channel discontent, Vox has been bringing young people and abstainers into the system. It was about kicking over the chessboard, connecting that discontent with the vital horizon. They were going like a shot, with a Carlos H. Quero using Podemos-like language in the authoritarian universe. Not anymore. The pact in Extremadura, Aragon, also in Castilla y León, is about something else: operating again as an ideological bloc and stopping playing mus, a game where there is no tie. Young people and abstainers look at them, but also at the left.
Read more Charles III arrives in the U.S. to steer a relationship that already has little ‘special’ about it.
