analysis
The stalemate in Spain’s election shows the country’s divisions. During the election campaign, the tone between the camps became more venomous, opponents were shouted down. What lessons should the democratic forces draw from this now?
For a long time, Spain saw itself as something of an island of the blissful when it came to right-wing populism. With the Franco dictatorship in the collective memory, many believed the country was immune to far-right ideas. Then came VOX and seemed to confirm this attitude. Founded by some disenchanted conservative People’s Party (PP), the party remained a footnote in Spain’s political history for a number of years.
On December 2, 2018, however, VOX entered the regional parliament of Andalusia with eleven percent of the votes, and on the evening of the election, representatives of the Partido Popular (PP) and the right-wing liberal Ciudadanos – who had meanwhile disappeared from political obscurity – sensed their chance to replace the socialist regional president Susana Díaz – with the help of VOX. Juan Manuel Moreno of the PP reacted, VOX tolerated. Moreno has been able to govern alone since the 2022 regional elections. He is no longer dependent on the votes of the far-right party.
People’s Party has learned from VOX
Spain’s right-centre democratic parties have never had any real reservations about VOX, as this example shows. And not only that: the conservative People’s Party has learned a lot from VOX since then. It has adopted the methods of the right-wing party and has begun to play its democracy-destroying game.
The PP made extensive use of it in the campaign for the early parliamentary elections. Take postal voting, for example: On July 12, 2023, “Correos” – the Spanish postal service – felt compelled to respond to statements by conservative top candidate Alberto Nuñez Feijóo with the assurance that the “postal voting process” in Spain was “safe.” Feijóo himself was president of the state post office from 2000 to 2003.
Another example is the election day: when on Sunday, due to a tunnel fire, no high-speed trains left the eastern Spanish town of Valencia in the direction of Madrid at times, voices from the conservative People’s Party insinuated a connection with the election, i.e. the government’s attempt to prevent Madrilenians from voting.
Do Spain’s conservatives know what they’re doing?
The list goes on and on, but it shows that something has changed in the spectrum of democratic parties in Spain. Spain’s politics have always been polarised, tough and sometimes merciless in the conflict. In particular, the conservative People’s Party attacked “the enemy” – in the old two-party system, the Socialists – brutally and unrestrainedly. Attacks, insults, insults, all part of the political debate.
What is comparatively new and extremely dangerous, however, is the apparently deliberate sowing of doubts about democratic institutions and processes. This poisons discourses, makes people feel insecure and ultimately undermines liberal democracies. The question is whether Spain’s conservatives know what they are doing or whether they don’t care. The main thing is power.
Anyone who criticized was shouted down
But Spain’s left has also played its part in spreading political polarization to the rest of society. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has not even spoken to the allegedly conservative media for a long time – a symbol of the situation throughout Spain. Society threatens to forget how to talk to each other.
Sánchez’s coalition partner, the left-wing alliance Unidas Podemos, took this art to extremes at times: Anyone who criticized or even voiced slight concerns was shouted down and labeled either “Nazi”, “Fascist” or “Macho”. For example in connection with the debacle surrounding the reform of sexual criminal law, for which Equal Opportunities Minister Irene Montero was responsible.
When it became clear that countless sex offenders, including serial rapists, were getting their early release from prison due to technical flaws in the law, Montero showed no trace of humility. Instead, supposed “macho judges” were to blame.
And Prime Minister Sanchez? Allowed the drama to linger for months, only stepping in when polls showed many people in Spain were beginning to blame him personally for the fiasco known as the “Only Yes Is Yes” law. That is remarkably lacking in instinct for a man whose political and strategic instincts have gotten him out of many a tight spot.
Democratic politics thrives on compromises, negotiations, the attempt to convince, not to impose one’s own convictions on everyone else. The admittedly tragic election winner Feijóo now calls the formation of a government almost undemocratic. That too is dishonest. In a democracy like Spain, whoever has a majority in parliament is elected.
The fact that Feijóo’s chances are not the best is not caused by Sánchez, but by the PP strategy, which has brought them considerable gains in this election – albeit at the high price of connectivity. This is particularly important because clear political majorities in Spain have apparently been a thing of the past for years, as the preliminary election results show.
Right-wing extremists could replace conservatives
One can only hope that Spain’s democratic forces draw the right lessons from this dramatic election. And Europe’s Christian Democrats should be clear: they must stop copying the methods of the forces whose business model is to sow doubt and thus undermine liberal democracy.
Instead, they must finally assume their responsibilities and present themselves as sane democratic conservatives. If they don’t do that and don’t resolutely oppose the right-wing extremists, these forces could possibly replace them sooner or later.