Spain’s ruling Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE), already reeling from a series of corruption and sexual harassment scandals, has suffered another blow with a disastrous showing in Sunday’s regional election in the north-western region of Extremadura.
The PSOE lost 10 of its 28 seats as the far-right Vox party doubled its representation on two years ago from five to 11 seats.
Extremadura, long a leftwing heartland, fell to the conservative People’s party (PP) led by María Guardiola in 2023, who has governed in a shaky coalition with Vox.
Guardiola called a snap election after Vox refused to approve her budget but her hopes of winning an absolute majority were dashed when the PP fell four short of the necessary 33 seats, leaving her once again dependent on a resurgent Vox to form a government.
In a low turnout, PSOE lost 108,000 votes. Rather than go to the PP, its mainstream rival, the lost votes were distributed between Vox and United for Extremadura (UxE), which increased its share from four to seven seats. UxE is affiliated to Sumar, the leftwing umbrella group that is part of the prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s coalition government.
The result is also a blow to the PP, which has tried to distance itself from Vox out of fear of losing centre-ground voters.
In regions where the PP governs in coalition with Vox, such as Aragón and Valencia, Vox has proved a fractious and often unreliable partner.
Contrary to the received wisdom that young men are the principal supporters of the far right, according to a survey carried out by the news site eldiario.es, Vox’s core support in Extremadura comes from men aged 35-54.
The PSOE’s candidate in Extremadura, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, faces trial on charges of influence-peddling and abuse of office over allegations that he helped create a tailor-made job for the prime minister’s brother, David Sánchez, eight years ago. Gallardo and David Sánchez – who faces the same charges – have both denied any wrongdoing.
Among other senior PSOE members accused of corruption are Sánchez’s right-hand man, Santos Cerdán, who is accused of taking kickbacks on public contracts, as is the former transport minister José Luis Ábalos. Both deny any wrongdoing.
With the PP just beginning to recover from its own corruption scandals that led to the fall of the government led by Mariano Rajoy in 2018, Vox, which has never been in government, has been keen to present itself as a clean pair of hands.
However, members of Revuelta, the Vox youth organisation, face charges over the whereabouts of hundreds of thousands of euros the group collected for victims of the flooding in Valencia in October 2024.
