Social Democrats shiver
“The votes have shifted from left to right”: How Spain’s Prime Minister Sanchez is fighting for office
Prime Minister Sánchez wants to be re-elected in Spain’s parliamentary elections on Sunday.
© Carlos Castro / DPA
Spain’s Social Democratic Party has lost support, partly because of controversial legislative proposals. Now she could be replaced by the conservative People’s Party. Spain’s Prime Minister wants to prevent that.
In the early parliamentary elections on Sunday, the Spanish head of government must Pedro Sánchez fear for his office. In polls, his social democratic party PSOE is well behind the largest opposition party, the conservative People’s Party (PP). In the final stretch of the election campaign, Sánchez is currently trying to win back voters who have alienated his left-wing alliance.
The Social Democrats have governed since January 2020 in a minority coalition with the left-wing Podemos party, which emerged from the anti-austerity protest movement. It is the first coalition government in Spain since the return to democracy in the 1970s, and there has been a fierce rift between the allies. Many supporters of the Social Democrats are put off by the coalition’s progressive course.
Controversial laws deter many voters in Spain
“There has been a shift in voices from the left to the right,” says María Martín from the private opinion research institute GAD3. About 10 percent of voters who would have voted for Sánchez in the November 2019 general election now want to vote for the conservatives.
That would be about 700,000 votes that Sánchez could lose on Sunday. The Social Democrats suffered a clear defeat in the regional and local elections in May. As a result, Sánchez brought forward the parliamentary elections, which were actually planned for the end of the year, to the summer.
Above all, the reform of the sexual criminal law, which is actually a flagship project of the government, is costing the Social Democrats votes, according to pollsters. The new “Only yes means yes” law was intended to better protect women from sexual violence and punish any rape severely. In practice, however, the reform resulted in a mistake in the law that sentences already imposed for over a thousand offenders were reduced, and around a hundred were released early.
Sánchez had to apologize and the government had to change the “Only yes means yes” law – a treat for the opposition. “It will haunt you forever,” said PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijoo during Monday’s televised debate with Sánchez. The far-right Vox party hung a huge poster in central Madrid showing a hooded man covering a woman’s mouth. “Sánchez brought hundreds of these monsters onto the streets,” it says in capital letters.
disagreement within the coalition
Also controversial is the law initiated by Podemos and passed in February, which allows anyone over the age of 16 to change their gender on their identity card with a simple declaration. The Social Democrats had blocked the bill for months and tried in vain to change it.
Sections of the feminist camp – including former Social Democrat Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo – have criticized the law, saying it jeopardizes the decades-long struggle for gender equality. Many PSOE voters share this view, says pollster Martín. They felt uncomfortable with the “very ideological positions” that Podemos took on social issues.
Martín says that Podemos’ call to stop eating meat for the good of the planet has also damaged support for the social democrats in rural areas. Sánchez kept his distance: “For me, a steak fried to the point is unbeatable,” he announced.
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Self-criticism should pick up moderate voters
The head of government is aware of the dissatisfaction of moderate voters and is trying to mobilize the “fairly large” segment of the potential PSOE electorate that is close to the political center, says José Pablo Ferrándiz from the polling institute Ipsos.
In interviews, Sánchez acknowledged his government’s mistakes. “According to various surveys, men, but also women, feel uncomfortable with certain feminist debates,” he said, telling friends who feel the same way.
Observers do not consider the criticism of their own government work to be a promising strategy. “A prime minister who has ruled for years and who questions the actions of the executive in the middle of an election campaign sends a confusing message to his voters,” Martín analyses.