• 28-M 2023 election results, live
  • 28-M Spain censures Pedro Sánchez and sinks the PSOE

Vox acquires from the early hours of this Monday the category of outstanding actor in the regional and municipal politics of our country. The party of Santiago Abascal expands after this 28-M its territorial power, breaks into all the autonomies called to the polls and reaches the condition of inescapable by the rest of the formations, especially by the Popular Party, which must sit down to negotiate with Vox if it wants the right to govern and conclude the "overturn" claimed by the Spaniards.

The headquarters of the formation, in Madrid Bamboo Street, was on Monday night the epicenter of the electoral party. No party grows as much in these elections or is as decisive today as Vox, which, with more than a million and a half votes (twice as many as in the municipal elections of 2019) gives a blow on the historical table that significantly reconfigures the political board from north to south of our geography: it goes from nine to thirteen seats in the Valencian Community, from three to seven in Aragon, from three to eight in the Balearic Islands, from one to nine in the Region of Murcia and from two to four in Cantabria. It also manages to debut in all the regional parliaments where until now they were external forces: four seats in Castilla-La Mancha, five in Extremadura, two in La Rioja and even two in Navarra and four in the Canary Islands, two of the places where it was more complicated to achieve representation.

From the local prism, the emergence of Vox eclipses any other data: the party triples its 530 councilors and gets 1,687, a deployment that certifies that Vox not only breaks into regional parliaments, but is rooted in every corner of Spain and its municipalities.

THE PHRASES

THE AUTONOMOUS SYSTEM, "IN QUESTION". Abascal boasted of having gone from 47 to 119 regional deputies being a party that puts "in question the drift of the autonomous State, which confronts the Spaniards" and "weighs down the common project of Spain," he said to vindicate the position of Vox at the gates of any negotiation.

"THERE IS NO SUM WITHOUT VOX." Garriga summarized the scenario of pacts that opens in the following days. "The future is going to be written with the acronym of Vox. No one is going to trample or despise our ballots, "he launched to the PP.

Only two small spots tarnish Vox's track record: the only striking setback, which occurred in the Community of Madrid (from thirteen to ten seats), and the results in the autonomous city of Ceuta, where the party had expectations even of surpassing the PP and being able to govern.

The president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, celebrated after knowing the results the "consolidation of Vox as a national project". Until now, Vox was a party with hardly any decentralization: a very hierarchical dome, an undeniable weight in the Congress of Deputies as a third force with 52 deputies and a role of medium relevance in regional assemblies, such as in Madrid, Valencian Community or Andalusia. Only in Castilla y León in the last 14 months Vox had risen to the institutional level with the entry into the Board as a partner of the PP of Alfonso Fernández Mañueco.

The scenario already changes considerably for Vox, both institutionally and organically. New territorial leaderships emerge such as Carlos Flores in the Valencian Community, Jorge Campos in the Balearic Islands, José Ángel Antelor in the Region of Murcia or Alejandro Nolasco in Aragon.

Similarly, there is a well-known name that, with the significant growth of Vox in Catalonia (from three councilors to 120), gains weight from now on. Ignacio Garriga, secretary general of Vox and leader of the party in the Parliament, celebrated the figures that consecrate the formation as "the national party of reference in Catalonia", after achieving representation in the four Catalan provincial mayors, in some very close to the PP.

"Vox is decisive," was constantly repeated during the recount from within the party. A more favorable scenario now opens up for Vox than for any other party. It will debut in numerous new parliaments and will become a key player in the formation of right-wing governments. During the campaign, the leadership of the formation was responsible for paving the ground on which Vox's post-electoral discourse now rests: "Neither gifts nor blackmail."

An idea that seems to set the pace of contacts with the PP in the coming days. In any case, Vox already rules out giving its support for free, as happened in Madrid in 2021, and bets on coalitions such as that of Castilla y León in February 2022.

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