Parti Popular wins Madrid snap election but fails to get majority

Spain’s conservative Parti Popular (PP) has won a resounding victory but fallen just short of an absolute majority in a Madrid regional election dominated by the coronavirus pandemic and marked by a bitter and deeply polarised campaign, writes Sam Jones in Madrid.

The PP, led by incumbent regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso, won 65 seats in the 136-seat regional assembly, more than doubling its tally in the 2019 regional election and taking more seats than all three leftwing parties combined. However, its failure to cross the majority threshold of 69 seats means it will now have to rely on the help of the far-right Vox party to form a new government.

The Socialist party of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, suffered a bruising night that was compounded by the news that his former coalition partner, the Unidas Podemos leader Pablo Iglesia (pictured), was leaving Spanish politics.

Not only did the Socialists slump from 37 seats to 24, they were also pipped to second place by the leftwing regional Más Madrid party, which also took 24 seats but which attracted a fractionally higher share of the vote. Advertisement Despite winning 13 seats – just one more seat than in 2019 – Vox is now guaranteed a pivotal role in Madrid politics. The far-left, anti-austerity Unidas Podemos won 10 seats – three more than last time – and came in fifth.

The above tweet translates as: "I am leaving politics as party policy, I will remain committed to my country, but I am not going to be a stopper for a renewal of leadership that has to take place in our political force."

But, as the count neared its end, Iglesias, who had resigned as a deputy prime minister in the coalition government to run in the regional election, announced he was leaving Spanish politics. “I will remain committed to my country but I won’t get in the way of new leadership,” he said. The centre-right Citizens party, once the great hope of the Spanish centre-ground, crashed out of the regional assembly, losing every one of the 26 seats it won two years ago. The participation rate was 76.2%, 11 percentage points up on 2019. Ayuso hailed the result as “another triumph for freedom in Madrid” and told Sánchez his “days are numbered” while the PP’s national leader, Pablo Casado, said it represented a vote of no confidence in Spain’s left-wing coalition government.

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