Spain’s shift to the Right – Open Democracy

Nobody expected the mid-February election in Spains northwestern region of Castilla y Len to result in the Peoples Partys (PPs) biggest crisis since its founding in 1989.

The PP, which has ruled Castilla y Len for 35 years, had called the election a year ahead of schedule in the hope of winning an outright victory. Instead, it will have to depend on its bitter rival, the hard-Right Vox party, to form a government.

Nationally, the Right now has more support than the Left. In Castilla y Len, the PP won 31% of the vote the same as in the last election in 2019, and 31 seats two more than last time, in the 81-member regional assembly. It was a narrow victory but still a victory, even though the party fell short of an absolute majority. It was sobering for the PP because Vox received nearly 18% of all votes cast, a number achieved with an unknown candidate in a deeply polarised campaign.

Until now, Vox had offered outside support to PP-led regional administrations. Now it is inside the tent, something PP leader Pablo Casado had been desperate to avoid. Castilla y Len is the first time since the death of General Franco in 1975 that the far Right would be back in office in Spain, even if only at a regional level.

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These developments have a simple explanation. The conservative electorate is shifting to the extreme Right. Not only is this destroying social harmony, it is destroying the traditional Right itself. But Vox is not the only threat to Spains social and political fabric. There is an ideological movement within the PP itself, one that is very like the populist wave threatening other liberal democracies. Isabel Daz Ayuso, the populist and popular president of the Madrid region, represents this movement. Ayuso, one of Spains most popular conservative leaders, is being compared with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

A better comparison, however, would be Britains current prime minister, Boris Johnson. Ayuso has used a mix of demagoguery, fanaticism and simple calls in the name of freedom to make electoral inroads, not just in conservative neighbourhoods loyal to the PP, but across a broader working-class red belt around the Spanish capital. In the process, she has managed to convince a sizeable chunk of the electorate that she is the alternative to Pedro Snchezs Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) government.

Ayusos right-wing populism mixes Madrid elitism with Spanish nationalism and a strange concept of freedom. During the May 2021 Madrid regional election, Ayuso campaigned on the slogan freedom or communism. During the second wave of the pandemic, she capitalised on COVID restriction fatigue and kept Madrids bullfighting ring and hospitality industry open, winning a massive election victory that more than doubled PP seats and bested the campaign overseen by prime minister Snchezs head of staff.

That said, it was a strange choice that Ayuso offered between freedom and communism because Snchezs PSOE basically takes a centrist third-way approach to politics, especially in Madrid. Ayusos call for freedom from COVID restrictions, despite warnings from the scientific community, is similar to the Johnson governments push for herd immunity, and later, the announcement that Britain would drop restrictions on 24 February, 2022. The frivolity of Ayuso's approach to political messaging and management has caused many to compare her to the science-sceptical US president Janie Orlean, portrayed by Meryl Streep in the apocalyptic black comedy film Dont Look Up.

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Spain's shift to the Right - Open Democracy