Spain’s main opposition group, the right-wing People’s Party (PP) successfully retained control of Galicia, a traditional conservative stronghold, in a tight regional election held on Sunday, a boost for the party’s leader who has come under recent criticism from even within his own group.
The PP won 47.36% of the vote, giving it an absolute majority of 40 seats in the 75-seat Galician parliament, official results with 100% of the vote counted showed. It is two seats less than the elections in 2020.
The PP has governed Galicia since 2009, winning majorities in each of the last four elections under Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who in 2022 left the region of some 2.7 million residents to become national party leader. The PP’s Alfonso Rueda will now become the new president of Galicia (seen right in main image alongside Feijóo).
The region is one of Spain’s most conservative. It was the birthplace of long-time dictator Francisco Franco and his right-hand man Manuel Fraga, as well former PP prime minister Mariano Rajoy.
Polls in recent weeks had suggested the race was tightening, raising the possibility that a surging left-wing Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) party and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE socialists might together secure an absolute majority to oust the PP from power.
The BNG did boost its own results, getting 25 seats (6 more than in 2020), with 31.57% of the vote, at the expense of the PSOE, which only won nine (5 less than in 2020). Led by Ana Pontón, the BNG made language a key issue, campaigning on promises to boost the use of the regional Galician language in public education and civil service.
Feijóo had warned that a victory for the BNG would bring the ‘social rupture’ seen in Catalonia, which is governed by pro-independence parties, to Galicia.
‘Don’t let nationalism come to this land, there is no territory where it has gone well,’ he said during a final campaign rally on Friday.
The far-right Vox party, the left-wing alliance of Sumar, and also Podemos, all failed to win representation in the regional parliament. The only other seat went to the small, local party of Democracia Ourensana.
Even though the PP won two fewer seats than at the last election in 2020, it still has enough to continue to govern alone.
‘Galicia has chosen forcefully and clearly to have the best government possible against the possibility of having the worst,’ PP secretary general Cuca Gamarra said after the results were known.
‘Between a mess and stability, voters chose stability, and between unity and division, they intelligently picked unity.’
The election came as Feijóo was under fire after he announced last weekend he was in favour of granting a conditional pardon to the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont over his role in the region’s failed 2017 independence push. ALSO READ: PP tries to backtrack on whether Feijóo had been willing to pardon Puigdemont.
Analysts had warned that if the PP lost its absolute majority in Galicia, Feijóo’s hold on the party would weaken.
It already took a hit after the PP won the most seats in Spain’s July election only for Feijóo to fail to build a working majority in parliament to form a government. That allowed Sánchez to stay on even though his Socialists had finished second.
A todos os galegos e galegas, infinitas grazas.
— Alfonso Rueda (@AlfonsoRuedaGal) February 18, 2024
Non vos fallaremos 💙 Galicia Rueda! pic.twitter.com/S0WisV3HH5
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