News
Galician election returns absolute majority for Spanish conservatives, reorganizes left-wing camp
PP's Alberto Núñez Feijóo wins 41 seats · Podemos-linked En Marea beats PSOE to third place, both end up with 14 seats each · BNG retains 6 seats
En Marea's halfway overtaking means the alliance won some 17,000 more votes than PSOE, but both parties ended up with the same number of seats, 14. The Socialists could still be securing one extra seat (their 15th) depending on the foreign vote count.
If that is not the case, then En Marea's top candidate Luis Villares is set to become the leader of the opposition to Feijóo's new government. Feijóo, having won his third absolute majority in a row, is now emerging as one of the strongest men within the Popular Party at the Spanish level, even in a position to succeed Spanish president Mariano Rajoy when he decides to quit the party's forefront.
According to Villares, yesterday's result allows En Marea to "build a political alternative [that is] able to govern" the country in 2020 after breaking the PP's absolute majority and to articulate "a national project for Galicia."
The En Marea alliance is made up of several left-wing parties, some of them Spain-wide (Podemos and United Left), some of them Galician pro-sovereignty (Anova and Cerna) and the others being local candidacies. In 2012, Anova and United Left had already ran together for the Galician election (Podemos did not exist at that time) under the AGE banner, which won 9 seats.
Out of En Marea's 14 seats, 3 were claimed by Anova and Cerna. Thus, Galician pro-sovereignty parties will have a combined 9 seats in the upcoming Galician Parliament, as the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) yesterday took 6 seats. That is only one seat less than in 2012, even if opinion polls predicted a much worse result for them.
BNG leader Ana Pontón said she hopes yesterday's election will be a "turning point" for her party. In case a Spanish snap election is held in December this year, Pontón did not rule out that BNG is able to capture at least one seat in the Spanish Cortes. BNG used to have 2 seats in the Spanish Parliament, but lost them in the last two consecutive elections (December 2015 and June 2016).
PP policies endorsed
Those two elections being unable -to date- to produce a majority able to elect a government, analysts now suggest that PP could grow further in the event of a third Spanish election in a row, as yesterday's result comes as a major endorsement for the Spanish conservatives. Feijóo this morning called on PSOE to facilitate Rajoy's election to the head of the Spanish government without resorting to a third election.
Come what may, Feijóo remains the only head of government in all of Spain's autonomous communities -exception being made of tiny city-region of Melilla- who currently enjoys an absolute majority. This allows him to apply without further limitations the PP's manifesto, which as regards the issue of Galician self-government merely quotes a list of pending transfers of powers from the Spanish to the Galician government which the conservative party says should now be negotiated. PP argues there is no need to introduce any amendments to the Spanish Constitution or the Galician Statute of Autonomy.