There have been few major electoral contests in the western democracies in the Age of the Lockdown. The Madrid regional elections held yesterday are the most significant, and were regarded as partly a referendum on how the Covid panic has been handled nationally by the left PSOE/Podemos government.
If that was the case, the election has been a resounding vote in favour of the lighter restrictions favoured by the Popular Party and by Vox, who will, if they form a coalition as expected, now hold a significant majority between them. PP almost doubled its seats to 65, while Vox increased their number to 13.
Spain (Madrid regional parliament):
Total seats, 99.9% counted
PP-EPP: 65 seats
Más Madrid-Greens/EFA: 24
PSOE-S&D: 24
VOX-ECR: 13
UP-LEFT: 10Majority at 69 seats
PP regional leader Ayuso needs at least an abstention from another party to form a new government#Elecciones4M pic.twitter.com/DkAiAcyNgj
— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) May 4, 2021
More than 3,600,000 Madrilenos cast their votes to determine the composition of the 136 seat assembly. Turnout was over 71%, up 7% since the last elections in 2019 which is itself indicative of a strong desire on the part of people to make their views known.
The election itself had been precipitated by the People’s Party, which was already in power, when they dissolved the Assembly in reaction to their coalition ally Ciududanos having collaborated with the left in attempting to bring down the PP regional government in Murcia.
Ironically, the PSOE and the far left dogs-dinner, Podemos, which claimed that the Madrid elections constituted a choice between “fascism and democracy” had attempted to prevent the poll taking place through legal actions. Even more ironically, Ciudadanos lost all of its 26 seats, and its vote fell from 19% to 3.6%. The combined left PSOE/Podemos vote fell to just 24%.
Madrid has suffered greatly under the impact of the PSOE imposed restrictions. The local regional authority went along with them in the first instance, but quickly became critical of the consequences. In a country which already had huge levels of youth unemployment, many businesses have failed during the lockdown and a huge number of people have been forced to join the millions already on state welfare.
While the experience of past elections in European countries would have suggested that such economic devastation might have aided the centre and far left, they are instead regarded as responsible for the extreme lockdown.
The Pollyanna nonsense peddled by the far left Podemos has been quickly exposed once they were given responsibility in government. It is not unlike the experience here of Sinn Féin running the north of Ireland, or indeed the Greens being part of the coalition in the south.
In contrast, the People’s Party Madrid leader Isabel Ayuso refused to impose local restrictions after the “second wave” return to the 2020 measures. This is clearly popular with most people in Madrid, and indeed national opinion polls would indicate that it is a view widely shared in all parts of Spain.
It is now possible that the PP may enter a formal alliance with the more conservative Vox movement which won over 9% of the vote and 13 seats. Vox began as a minor split from the PP but has grown rapidly in the past two years and now has 52 seats in the national Cortes.
Ayuso did not rule out such a coalition, and it was apparent that the views of PP and Vox voters, many of them former left voters, coincide on a much broader range of issues. These include demands to curb abortion, and opposition to mass immigration which has had a profound and generally malign impact on Madrid and other Spanish cities. The left also attempted to use that as a rallying call, and were clearly spurned on immigration as on the other ley issues which people voted on.
The elections had also been marked by attacks by the far left on candidates and supporters of the right. They do not do irony, but the optics of a government claiming to be “anti fascist” having the violent support of leftist gangs was clearly not lost on most voters.