Today, at the European People’s Party meeting in Brussels Bernard Grech was seen exchanging words with Spain’s Partido Popular (People’s Party) leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. I’m sure that Feijóo spoke about the collapse of rule of law in Spain but Bernard Grech should have asked him why he didn’t win the last general election. There are important lessons to be learned from Spain’s last general election that can be useful to all European Christian-Democrats and right-centre parties.
Spain’s PP won the relative majority of votes but failed to secure an absolute majority, and even with their potential coalition partner, Vox, they did not have the numbers to form a coalition government. Pedro Sanchez formed a government with literal outlaws Spain now has a left-wing government that includes once again communists and Russian collaborators. Basically, Spain’s government is an amalgamation of all the bad things in its politics, except for Vox, whilst PP still remains the most popular party in Spain.
Indeed, if one looks at the voting intention by age groups, while the PP and PSOE have a near parity when it comes to votes by young people, one could easily notice that there are many more young people voting far-left (Sumar and Podemos) than there are young people voting far-right (Vox). This is not a Spanish thing and it’s common in Europe including in Malta where young people are overwhelmingly rejecting far-right politics according to current polls.
The values of young people are ever more progressive and tolerant towards different genders and minorities, and the far-right can not bridge this electorate gap. Women’s rights rights are also a key issue for young women especially when it comes to abortion and reproduction rights. Politics is all about creating hegemony and bringing as many people possible into your camp, and PN needs to calibrate accordingly. Successive results and evidence in polls is showing them the writing on the wall.
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