On the Spanish regional elections of 2023-a warning for progressives

The Spanish regional elections of 2023, especially those in the "Empty Spain" regions far west of the federal capital of Madrid and prosperous yet famously rebellious Catalonia, resulted in a sharp shift towards conservatism and conservative populism.

Both Partido Popular (PP, Spain's equivalent of the Conservatives) and Vox (the Spanish equivalent of Reform UK/UKIP) made sweeping gains in all regions, notably taking overall control in Madrid (normally an impossible feat under Spain's PR system), more than doubling their seat total in Valencia to top the poll there, and wresting control of Asturias, La Rioja, and Cantabria from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE, Spain's equivalent of Labour) and the Cantabrian Regionalist Party respectively. Under the tenure of Pedro Sanchez, the current PSOE-Podemos coalition is floundering and has not done much to ensure Spain's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic since the last restrictions ended in 2021, and Podemos is paying the price for abandoning its hard-left principles, not to mention that Ione Belarra is not as charismatic or as radical as Podemos' former leader, Pablo Iglesias.

PSOE lost largest party status in many regions but only lost a small number of seats in many cases. It was in fact Podemos who paid the heavier price, losing all its seats in the Corts (regional parliament) of the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid, and Valencia and only holding onto 1 seat in Aragon; that said, the older Spanish hardline socialist party, United Left, did not benefit from this. 

Vox, notable for its ultranationalism and paleoconservative views, managed to gain representation in all regional Corts where it had not previously been represented, and undoubtedly a backlash against stronger regional rights stemming from incidents involving Catalonia's push for independence last decade from Spain's poorer provinces was a key factor in this, although Vox performed relatively poorly in provinces with more Basque speakers (they only polled 4.3% in Navarre, less than half the vote share they polled elsewhere).

The collapse of the centrist Citizens (Ciududanos) party across Spain was not unexpected, given that their collapse in Madrid in 2021 reverbrated across Spain and caused major internal splits, in a manner similar to the collapse of the centrist Progressive and Democratic Union last decade. Given that there are already many moderate regionalist parties, and that much of the nationalist, anti-federalist vote is on the right in Spain and not on the left, it is clear that there is no room in Spain for a long-standing centrist nationalist party, and indeed the Citizens Party have announced they will not contest the 2023 Spanish general election next month even though they currently have 10 MPs.

The "Empty Spain" movement did not perform as well as expected, even though the "Empty Spain" problem has been increasing in severity in the post-pandemic period, with "working from home" not pushing people to move to the Spanish countryside as has been happening in the United Kingdom. Only in Aragon, courtesy of the provincial Teruel Existe (Teruel Exists) movement did they win any seats; in the other provincial elections they did not come close to gaining representation, rather a Catch-22 for the movement.

With the shadow of Mariano Rajoy's repression and corruption no longer hanging over PP, Pedro Sanchez's coalition is on borrowed time and is likely to lose said Spanish general election, although the possibility of a PP-Vox coalition in Spain will undoubtedly push many conservative voters in Spain to support palatable regionalist parties such as the Navarrese People's Union (UPN) even if they are not pro-federalist.

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