WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SPAIN News Journal Update - (en) Italy, Spain - UCADI #174 - THE SPANISH CASE (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The general elections in Spain ended with a victory for the Popular

Party which, however, did not obtain the necessary votes to form a
government either alone or in coalition with the Francoists of Vox. The
Spanish Socialist Party, reversing pollsters' predictions, not only held
but gained two seats, while Sumar, the coalition of leftist parties,
gained 31 seats.. But while the EPP, making an effort to negotiate,
could manage to add two more deputies to its grouping with the seat
conquered by the Unión del Pueblo Navarro and, with much more effort,
the one conquered by the Coalición Canaria. However, she has always
stated that she would not have supported a government that included Vox,
the EPP and Sumar could count on the support of the whole range of
parties of the so-called «Sánchez investiture bloc», (the two left-wing
Catalan independence parties ERC, with 7 seats and JuntsxCat of the
right, 7 seats, together with the two Basque nationalist parties Bildu,
of the left, 6 seats, and PNV of the right, 5 seats) would reach 172
seats, one more than the right-wing bloc.
Even if it will be up to the Popular Party, as the majority party, to
give life to the first attempt at forming a government, there is no
doubt that soon the task will once again be the turn of Pablo Sanchez,
who certainly will not accept to give life to a coalition government
between popular and socialists: the opposition in the country makes this
hypothesis unthinkable for both parties. For his part, Sánchez will only
be able to re-propose the same government formula that characterized the
previous one, i.e. a government supported, albeit from the outside, by
pro-independence and regionalist parties.
Whatever happens, the Spanish political situation is destined to
experience a period of uncertainty and certainly weak governments
because the popular and the right of vox have the majority in the Senate
and therefore the second Chamber will be able to amend the laws, slowing
down the process, immobilizing the government action. It is, therefore,
probable that at the end of a negotiation, which will in any case be
complex, a decision will be made to go once again to elections in the
autumn, and it would not be the first time that this has happened in
Spain so close to the political elections with an uncertain result .

The causes of the Spanish success

If it is not possible, at the moment, to predict what the outcomes of
the political situation that has arisen will be, some considerations are
nonetheless necessary. The first certainly concerns the role of the
media and of the polls which had presented the Spanish situation as an
already decided situation, in which certainly the right, gathering the
push that comes from the general political climate that we live in
Europe and in the world, would have triumphed . This was not the case
because it was Vox, Franco's political formation, credited as the real
novelty of the Spanish political scene that collapsed, the which had
achieved flattering success in the provincial elections just held in
Spain. On the basis of that result, this party was credited with a
success that it did not achieve, indeed the party lost 19 seats compared
to the previous legislature, effectively representing the weak link in
the future government alliance. For its part, the Socialist Party
managed to reassemble its positions through an electoral campaign that
was able to emphasize the successes achieved by the government in
economic matters, with inflation close to 2%, among the lowest in
Europe, with a good economic situation, with the approval of laws
opening up society to the needs of minorities - sometimes even excessive
- and yet it was characterized by a short-sighted and ferocious
migration policy which kept the masses of immigrants away from the
country, at the price of sacrificing principles and ideals. Another weak
element of government policy was that relating to the Ukrainian war,
with respect to which the Sánchez government aligned itself with
pro-Western positions in a slavish way, thus gaining neutrality at an
international level and at the same time benevolence in community circles .
However, these cunning and ambiguities of the government would not have
been enough without a decidedly progressive internal policy that has
been able to combine rights and economic development and above all has
been able to have a significant impact, with enlightened and avant-garde
legislation, in relation to employment and the struggle to
precariousness, preparing a better future for future generations of the
country through the greater stability of jobs. This long-lasting
inspiration from government policy is perhaps one of the elements that
has allowed the party's political comeback, leading voters to wonder
what they would lose with a possible change in the political direction
of the country.
 From a more purely political point of view, the political audacity of
Pedro Sànchez played a decisive role in the success of the Socialist
Party, who intelligently and courageously dissolved Parliament the day
after the electoral defeat in the provincial elections and went without
fear of the electoral confrontation, confident of being able to regain
the positions lost due to the many compromises in the local management
of power that caused the defeat in the provincial elections. Another
element of the relative success of the left, or in any case of the
containment of the victory of the right, was the electoral result of
Sumar's coalition which has certainly managed to overcome in some way,
albeit under the pressure of electoral necessity,

The lesson of the Spanish elections

When it happened in Spain it demonstrates to the European left in crisis
some things that should serve, or could serve, as a starting point for
its relaunch. First of all, it is necessary for a left-wing party to
have an identity policy in matters of labour, labor legislation and the
dignity of male and female workers: in this sense, the intervention
through laws against precariousness, which constitutes the real drama of
the new generations , was essential to demonstrate the social stability
of the government policy proposed by the Spanish Socialist Party. Then
there is the issue of rights, which is also necessary to support,
because the many minorities that characterize society today, the
fragmentation into interest groups that constitute it, In other words,
the EPP has managed to build a front of class alliance which is the
result capable of countering the return of the right which, for their
part, propose a different scheme of social alliance which uses the many
corporations that make up society as a pivot. capitalism, to propose a
revisited corporatism, an alliance of classes, cemented by tradition, by
religion, by residual values which constitute the traditional baggage of
the right, and which hinge on the fear of the new, of the different, of
the uncertainty of living what changes, what you don't understand and
don't want.
It is appropriate to say that two worlds collided in the Spanish
elections, two worlds both present in society today, which the left must
take into account, having a double concern: that of looking at its own
values, making them recognizable, fighting for them , try to impose
them; at the same time, however, understand what the opponent has of
front, what are your requests, what are your needs. what his needs are,
thus trying to anticipate his fears and fears, preventing the
uncertainty of tomorrow from suggesting that he rely on a regressive
management of society. This is because doing politics means taking
charge of the globality and complexity of the society in which we live,
having a clear and lucid vision of the time and phase of the class
conflict that we see anyway.

Reflections in Europe

The Spanish electoral outcome suggests some considerations also relating
to European politics, characterized in this period by the disorderly and
frenetic agitation of the "guapa" of Garbatella, as Meloni likes to
define herself, who seeks repayments with her group of European
conservatives, as the needle of the balance of future balances of EU
Commission. His aggressive, arrogant, assertive speech, clad in
nationalistic and matriarchal pride, did so much damage to the party he
wished to support, making clear the danger of his being regressive and
the danger of his proposals and programs. His overall political project,
given the results, seems to be starting to show some strength and will
in any case be subjected to further checks, consisting of the results of
the Polish and Dutch elections which will say a significant word on the
future political balance in the various European countries.
It is for this reason that the left must look carefully at the Spanish
experience and take from it the profound lesson that derives from it,
trying to understand the complexity of social and class relations in
this moment, carefully analyzing and acknowledging the existence of a
question city - suburbs in Europe, of the peasant question, analyzing
the impact of policies against climate change with those of containment
of the social costs it entails, a relationship that must in any case be
found in the interest of workers from all over Europe.

Gianni Cimbalo

http://www.ucadi.org/2023/07/28/il-caso-spagnolo/
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