Due to the poor results of the Catalan elections in which Vox won 11 seats and Pablo Casado’s three, the PP called for Madrid elections in the nick of time. The good news for Isabel Diaz Ayuso who can double the current 30 seats has given them breathing space. Today’s victory will give the conservatives the opportunity to keep their control of the Community of Madrid for two more years. This is after 26 years of government. It will also allow them to serve as a springboard for Moncloa. This weekend, “Pedro Sanchez’s countdown starts” was heard at Majadahonda.
They believe that a resounding win for the Madrid president is what they want. This, unlike all polls, will help Casado to strengthen his leadership and channel his center right reunification project. In record time, the ‘Ayuso Effect’ has succeeded in recovering a large portion of dissatisfied voters that fled the ‘cowardly left wing’ and corruption scandals that rocked the PP. This led to Mariano Rajoy’s censure.
The Madrid leader’s electoral strategy revolved around freedom and the opposition to socialism. This was exemplified by Pedro Sanchez and Pablo Iglesias who were the targets of her criticisms throughout the campaign. Esperanza Aguirre, who won the last absolute majority in Madrid in 2011 for the PP, stated that Ayuso “knows how to defend without complicated all the principles and value of the center and right and demonstrate this is what we must do to reach Government of the Nation.”
Even though the result may be a chimera today, the regional president hopes that she will win a large number seats at the polls, which will allow her to govern “in liberty”, as she has been repeatedly repeating throughout this contest. Vox is also supporting the candidate if Citizens is, it seems. Puerta del Sol believes that the far-right party won’t want to take portfolios, but the results will decide how far Santiago Abascal will go if he is able to secure a position that allows him to be the next Madrid executive.
Ayuso, who was unknown to most of his party’s supporters in the 2019 elections, is now a household name. It doesn’t matter how she has managed to pass two bills in her two years of office. It doesn’t matter that she is constantly in opposition. In fact, it was during the first pandemic that her government approved a protocol that would have prohibited the hospitalization of elderly residents. Miguel Angel Rodriguez’s communication strategy has helped the PP candidate to build a strong image against Sanchez in just one year.
They aren’t fooled by the PSOE, the winner of the 2019 elections. They are much worse off than they expected at the end of this campaign. They are not likely to add an alternative government to the popular leader’s government, but they also have seen the decline in their clear hegemony within the left-wing bloc. It is difficult to predict the surprise of Mas Madrid in 2019, the formation promoted by Manuela Carmena and Inigo Errejon. However, Monica Garcia, the candidate for this party, has emerged as the true star among progressive forces and has been successful in securing a large portion of the socialist vote.
Ferraz refuses to lose anything. According to the party leadership, surprise can still be achieved if there is higher turnout than was calculated in the southern region of Madrid. In the worst case scenario, they are dependent on a tie between blocks (68 to 68 seats), which would force the election to be repeated. They insist that it is possible for PSOE, Mas Madrid, and United We Can to reach 69 percent of the absolute majority. This scenario would alter everything.
Insecurity among the Socialists has been evident for the past month and a quarter. Pedro Sanchez’s chief-of-staff in Moncloa, Ivan Redondo had just led the campaign of Salvador Illa in Catalonia. Sanchez decided to retake control of the electoral strategy, delegating both the PSM and the PSOE leadership. It pricked the bone again, and the vertigo has been evident in continuous lurches. The Monclovita script led Angel Gabilondo, the candidate to make sure that there was no government “with these Iglesias”, to attract Citizens voters to call to unity of action for the left and refer to Podemos leader as “dear Pablo”.
National reading. Casado is positive of his leadership and channeling support for the reunification right
The Prime Minister’s role is the most obvious sign of socialist pessimism. While he played a major role in the initial weeks of the campaign, entering direct confrontation with Ayuso’s head, he has taken on a secondary role in recent weeks, trying to avoid the chaos. They now claim that the situation in Madrid can’t be extrapolated anywhere and ask for results before “speculating”.
Pablo Iglesias is not faring much better. It is almost certain that he has stopped the disappearance of United We Can. This was not possible when Diaz Ayuso called for the elections. However, everything suggests that his force will have the least number of deputies at the Assembly. This is a small reward for having given up his Vice President position in the Government of Spain.
