Spain Teaches Us That We Can Defeat the Right
Before Sunday’s election, Spain looked set to be the next country with the far right in office. But the left-wing parties’ warnings of the reactionary threat worked, mobilizing voters to defend the gains they have made for working-class Spaniards.
Pedro Sánchez (C), Finance Minister María Jesús Montero (L), and PSOE president Cristina Narbona (R) celebrate the good election results on July 23, 2023, in Madrid, Spain. (Alberto Gardin / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images)
Spain’s election results this past Sunday night brought a sigh of relief. The right-wing parties did not achieve an absolute majority and Santiago Abascal’s far-right Vox will not enter national government. This is no small feat, considering the left-wing parties’ defeat in local elections just eight weeks ago and the climate of opinion created by polls predicting a right-wing tsunami.
The result in Spain can be seen as a major victory in a Europe today engulfed by a dark reactionary wave. After Rome, Stockholm, and Helsinki, the conquest of Madrid was meant to be the next stage in an operation promoted by far-right Italian premier Giorgia Meloni and European People’s Party leader Manfred Weber, who sought to create the conditions for a stable alliance between their wings of the Right in the European parliament. The silence of both figures, the day after the vote, was symptomatic — as were the satisfied smiles of many in the corridors of power in Brussels. The Spanish result marks an important, perhaps decisive, setback for this operation ahead of next year’s EU elections.
Left-Wing Successes
The real winner of the Spanish elections is, without a doubt, Pedro Sánchez. Almost everyone had taken the Socialist leader — prime minister for the last five years — for dead politically. Yet, the decision to call surprise snap elections in midsummer proved successful. Faced with right-wingers who thought they had the elections as good as won, Sánchez managed to mobilize the left-wing electorate, worried at the prospect of the far right entering national government for the first time since the end of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.