The PP sweeps Galicia and Sánchez leads the PSOE to disaster

Marisa Cruz Madrid

Madrid

Updated Sunday, February 18, 2024-22:54

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There was no overturn, there was no surprise. The Galicians have once again given the Popular Party the absolute majority. The fifth. Galicia has stood up and put a stop to the plurinational Spain model that Pedro Sánchez defends at the polls, urged by his pro-independence partners. Galicia, historical nationality, he has said no. Galicians want to defend their identity and their language but without giving up their Spanishness.

The distribution of seats in the Galician Parliament shows 40 seats for the popular ones; 25 for the nationalists; nine for the socialists and one for Democracia Orensana, the localist party chaired by Gonzalo Pérez Jácome.

The 18-F elections have once again elevated the popular ones, burying for the moment the aspirations of a BNG that, however, has demonstrated its strength with an excellent result, much better than that of four years ago and, above all, crushing the expectations of a sinking PSOE that never came out to win but did harbor the hope of reaching power, becoming a crutch for the nationalists.

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If he had succeeded, Sánchez could have disguised the unappealable defeat of socialism with the argument that at the end of the day the voters endorsed his progressive coalition project supported by separatist minorities. But it has not been that way.

The PP, with Alfonso Rueda, at the helm and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, an essential piece at the side, has managed to revalidate a key victory with hardly the wear and tear typical of many years at the head of the Xunta. The Popular Party, with 40 seats, has surpassed the absolute majority bar by two deputies.

Rueda will sit again at the head of the Xunta backed by more than 47% of the votes, that is, with the support of more than 647,000 Galicians. In terms of seats he has only lost two compared to 2020 and in percentage terms he has barely lost four tenths. However, he has achieved 40,000 more votes than in the last elections.

Neither the pellet crisis, which, from the opposition, was presented almost as a new Prestige, nor Feijóo's astonishing stumble in relation to the amnesty for those involved in the Catalan independence process, have taken their toll on the popular ones, who With this victory they not only consolidate their hegemony in Galicia but also reinforce their national strategy and above all clearly support their leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who has carried out a tireless campaign throughout the territory of the autonomous community. Feijóo risked everything or almost everything in these elections and has managed to come out of them with flying colors.

Election night for the left bloc has been bad. The disaster is the responsibility of the socialists who have acted as a burden. Neither the presence of Pedro Sánchez in the campaign nor that of former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero have been enough to support a very blurred José Ramón Gómez Besteiro.

Unlike the PSOE, the BNG, under the leadership of Ana Pontón, has managed to bring together under its acronym the useful vote of the left and many dissatisfied people. His rise has been incontestable. The Galician nationalists will occupy 25 seats in the Galician Parliament, six more than they obtained in 2020. Capturing more than 31% of the votes, they have left the PSOE in its bones, which has obtained the worst result in its history in that autonomous community.

The Galician socialists have not even reached 15% of the votes. The defeat is measured in five seats less than those achieved four years ago. They will now have nine seats in Parliament compared to the 14 they occupied in the last legislature. His bloodletting has been a huge ball of oxygen for the BNG.

The Bloc has become the true pillar of the left in Galicia. The polls have given him almost 32% of the votes. More than 440,000 Galicians have responded to Pontón's call, this is 130,000 more than four years ago.

However, its rise has been at the expense of the PSOE and it has not found support in any of the other two left-wing forces that were running in the elections: Sumar and Podemos.

The platform of the second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, from Ferrol, has achieved a disastrous result. With barely 26,500 votes she has not been able to reach even 2% of the total valid votes cast. On this occasion, Sumar's presence has served to subtract. She will not have representation in the Galician Parliament.

And the same can be said of Podemos. The purple ones, in full national decomposition, have only obtained 0.26% of the ballots. With their little more than 3,700 votes they have even remained far from the PACM.