Sanchez Perez-Castejon, Pedro (1972- )

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    Pedro Sánchez Secures New Term to Lead a Divided Spain

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    The Socialist prime minister won a parliamentary vote only after promising amnesty to Catalan separatists, enraging conservatives.Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish progressive leader, secured a second term as prime minister on Thursday after a polarizing agreement granting amnesty to Catalan separatists gave him enough support in Parliament to govern with a fragile coalition over an increasingly divided nation.With 179 votes, barely more than the 176 usually required to govern, Mr. Sánchez, who has been prime minister since 2018, won a chance to extend the progressive agenda, often successful economic policies and pro-European Union posture of his Socialist Party.The outcome was the result of months of haggling since an inconclusive July election in which neither the conservative Popular Party, which came in first, or the Socialist Party, which came in second, secured enough support to govern alone.But the fractures in Spain were less about left versus right and more about the country’s very geographic integrity and identity. Mr. Sánchez’s proposed amnesties have breathed new life into a secession issue that last emerged in 2017, when separatists held an illegal referendum over independence in the prosperous northeastern region of Catalonia.That standoff caused perhaps the worst constitutional crisis for Spain since it became a democracy after the fall of the Franco dictatorship in the 1970s.It has since fueled a Spanish nationalist movement once considered taboo in the wake of Franco’s rule.Even before Mr. Sánchez could be sworn in, the prospect of an amnesty brought hundreds of thousands of conservatives and right-wing hard-liners into the streets in sometimes violent protests that have also drawn the American rabble-rouser Tucker Carlson. Spain’s courts have criticized the proposed amnesty as a violation of the separation of powers. European Union officials are watching nervously.Demonstrators gathered in Barcelona, Spain, on Sunday, to protest the government’s proposed law that would grant amnesty to Catalan separatists.Pau Barrena/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe parliamentary debate leading to Thursday’s vote in a building protected by barricades was particularly bitter as Mr. Sánchez defended the proposed clemency law from conservative accusations of corruption and democratic illegitimacy.“Every time the national dimension enters the arena, emotions grow and the debate is even further polarized,” said José Ignacio Torreblanca, a Spain expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank. Spain was in for “ugly, nasty and dirty” months ahead, he said.The separatism issue has given a “second life” to Carles Puigdemont, former president of the Catalonia region who was the force behind the 2017 secession movement and is now a fugitive in self-exile in Belgium, Mr. Torreblanca said. The hard-right party Vox, which, after a lackluster showing in the elections, has again raised its voice, calling for constant street protests.This seemed very much the situation Spaniards hoped to avoid when they cast most of their votes with mainstream parties in July, signaling that they wanted the stability of a strong center.In the balloting, the Popular Party persuaded many to choose their more mainstream conservatism over Vox but came up short of enough votes to form a government.Mr. Sánchez needed the support of a separatist party to govern — and in return offered amnesties, something he had previously called a red line he would not cross. The alternative was new elections.“The left face a great cost if they go to new elections, so having a government is crucial for them. But pro-independence parties face an important opportunity cost if this government is not in place,” said Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Carlos III University in Madrid. “All of them are very weak, but they need each other.”Carles Puigdemont, who has been in exile in Belgium, speaking by video link at a gathering of his Junts per Catalunya party in 2020.Quique Garcia/EPA, via ShutterstockPolls show that about two-thirds of Spaniards oppose the amnesty, demonstrated by large, and largely peaceful, protests throughout the country, though Vox politicians have attended violent rallies peppered with extremists outside Socialist Party headquarters. This week, Mr. Carlson, the former Fox News celebrity, attended one of the protests in Madrid with the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal, and said anyone willing “to end democracy is a tyrant, is a dictator. And this is happening in the middle of Europe.”Mr. Sánchez and his supporters have pointed out that their coalition — however much the hard right dislikes it — won enough support to govern, as the Constitution dictates. In a lengthy speech on Wednesday, Mr. Sánchez derided the conservatives for their alliance with Vox. He argued that the deal with the Catalan Republican Left and with the more radical Junts per Catalunya, the de facto leader of which is Mr. Puigdemont, was required to promote unity for the country.“And how do we guarantee that unity? You can try the path of tension and imposition, or you can try the path of dialogue, understanding and forgiveness,” Mr. Sánchez said, citing his record of pardoning imprisoned separatist leaders in 2021 as a way to reduce tensions with Catalonia. He said that the conservative hard-line approach had brought the unsuccessful 2017 move for secession in the first place.The conservative Popular Party’s leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, attacked Mr. Sánchez as “the problem.”“You and your inability to keep your word, your lack of moral limits, your pathological ambition,” he said. “As long as you’re around, Spain will be condemned to division. Your time as prime minister will be marked by Puigdemont returning freely to Catalonia. History will have no amnesty for you.”The leader of the conservative Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, center, at a protest against the amnesty bill in Madrid on Sunday.Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut Mr. Sánchez seemed unaffected and instead mocked the conservatives as having a record of corruption and for being motivated by sour grapes over losing the election, laughing at Mr. Feijóo, who sat in front of him.“I don’t understand why you’re so keen to hold a new election if you won the last one,” Mr. Sánchez said.Mr. Sánchez also took direct aim at the leader of Vox, Mr. Abascal, saying, “The only effective barrier to the policies of the far right is our coalition government.”The amnesty bill would cancel “penal, administrative and financial” penalties against more than 300 people involved in the independence movement from Jan. 1, 2012, to Nov. 13, 2023.But Mr. Sánchez’s Socialists had also agreed to relieve millions of euros in debt to Catalonia, a demand of the separatists, and to give it some control over commuter train services. Mr. Puigdemont’s party had demanded that Catalonia, which is a wealthy region, keep more of its tax revenues, and that referendum talks should restart, though this time abiding by the demands of the Spanish Constitution.Conservatives have vowed to fight the law, which will take many months to work its way through Parliament and must overcome serious hurdles, not least of them the objection of Spanish judges. There is the risk that if the separatists are stymied by the courts, which they consider politically motivated, they could drop out of the coalition, essentially paralyzing Mr. Sánchez’s legislative agenda.“Probably this government will be stuck in Parliament,” said Mr. Simón, the political scientist, adding that grievances over the amnesties in regional governments controlled by conservatives would hurt cooperation and governance as well.There is also the question of whether Mr. Puigdemont could once again pursue an illegal referendum, recreating the trauma of 2017. That would probably embolden the nationalist Vox, whose grave warnings about the destruction of Spain would seem legitimized.“If you activate this extinction or survival mode of Spanish nationalists, then the conservative party may not be the best option because you are frustrated and angry,” said Mr. Torreblanca, the analyst.He added that Spain could be entering a risky scenario in which “those who lose the elections do not accept that they have lost, not so much because the vote was rigged, but because the government is doing things which they considered outrageous.” More

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      Sánchez’s Deal With Catalonia Separatists Creates Turmoil in Spain

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      Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s agreement with Catalan separatists will likely keep him in power, but it has provoked an upheaval.Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain sealed a deal to extend amnesty to Catalan separatists on Thursday in exchange for their political support, likely allowing him to stay in power but causing turmoil throughout Spain, doubts in Europe and questions about the country’s stability.Mr. Sánchez, 51, who is currently acting as a caretaker prime minister after inconclusive snap elections he called in July, backed the amnesties related to an illegal referendum that shook Spain in 2017 to receive the critical support of the Junts party, which supports independence from Spain for the northern region of Catalonia.With their support, Mr. Sánchez will likely avoid new elections, win parliamentary backing for another stint as prime minister and solidify his place in the European Union as its standard-bearer for progressive politics.But the proposed amnesties, something Mr. Sánchez had previously said he would never do, triggered an uproar..Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain speaking with the media last month.Virginia Mayo/Associated PressEarlier in the day, Mr. Sánchez’s allies, eager to avoid the appearance that the deal had been struck out of pure political calculation, sought to frame the proposal as instrumental in putting a tense and violent period of Spanish history behind the country.It was “a historic opportunity to resolve a conflict that could — and should — only be resolved politically,” Santos Cerdán, a top negotiator with the Socialist Party, who had performed shuttle diplomacy between Madrid and separatist exiles in Brussels, said after the deal was announced. “Our aim is to open the way for a legislature that will allow us to progress and to build an open and modern society and a better country.”The deal potentially marks a remarkable reversal of political fortune for Mr. Sánchez, who has made a career out of bold, long-shot bets, but who seemed on the brink of a political abyss after his party received a drubbing in local and regional elections in May.But the Junts party is not a reliable partner, and has already made clear it will continue to seek to extract concessions in exchange for its support in close votes in Parliament.The deal, and the violence, come after thousands of protesters angrily surrounded the Socialist Party headquarters in Madrid in past days and called on Mr. Sánchez not to make a deal with the separatists, whom many conservatives consider an existential threat to Spanish nationhood.Protesters holding independence flags in September during a demonstration to celebrate the Catalan National Day in Barcelona.Emilio Morenatti/Associated PressThe mainstream conservative Popular Party, which had been expected to win elections over the summer but fell short of enough votes to form a government, has called for major demonstrations throughout Spain’s major cities on Sunday.It is about “privileging a minority to the detriment of a majority, and ending the equality between Spaniards that is enshrined in the Constitution,” said Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the Popular Party leader, who said that Mr. Sánchez had clearly aligned himself with enemies of the state. “The humiliation to which Sánchez is subjecting our country is complete.”In Brussels, the European commissioner for justice, Didier Reynders, sent a letter to Spain’s justice and presidency ministers about the “serious concerns” raised by the amnesty proposal.In regional and local elections in May, Mr. Sánchez’s party took such a shellacking that he pulled the plug on his government, opting to try his chances with an early national election instead. He was expected to lose.But while Mr. Sánchez did not come out on top in the July election, he and his progressive allies won enough support to stun the favored conservative and hard-right parties, depriving them of the necessary parliamentary support to form a government.Mr. Sánchez, who has served as the prime minister since 2018, a position he won in a daring confidence vote, instead had a narrow path to building a government, but it ran right through the issue of Catalan independence, among the most prickly and fraught in Spanish politics.In 2017, leaders of the Catalan separatist movement provoked Spain’s greatest constitutional crisis in decades when they staged an independence referendum that Madrid called illegal.Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s exiled former leader, at a news conference in Brussels. Mr. Puigdemont has been in exile in Belgium.John Thys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAfter enormous demonstrations in Barcelona and a tense national climate, the heads of the movement balked. Their leader, who was president of Catalonia at the time, Carles Puigdemont, fled the country and has remained in self-imposed exile in Belgium since. His allies have faced convictions.But on Thursday, Mr. Sánchez won the support of seven lawmakers from the Junts party that Mr. Puigdemont essentially leads, in exchange for the Socialist Party proposing a new law granting amnesty to him and everyone else in the failed independence referendum. The new law could affect many separatists who have been convicted or are currently facing trial for pro-independence activities.The specifics of the agreement have not yet been made public, and it is expected to be proposed in the Spanish Parliament next week. The deal was not a given, and required more than two months of negotiations between Sánchez’s Socialist party, his own, more progressive allies, and the Catalan and Basque independence movements that, despite a lackluster showing in July’s election, retained enough leverage to force a deal.Mr. Puigedemont said on Thursday at a news conference in Brussels that he would still support the cause of independence, and he celebrated the deal, saying that it took the issue out of the judiciary and brought it back in the public sphere where it belonged.“It is a way to return to politics,” he said, “what is politics.”Rachel Chaundler More

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      ¿Qué significa para España la derrota electoral de la extrema derecha?

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      Una de las pocas certezas de los resultados de las elecciones fue que los españoles se están alejando de los extremos políticos.El statu quo liberal y moderado de Europa respiró con más tranquilidad el lunes luego de que Vox, un partido nacionalista de España, se tambaleara en las elecciones generales del domingo con lo que, por el momento, se contuvo el auge de los partidos de extrema derecha en el continente, que parecía que tendrían buenos resultados incluso en España, un bastión progresista.“Un alivio para Europa”, se leía en un titular de La Repubblica, el diario liberal de Italia, donde el año pasado la líder de extrema derecha Giorgia Meloni se convirtió en primera ministra. Meloni, en un mensaje en video divulgado este mes, les dijo a sus aliados de Vox que “la hora de los patriotas ha llegado”.Sin embargo, en vez de que Vox se tornara en el primer partido de extrema derecha en formar parte de un gobierno de España desde el final de la dictadura de Francisco Franco hace casi 50 años, como habían estimado muchas encuestas, se hundió. Los malos resultados del partido en las urnas también afectaron a los conservadores de centroderecha, quienes a su vez obtuvieron resultados más limitados de los que se esperaban y que dependían del apoyo de Vox para formar gobierno.Como resultado, ningún partido o coalición obtuvo de manera inmediata los escaños necesarios del Congreso para gobernar, lo que llevó a España a un embrollo político ya conocido y le dio nueva vida al presidente del gobierno, Pedro Sánchez, que hace solo unos días lucía agonizante. De pronto, Sánchez parece mejor posicionado para formar otro gobierno progresista en las próximas semanas y así evitar nuevas elecciones.“La democracia encontrará la fórmula de la gobernabilidad”, dijo el lunes a los líderes de su partido, el Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), según el diario El País.Lo que quedó claro es que los votantes españoles rechazaron al partido Vox, que perdió casi la mitad de sus escaños en el Congreso, lo que indica un anhelo evidente de alejarse de los extremos y regresar al centro político.Los políticos proeuropeos interpretaron el resultado como una señal alentadora de que las elecciones europeas del próximo año también se pueden ganar desde el centro, lo que significa un revés para las fuerzas de extrema derecha que han logrado avances en Suecia, Finlandia, Alemania, Francia e Italia, así como en Estados Unidos.La campaña de Vox repitió las opiniones nacionalistas de la extrema derecha adoptados de manera casi uniforme en otros países, con una oposición a la migración y a los derechos de la comunidad LGBTQ, la promoción de los valores cristianos tradicionales y la reafirmación del nacionalismo frente a la injerencia de la Unión Europea.Pero muchos de esos temas no lograron cautivar a los votantes españoles, o incluso los asustaron, y los resultados electorales fueron contrarios a la tendencia política de Europa.Los resultados, por el contrario, revelaron que el ascenso de Vox estuvo más relacionado con la respuesta nacionalista al impulso independentista de 2017 en Cataluña. Sánchez logró sosegar ese tema durante sus cinco años en el cargo al otorgar indultos y reducir las penas para los independentistas.Pedro Sánchez, líder del PSOE y presidente del gobierno español, en Madrid el domingoNacho Doce/ReutersEsas medidas tuvieron un costo político para él entre los españoles enfadados con los independentistas catalanes, pero conforme esa crisis comenzó a pasar a segundo plano, lo mismo le sucedió a Vox. Al final, el mensaje del partido les interesó a muchos menos electores en estos comicios que en 2019.“Cataluña ha sido uno de los principales impulsores del ascenso de Vox”, dijo Juan Rodríguez Teruel, politólogo de la Universidad de Valencia.Pero los resultados del domingo también mostraron que la cuestión catalana aún no está superada del todo. El lunes quedó claro que los partidos independentistas pequeños de esa región podrían ser la clave para permitir un nuevo gobierno de Sánchez, como lo hicieron en la votación anterior.Entre esos partidos están, de manera decisiva, los aliados independentistas de Carles Puigdemont, el expresidente regional de Cataluña que lideró el movimiento independentista fallido y todavía está prófugo, en un exilio autoimpuesto en Bélgica.“Puigdemont podrá hacer presidente a Sánchez”, se lee en parte de un titular del diario español El Mundo.El lunes comenzó de inmediato un complejo juego del gato y el ratón, porque unas autoridades españolas solicitaron una nueva orden de detención contra Puigdemont.“Un día eres decisivo para la formación de un gobierno español y al día siguiente España ordena tu arresto”, tuiteó el lunes.Gabriel Rufián, integrante del Congreso de los Diputados por Esquerra Republicana, un partido independentista catalán, dijo en una entrevista antes de las elecciones que Sánchez no tendría más remedio que dialogar con los independentistas.“Hace cuatro años, en la campaña electoral, prometió ir a buscar a Puigdemont a Waterloo y detenerle”, dijo Rufián sobre Sánchez. “No podía. Era absurdo”. Y añadió: “Meses después se sentó en la mesa de negociación con nosotros. Fue por la presión política, porque necesitaba gobernar su país”.El domingo por la noche, tras la votación, resumió su mensaje en una frase: “O Cataluña o Vox”. Pero su partido también perdió apoyo con el viraje de los electores españoles hacia el centro.Está por verse qué significará el resurgimiento del debate sobre Cataluña para España, los independentistas y Vox.Vox se fundó hace una década, cuando su líder, Santiago Abascal, se separó del Partido Popular (PP), un partido de centroderecha que por mucho tiempo ha albergado a partidarios de la monarquía, libertarios a favor del matrimonio igualitario, católicos ultraconservadores y españoles que repudian los movimientos independentistas del norte.El partido creía en una España unificada pero, en las décadas que siguieron al régimen de Franco, las expresiones a favor de esa postura —incluso ondear la bandera española—, se consideraban un tabú del nacionalismo.Sin embargo, animado por el impulso independentista en Cataluña, Vox estaba dispuesto a cruzar esa línea. Un buen número de votantes españoles apoyaron al partido.Los nacionalistas de Vox —que hicieron un llamado a que el movimiento independentista catalán fuera detenido por cualquier medio— atrajeron apoyo. Para las elecciones de 2019, se habían convertido en la tercera fuerza más grande del país.En un breve discurso el domingo por la noche tras los malos resultados de su partido, un Abascal que lucía abatido reconoció que Sánchez ahora tenía el apoyo para bloquear la formación de un nuevo gobierno, y también podría formar gobierno si se aliaba de nuevo con la extrema izquierda y los partidos independistas, o lo que describió como “el apoyo del comunismo, el separatismo de golpista y el terrorismo”.“Vamos a resistir”, insistió, y afirmó que su partido estaba preparado para ser parte de la oposición o “para una repetición electoral”.Pero los analistas creen que es probable que unas nuevas elecciones solo debiliten aún más a Vox. La influencia regresó a Cataluña, y más específicamente al partido de línea dura Junts per Catalunya, fundado por Puigdemont.“No haremos presidente a Sánchez a cambio de nada”, dijo en la sede del partido el domingo por la noche Míriam Nogueras, líder de Junts.Otros miembros de su partido, que fueron indultados por Sánchez, han sugerido que una amnistía y un referéndum de independencia puede ser el precio que exigen.Sin embargo, algunos políticos de izquierda y dirigentes locales que desconfían de Vox han expresado su preocupación por la posibilidad de que el aumento de la tensión con Cataluña sea exactamente lo que necesita la extrema derecha para resurgir.El viernes por la noche, Yolanda Díaz, líder de la plataforma de extrema izquierda Sumar que obtuvo 31 escaños, dijo en un mitin en Barcelona que quería “dialogar con Cataluña. Queremos un acuerdo. Salid a votar por el dialogo, por un acuerdo, por una Cataluña mejor”.Yolanda Díaz, líder de la plataforma de extrema izquierda Sumar, en un mitin en Barcelona el viernesMaria Contreras Coll para The New York TimesEl lunes, su partido contactó a Puigdemont y a Junts para intentar persuadirlos de respaldar al gobierno.En Barcelona, antes de las elecciones del domingo, a lo largo de una calle importante que se cubrió con banderas catalanas durante las protestas de 2017, solo había una a la vista.“La situación de España y la irrupción de la extrema derecha es una consecuencia de lo que ha pasado aquí en Cataluña”, dijo Joaquim Hernández, de 64 años.“Al no hacer el referéndum mantienes la tensión y el enfrentamiento que beneficia a los partidos independentistas y a Vox”, dijo, “porque Cataluña es desafortunadamente un argumento que utilizan los nacionalistas para ganar votos”.Rachel Chaundler More

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      What the Collapse of Spain’s Far Right Means Going Forward

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      About the only thing clear from Spain’s muddled election results was that Spaniards were turning away from the political extremes.Europe’s liberal and moderate establishment breathed easier on Monday after Spain’s nationalist Vox party faltered in Sunday’s elections, stalling for now a surge from far-right parties around the continent that seemed on the brink of washing over even the progressive bastion of Spain.“A relief for Europe,” read a front-page headline in the liberal La Repubblica in Italy, where the hard-right leader Giorgia Meloni became prime minister last year and predicted “the hour of the patriots has arrived” in a video message to her Vox allies this month.But instead of Vox becoming the first hard-right party to enter government in Spain since the end of the Franco dictatorship nearly 50 years ago, as many polls had predicted, it sank. The party’s poor returns at the polls also took down the underperforming center-right conservatives who had depended on Vox’s support to form a government.As a result, no single party or coalition immediately gained enough parliamentary seats to govern, thrusting Spain into a familiar political muddle and giving new life to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who only days ago seemed moribund. Suddenly, Mr. Sánchez appeared best positioned to cobble together another progressive government in the coming weeks to avoid new elections.“This democracy will find the governability formula,” he told the leaders of his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party on Monday, according to El País.What is clear for now is that Spanish voters rebuked the Vox party, which lost nearly half its seats in Parliament, signaling a clear desire to turn away from the extremes and back toward the political center.Pro-European politicians took the result as an encouraging sign that next year’s European elections would also be won in the center, dealing a setback to the far-right forces that have made gains in Sweden, Finland, Germany, France and Italy, as well as in the United States.Vox’s campaign parroted nearly uniform hard-right, nationalist views espoused in other nations, with opposition to migration and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, promotion of traditional Christian values and the assertion of nationalism over meddling from the European Union.But many of those issues failed to draw Spanish voters, or even scared them, and the country’s election results went contrary to Europe’s political winds.Instead, the results made clear that the rise of Vox had more to do with the nationalist response to a 2017 explosion of secessionist fervor in Spain’s Catalonia region. Mr. Sánchez managed to defuse that issue during his five years in office by delivering pardons and weakening penalties for the secessionists.Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s Socialist leader and prime minister, in Madrid, on Sunday.Nacho Doce/ReutersFor that he paid a political price among Spaniards angered by the Catalans, but as long as the issue seemed on the back burner, so did Vox. Ultimately, the party’s message had far fewer takers in this election than it did in 2019.“Catalonia has been one of the main drivers of the rise of Vox,” said Juan Rodríguez Teruel, a political scientist at the University of Valencia.But Sunday’s results also showed that the Catalan issue was not quite dead yet. On Monday, it became clear that the small independence parties of that region may very well hold the key to unlocking a new government for Mr. Sánchez, just as they did in the last vote.Critically, those parties include the pro-independence allies of Carles Puigdemont, the former regional president of Catalonia who led the failed secessionist movement and is still on the run, living in self-imposed exile in Belgium.“Puigdemont could make Sánchez president,” read a headline in the daily Spanish newspaper El Mundo.A complicated cat-and-mouse game was immediately underway on Monday, with Spanish prosecutors issuing a new arrest warrant for Mr. Puigdemont.“One day you are decisive in order to form a Spanish government, the next day Spain orders your arrest,” he tweeted on Monday.Gabriel Rufián, a member of Parliament with the Republican Left of Catalonia, a pro-Catalan independence party, said in a pre-election interview that Mr. Sánchez had no choice but to deal with the secessionists.“Four years ago in the electoral campaign, Sánchez promised to search for Puigdemont in Waterloo and arrest him. He could not. It was absurd,” he said. “Months later he sat down at the negotiating table with us. It was because of political pressure, because he needed to govern his country.”On Sunday night, after the vote, he boiled his message down simply to “Either Catalonia or Vox.” But his party lost support, too, in Spaniards’ turn to the center.What a revival the Catalonia issue would mean now for Spain, the secessionists and Vox remains to be seen.Vox was established a decade ago when its leader, Santiago Abascal, split from the Popular Party, long a big center-right tent that included monarchists, libertarian supporters of same-sex marriage, ultraconservative Catholics and Spaniards who detested the independence movements of the north.The party believed in a unified Spain; however, overt expressions of that view — even waving the national flag — in the decades after the Franco regime were considered taboo signs of nationalism.But spurred by Catalonia’s push for independence, Vox was more than willing to cross that line. A surge of Spaniards followed it.The nationalists in Vox — who called for the Catalan movement to be put down by any means necessary — soaked up support. By the 2019 elections, they had grown to the third largest party in the country.In a short speech Sunday night after his party’s drubbing, a downcast Mr. Abascal acknowledged that Mr. Sánchez now had the support to block a new government, and could also be sworn in again with the support of the far-left and the separatist parties, or what he called “the support of communism, coup separatism and terrorism.”“We’re going to resist,” he insisted, saying that his party was prepared to be in the opposition or “repeat elections.”But analysts said new elections would likely only weaken Vox further. The leverage had shifted back to Catalonia, and more specifically to the more hard-line Together for Catalonia party, founded by Mr. Puigdemont.“We will not make Sánchez president in exchange for nothing,” Míriam Nogueras, a leader of the Together for Catalonia party, said at her headquarters Sunday night.Others in her party, who were pardoned by Mr. Sánchez, have suggested that further amnesties and a referendum on independence may be the price they demand.But left-wing politicians and locals wary of Vox worried that increased tension with Catalonia was exactly what the far right needed for a resurgence.“We want dialogue with Catalonia. We want an agreement. Go out and vote for dialogue, for an agreement, for a better Catalonia,” Yolanda Díaz, the leader of the hard-left Sumar party, which won 31 seats, told a rally in Barcelona on Friday night.Yolanda Díaz at a Sumar rally in Barcelona on Friday.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesOn Monday, her party reached out to Mr. Puigdemont and the Together for Catalonia party to convince them to back the government.On the eve of Sunday’s election in Barcelona, along a main thoroughfare that was blanketed in Catalan flags during the 2017 protests, there was only one visible“The situation in Spain and the eruption of the extreme right is a consequence of what happened here in Catalonia,” said Joaquim Hernandez, 64.“By not having the referendum, you keep the tension and the confrontation that benefits the independence parties and Vox,” he said, “because Catalonia is unfortunately an argument that the nationalists use to win votes.”Rachel Chaundler More

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      What to Know About Spain’s Election on Sunday

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      The national elections could see a far-right party enter the Spanish government for the first time since the 1970s.Spaniards will go to the polls on Sunday to vote in an early general election that could see the right return to power and, more crucially, the far right enter the national government for the first time since the Franco dictatorship, nearly a half-century ago.The outcome will determine whether Spain — a nation of about 48 million people and the European Union’s fourth-largest economy — follows a growing trend in Europe, where hard-right parties are surging in popularity and, in some cases, gaining power by entering governments as junior partners.How did we get here?Spain has succeeded in stabilizing its economy and politics after years of upheavals marked by a devastating financial crisis, a prolonged secessionist conflict in Catalonia and repeated failures to form a government.Pedro Sánchez, the current prime minister, has been in power for five years. He leads a fragile coalition government made up of various left-wing parties, including his own, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party.Still, under Mr. Sánchez’s leadership, Spain has enjoyed a period of strong economic growth and low inflation. He is also popular in the European Union for his progressive and pro-Europe policies.Polls suggest that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, a Socialist, will be ousted by conservatives who dislike his reliance on allies who have tried to secede from Spain.Ander Gillenea/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSpain was not due to elect a new Parliament until November. But after the Socialists and their allies suffered crushing defeats in regional and municipal elections in May, Mr. Sánchez dissolved Parliament and called a snap election for this Sunday. He said that the outcome of the vote conveyed “a message that goes beyond” local resentment, and that he took “personal responsibility for the results.”The move was seen as an attempt by Mr. Sánchez to remobilize his supporters and halt his coalition government’s steady decline in popularity. But it also opened the way for the conservative Popular Party to return to power earlier than expected — possibly in an alliance with the far right.What’s at stake?Spain has long been regarded as a bulwark against the rise of nationalism in Europe. While populist and far-right victories were piling up across the continent, nationalist forces in Spain long failed to gain a foothold, largely because Spaniards remain traumatized by Gen. Francisco Franco’s four-decade dictatorship.That started to change in recent years, after a secessionist movement in Catalonia, in northeastern Spain, helped revive nationalist sentiments. The main catalyst of that resurgence, Vox — a party with an anti-migrant agenda and a history of opposing L.G.B.T.Q. rights and questioning climate change — is now projected to garner about 13 percent of Sunday’s vote.Campaign posters for Alberto Nunez Feijoo, leader of the Popular Party, and Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox, in Umberte, Spain.Cristina Quicler/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThis outcome would have no major consequences if the Popular Party, which is leading the polls with about 34 percent of voting intentions, did not need Vox’s support to govern. But most studies suggest that it would, meaning that the far right could enter the Spanish government for the first time since the return of democracy in the 1970s.The Popular Party has refrained from saying whether it would seek to govern with Vox. But it has already forged several local coalition agreements with the far right after the May elections, in a move that many saw as a harbinger of a broader national alliance.During the campaign, Mr. Sánchez and his allies have focused on the threat of conservatives bringing Vox into the government, saying the election on Sunday would be a choice between liberal democracy and right-wing populism. The vote, Mr. Sánchez said, “will clarify if Spaniards want a government on the side of Joe Biden or Donald Trump, of Lula da Silva or Jair Bolsonaro.”If the left retains power, the Socialists, which have polled around 28 percent, could look to form a coalition with Sumar, a platform of left-wing parties.Yolanda Díaz, the candidate for Sumar, the left-wing umbrella group, at a rally this past week.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesWhoever wins, the next prime minister will have to juggle concerns over rising energy prices with other long-term issues, including increasingly intense droughts and flows of African migrants risking their lives to reach Spain. The country also assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union this month, and the outcome of the vote may mean that Spain will change its leadership while driving the continent’s political agenda.What are the issues?Under Mr. Sánchez’s leadership, the Spanish economy rebounded from a low point in 2020, during the start of the coronavirus pandemic, to growth rates above 5 percent in both 2021 and 2022. The country’s gross domestic product was predicted to expand by 1.9 percent this year, a rate faster than that of most E.U. countries.The Spanish government also raised the minimum wage by about 50 percent since 2018 and managed to curb inflation to one of the lowest levels in Europe.Mr. Sánchez has tried to make the case for a new mandate by campaigning on these strong economic performances. But the debate has mostly centered on the policies that his government put in place to address memory and societal issues, including a law facilitating the exhumation of victims of Franco’s repression and the introduction of menstrual pain leave, as well as new legislation expanding transgender rights and categorizing all non-consensual sex as rape.In Barcelona last week. Despite strong economic growth, Spain still has the highest unemployment rate of all European Union countries.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesThe Popular Party and Vox have fiercely criticized these laws, saying they sow societal divisions. In particular, they attacked the law on sexual consent, also known as the “Only Yes Means Yes” law, which changed sentencing requirements and created a loophole that cut jail time for hundreds of convicted sexual offenders.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the Popular Party, has also accused Mr. Sánchez of having promoted separatism by relying on the votes of deeply polarizing Catalan and Basque pro-independence parties in Parliament. He promised to repeal any law that was passed with the support of EH Bildu, a left-wing Basque separatist party headed by Arnaldo Otegi, a convicted member of the disbanded Eta terrorist group.And despite strong economic growth, Spain still has the highest unemployment rate of all European Union countries, and the purchasing power of many Spaniards remains weak, fueling frustrations — evidence, according to the opposition, that economic recovery is far from complete.How do the elections work and what comes next?All 350 seats in Spain’s lower house of Parliament, which designates a prime minister, are up for grabs, along with two-thirds of the Senate, the upper house.Campaign posters in Barcelona.Maria Contreras CollPolling stations will open at 9 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Sunday in most cities. Exit polls are expected to be released shortly afterward in the Spanish news media, but no official results are expected until later at night.And even when the results are known, Spain is unlikely to have a new prime minister for several weeks, as Parliament needs to reconvene and the victorious party will probably have to enter into negotiations to form a governing coalition — a process that could take weeks, if not months. (All polls have ruled out the possibility that a single party will secure an absolute majority in Parliament.)If neither of the projected coalitions — the Popular Party and Vox, or the Socialists and Sumar — meet the threshold required to reach a majority in Parliament, they will have to turn to the smaller, regional parties for support. More

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      Far Right May Rise as Kingmaker in Spanish Election

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      A messier political landscape has lent leverage to the extremes, leaving a hard-right party poised to share power for the first time since Franco.If Spain’s national elections on Sunday turn out as most polls and analysts suggest, mainstream conservatives may come out on top but need allies on the political fringe to govern, ushering the first hard-right party into power since the Franco dictatorship.The potential ascent of that hard-right party, Vox, which has a deeply nationalist spirit imbued with Franco’s ghost, would bring Spain into the growing ranks of European nations where mainstream conservative parties have partnered with previously taboo forces out of electoral necessity. It is an important marker for a politically shifting continent, and a pregnant moment for a country that has long grappled with the legacy of its dictatorship.Even before Spaniards cast a single ballot, it has raised questions of where the country’s political heart actually lies — whether its painful past and transition to democracy only four decades ago have rendered Spain a mostly moderate, inclusive and centrist country, or whether it could veer toward extremes once again.Santiago Abascal, the leader of the hard-right party Vox, greeting supporters this month at a rally in Barcelona. Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesSpain’s establishment, centrist parties — both the conservative Popular Party and the Socialists led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — have long dominated the country’s politics, and the bulk of the electorate seems to be turning away from the extremes toward the center, experts note.But neither of Spain’s mainstream parties have enough support to govern alone. The Popular Party, though predicted to come out on top on Sunday, is not expected to win a majority in the 350-seat Parliament, making an alliance imperative. The hard-right Vox is its most likely partner.The paradox is that even as Vox appears poised to reach the height of its power since it was founded a decade ago, its support may be shrinking, as its stances against abortion rights, climate change policies and L.G.B.T.Q. rights have frightened many voters away.The notion that the country is becoming more extremist is “a mirage,” said Sergio del Molino, a Spanish author and commentator who has written extensively about Spain and its transformations.The election, he said, reflected more the political fragmentation of the establishment parties, prompted by the radicalizing events of the 2008 financial crisis and the near secession of Catalonia in 2017. That has now made alliances, even sometimes with parties on the political fringe, a necessity.He pointed to “a gap” between the country’s political leadership, which needed to seek electoral support in the extremes to govern, and a “Spanish society that wants to return to the center again.”In Barcelona this past week. Spain’s establishment, centrist parties, have long dominated the country’s politics.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesJosé Ignacio Torreblanca, a Spain expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the messy process of coalition building in the relatively new Spanish era of the post two-party system lent leverage and visibility to fringe parties greater than their actual support.“This is not a blue and red country, at all,” he said.Other were less convinced. Paula Suárez, 29, a doctor and left-wing candidate for local office in Barcelona with the Sumar coalition, said the polarization in the country was entrenched. “It’s got to do with the civil war — it’s heritage. Half of Spain is left wing and half is right wing,” she said, calling Vox Franco’s descendants.But those who see a mostly centrist Spain use the same historical reference point for their argument. The Spanish electorate’s traditional rejection of extremes, some experts said, was rooted precisely in its memory of the deadly polarization of the Franco era.Later, through the shared traumas of decades of murders by Basque terrorists seeking to break from Spain, the two major establishment parties, the Popular Party and the Socialists, forged a political center and provided a roomy home for most voters.But recent events have tested the strength of Spain’s immunity to appeals from the political extremes. Even if abidingly centrist, Spanish politics today, if not polarized, is no doubt tugged at the fringes.A salon in Barcelona. The Spanish electorate’s traditional rejection of extremes, some experts said, was rooted precisely in its memory of the deadly polarization of the Franco era.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesA corruption scandal in the Popular Party prompted Vox to splinter off in 2013. Then the near secession of Catalonia in 2017 provided jet fuel to nationalists at a time when populist anger against globalization, the European Union and gender-based identity politics were taking off across Europe.On the other side of the spectrum, the financial crisis prompted the creation of a hard left in 2015, forcing Mr. Sánchez later to form a government with that group and cross a red line for himself and the country.Perhaps of greater consequence for this election, he has also relied on the votes of Basque groups filled with former terrorists, giving conservative voters a green light to become more permissive of Vox, Mr. Torreblanca said. “This is what turned politics in Spain quite toxic,” he said.After local elections in May, which dealt a blow to Mr. Sánchez and prompted him to call the early elections that Spaniards will vote in on Sunday, the conservatives and Vox have already formed alliances throughout the country.In some cases, the worst fears of liberals are being borne out. Outside Madrid, Vox culture officials banned performances with gay or feminist themes. In other towns, they have eliminated bike paths and taken down Pride flags.A Pride flag hanging on a house in Náquera, Spain. The newly elected mayor from the Vox party in the town of Náquera has ordered the removal of Pride flags from municipal buildings.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesEster Calderón, a representative of a national feminist organization in Valencia, where feminists marched on Thursday, said she feared that the country’s Equality Ministry, which is loathed by Vox, would be scrapped if the party shared power in a new government.She attributed the rise in Vox to the progress feminists had made in recent years, saying it had provoked a reactionary backlash. “It’s as if they have come out of the closet,” she said.At a rally for Yolanda Díaz, the candidate for Sumar, the left-wing umbrella group, an all-woman lineup talked about maternity leave, defending abortion rights and protecting women from abuse. The crowd, many cooling themselves with fans featuring Ms. Díaz in dark sunglasses, erupted at the various calls to action to stop Vox.“Only if we’re strong,” Ms. Díaz said. “Will we send Vox to the opposition.”Yolanda Díaz, the candidate for Sumar, the left-wing umbrella group, at a rally this past week. “Only if we’re strong,” she said, “will we send Vox to the opposition.”Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesBut members of the conservative Popular Party, which is hoping to win an absolute majority and govern without Vox, have tried to assure moderate voters spooked by the prospect of an alliance with the hard right that they will not allow Vox to pull them backward.Xavier Albiol, the Popular Party mayor of Badalona, outside Barcelona, said that “100 percent” there would be no backtracking on gay rights, women’s rights, climate policies or Spain’s close relationship with Europe if his party had to bring in Vox, which he called 30 years behind the times.Vox, he said, was only interested in “spectacle” to feed their base, and would merely “change the name” of things, like gender-based violence to domestic violence, without altering substance.Some experts agreed that if Vox entered the government, it would do so in a weakened position as its support appears to be falling.Xavier Albiol, the Popular Party mayor of Badalona, said that “100 percent” there would be no backtracking on gay rights, women’s rights or climate policies if his party had to bring in Vox.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York Times“The paradox now,” said Mr. Torreblanca, the political analyst, is that just as Mr. Sánchez entered government with the far left when it was losing steam, the Popular Party seemed poised to govern with Vox as its support was sinking. “The story would be that Spain is turning right. When in fact this is the moment when Vox is at the weakest point.”Recent polls have shown voters turning away from Vox, and even some of its supporters did not think the party should touch the civil rights protections that Spain’s liberals introduced, and that its conservatives supported.Gay marriage “should remain legal of course,” said Alex Ruf, 23, a Vox supporter who sat with his girlfriend on a bench in Barcelona’s wealthy Sarriá district.Mr. Albiol, the mayor of Badalona, insisted that Spain was inoculated, and said that unlike other European countries, it would continue to be.“Due to the historical tradition of a dictatorship for 40 years,” he said, Spain “has become a society where the majority of the population is not situated at the extremes.”That was of little consolation to Juana Guerrero, 65, who attended the left-wing Sumar event.If Vox gets into power, they will “trample us under their shoes,” she said, grinding an imaginary cigarette butt under her foot.In Barcelona this past week. Some experts agreed that if Vox entered the government, it would do so in a weakened position as its support appears to be falling.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesRachel Chaundler More

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      Elecciones generales de España: las alianzas al centro del debate

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      Los grandes temas del país han estado en buena medida ausentes del debate político. Las posibles coaliciones y los aliados de los principales partidos han sido el foco de la campaña.La guerra en Ucrania avanza. Las temperaturas abrasadoras impulsan una reflexión sobre el cambio climático. La inseguridad económica abunda. Pero las elecciones españolas podrían resolverse en torno al asunto de las malas compañías.Mientras los españoles se preparan para votar en las elecciones generales del domingo, los expertos opinan que a los votantes se les pide decidir quién —el gobierno de centroizquierda o la oposición de centroderecha— tiene los amigos más desagradables y los menos aceptables y peligrosamente extremistas.Las encuestas sugieren que el presidente del gobierno, Pedro Sánchez, el líder socialista, será reemplazado por los conservadores, que han aprovechado su dependencia a algunos aliados que han intentado separarse de España. Entre ellos, el movimiento independentista catalán del norte de España y los descendientes políticos del grupo vasco separatista ETA, que enfureció a los votantes antes de las elecciones autonómicas y municipales de mayo cuando presentaron a 44 terroristas convictos como candidatos, entre ellos siete que fueron hallados culpables de asesinato.Los socialistas de Sánchez, por su parte, han expresado inquietud por los aliados extremistas de sus oponentes conservadores, el partido Vox. Vox podría ser el primer partido de extrema derecha en llegar al gobierno desde la dictadura de Franco si es que, como se espera, el principal partido conservador gana y necesita formar una coalición.Pedro Sánchez en un mitin en Madrid.Juan Medina/ReutersEsta atención minuciosa a las alianzas políticas ha ensombrecido un debate sobre temas clave en España, como la vivienda, la economía y el empleo, así como el historial actual del presidente del gobierno, que incluye haber obtenido de la Unión Europea un tope al precio del gas destinado a la producción de electricidad.Estas elecciones, explicó Pablo Simón, politólogo de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, se centran en los socios. “Los socios de la derecha y los socios de la izquierda”.Ni el conservador Partido Popular (PP) ni el Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) de Sánchez han aumentado o descendido de manera radical en sus respectivos apoyos desde las últimas elecciones, en 2019, y ninguno de los dos partidos se espera que obtenga una mayoría absoluta en el Congreso de 350 escaños de España.Más bien, el PP y sus posibles socios nacionalistas de Vox han usado a los aliados del presidente para crear una imagen de lo que llaman el “sanchismo”, que definen como el impulso egoísta, arrogante y sin escrúpulos del presidente para romper cualquier promesa y establecer cualquier tipo de alianza para quedarse en el poder.El principal reclamo es por su alianza con los catalanes independentistas. Durante las últimas elecciones generales de España, Sánchez prometió detener a los principales separatistas catalanes. Pero poco después, cuando la supervivencia de su gobierno dependía de ese apoyo, empezó a negociar para indultarlos.“Se sentó en la mesa con nosotros por la presión política y la necesidad de gobernar el país”, dijo Gabriel Rufián, integrante del Congreso por Esquerra Republicana, un partido a favor de la independencia de Cataluña.Los conservadores también recuerdan a menudo que Sánchez alguna vez dijo que no podría conciliar el sueño si el partido de extrema izquierda Podemos entrara a su gobierno. Pero, como Sánchez necesitaba al partido, lo integró.Desde entonces, Podemos ha colapsado y, a decir de los expertos, sus errores y extralimitaciones han sumado votantes moderados e indecisos a las filas conservadoras. Sánchez espera que un nuevo grupo de izquierda, Sumar, logre compensar esas pérdidas y lo lleve hasta un umbral en donde, otra vez, pueda recurrir a sus aliados separatistas para que lo apoyen en el Congreso.Un mitin de Sumar en Barcelona. Sánchez espera que el nuevo grupo que reúne a distintos partidos de izquierda pueda mejorar sus posibilidades.Maria Contreras Coll para The New York TimesEn una entrevista con la Radio Nacional de España el domingo, Sánchez dijo que, de ser necesario, buscaría apoyo de ambos partidos independentistas una vez más.“Por supuesto”, dijo Sánchez, “para sacar adelante una reforma laboral busco votos hasta debajo de las piedras. Lo que nunca voy a hacer es lo que han hecho el PP y Vox, que es recortar derechos y libertades, negando la violencia machista. Para avanzar, yo pacto con quien haga falta”.Los seguidores de Sánchez afirman que las negociaciones y los indultos han reducido en gran medida las tensiones con el separatismo catalán, pero los votantes conservadores dicen que la cuasiseparación igual deja un mal sabor de boca.Lo que es más, aseguran que les disgusta la dependencia de Sánchez a los votos de EH Bildu, descendientes del ala política de ETA, que dejó un saldo de más de 850 personas muertas cuando, también, buscaba formar un país independiente de España.El grupo terrorista vasco se desintegró hace más de una década y la justicia española ha determinado que Bildu es un grupo político legítimo y democrático. Pero para muchos españoles sigue en la sombra del legado sangriento del pasado y su presencia resulta inquietante para la unidad futura del país.Incluso los aliados clave de Sánchez admitieron que la derecha se benefició al dictar los términos de las elecciones como un referéndum sobre Bildu.La campaña entera se basa en esto, comentó Ernest Urtasun, miembro del Parlamento Europeo y portavoz de la plataforma de izquierda Sumar. “Moviliza a gran parte del electorado de la derecha y desmoviliza al electorado de la izquierda”.Pero, indicó, la contienda aún era fluida en los últimos días y aseguró que los sondeos internos mostraban que iban avanzando. Entre más lograra la izquierda apegarse a los temas sociales y económicos, y no a sus aliados, dijo, tendrían mejores posibilidades.Si Sánchez llegara a requerir sus votos en el Congreso para gobernar, los líderes de los movimientos independentistas han dejado en claro que no darán su apoyo a cambio de nada.Habrá un “precio” adicional, que incluirá negociaciones para eventualmente llevar a cabo un referéndum por la independencia de Cataluña, dijo Rufián. Alegó que la derecha, y en especial Vox, siempre han tenido algún tema de discordia para distraer a los votantes de los problemas reales y que en esta ocasión ese tema eran los catalanes y los vascos.“A nosotros no nos podrán responsabilizar” por los puntos de la agenda de la derecha, dijo Rufián.Rufián dijo que Sánchez le había advertido que España no estaba preparada aún para perdonar a los secesionistas, y que su coalición sufriría daños políticos si se otorgaban los indultos. Pero, presionado, el presidente dio marcha atrás.“Es bueno para la democracia que no vaya gente a la cárcel por votar”, dijo de los indultos concedidos por Sánchez. Si eso se castiga políticamente, añadió, “yo acepto”.Pero los indultos y las alianzas han facilitado a los candidatos conservadores persuadir a los votantes españoles a juzgar a Sánchez por las alianzas que forja.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, líder del PP, ha calificado a Sánchez como la “gran esperanza electoral” para quienes andaban con pasamontañas, en una clara referencia a los terroristas de ETA. Los líderes de izquierda han observado que Feijóo parece haber tenido sus propias amistades cuestionables, al llamar otra vez la atención hacia fotografías en las que se le ve en un yate con un traficante convicto de cocaína.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, líder del PP, en Madrid. Es posible que Feijóo busque gobernar solo, pero quizás no sea capaz de lograrlo.Pierre-Philippe Marcou/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeijóo evitó el último debate televisado de campaña, diciendo que quería que también los separatistas estuvieran en el escenario. Los socialistas creen que simplemente es una estrategia de dispensación de favores políticos para evitar cuestionamientos por su cercanía con el narcotraficante y para distanciarse de su aliado nominal, Santiago Abascal, líder de Vox.Al final, Feijóo dijo que tenía problemas de espalda.Feijóo ha dejado en claro que preferiría gobernar solo, sin Abascal. Pero Abascal quiere participar y ha indicado que si Vox entrara al gobierno se opondría con fuerza a cualquier movimiento separatista.En un evento de campaña este mes, Abascal acusó a Sánchez de mentir y de pactar con “los enemigos de la democracia” y añadió, “para Pedro Sánchez proteger la democracia es que le voten violadores, golpistas, ladrones”.Ese tipo de discurso es parte del manual de Vox.Según Aurora Rodil Martínez, concejala por Vox de Elche, en donde Vox gobierna junto con el PP —un escenario que podría ser el que se viva a nivel nacional—, Sánchez tiene un ansia patológica de poder. Consideró que su personalidad está “enfocada en sí mismo” y opinó que por ello no tiene empacho en aliarse con la extrema izquierda, “los herederos de ETA”.Rodil Martínez dijo que los aliados de Sánchez en el movimiento independentista catalán desean separarse de España. Añadió que Sánchez se ha “arrodillado” antes sus aliados de Podemos y requerido del apoyo de Bildu, a quienes calificó de “terroristas” y culpables de “crímenes sangrientos”.Todo lo anterior, dijeron los expertos, constituía una distracción de los verdaderos desafíos del país.“Estamos discutiendo sobre los socios”, dijo Simón, el politólogo y añadió que eso era algo terrible porque no se discutían las políticas.Un afiche con el retrato de Santiago Abascal, líder de VoxMaria Contreras Coll para The New York TimesJason Horowitz es el jefe del buró en Roma; cubre Italia, Grecia y otros sitios del sur de Europa. Cubrió la campaña presidencial de 2016 en Estados Unidos, el gobierno de Obama y al Congreso estadounidense con un énfasis en especiales y perfiles políticos. @jasondhorowitz More

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      Spain’s Election Puts Focus on Leading Parties’ Allies

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      Before voting Sunday, a focus on the leading parties’ allies has dominated the campaign — and obscured debate about more fundamental issues.The war in Ukraine is raging. Scorching temperatures are prompting a reckoning with climate change. Economic insecurity abounds. But the Spanish election may pivot on the question of bad company.As Spaniards prepare to vote in national elections on Sunday, experts say that voters are being asked to decide who — the center-left government or the favored center-right opposition — has the more unsavory, less acceptable and dangerously extremist friends.Polls suggest that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Socialist leader, will be ousted by conservatives who have made hay of his reliance on allies who have tried to secede from Spain. They include northern Spain’s Catalonian independence movement and political descendants of the Basque secessionist group ETA, who infuriated voters before local elections in May when they fielded 44 convicted terrorists as candidates, including seven found guilty of murder.Mr. Sánchez’s Socialists have, for their part, raised alarm about their conservative opponents’ extremist allies in the Vox party. Vox could become the first far-right party to enter government since the Franco dictatorship if, as expected, the leading conservative party wins and needs its support.Mr. Sánchez at a rally in Madrid. “This election is about the partners,” one expert said.Juan Medina/ReutersThe hyper-focus on political bedfellows has obscured a debate about critical issues in Spain such as housing, the economy and employment, as well as the prime minister’s actual record, which includes winning from the European Union a price cap on gas for electricity.“This election is about the partners,” said Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University. “The partners of the right and the partners of the left.” Neither the conservative Popular Party nor Mr. Sánchez’s Socialists have gone up or down radically in support since the last elections, in 2019, and neither are expected to win an absolute majority of Spain’s 350-seat Congress.Instead, the Populist Party and its potential nationalist partners in Vox have used the prime minister’s allies to create a picture of what they call “Sánchismo.” They define it as the prime minister’s self-interested, arrogant and unprincipled impulse to break any promise and make any alliance to stay in power.The main beef is his alliance with pro-independence Catalans. During Spain’s last national election, Mr. Sánchez promised to arrest the leading Catalonian secessionists. But soon after, with his government’s survival depending on their support, he began negotiating their pardons instead.“He succumbed to political pressure and the need to govern the country,” said Gabriel Rufián, a member of Parliament with Esquerra Republicana, a pro-Catalan independence party.Conservatives also frequently recall that Mr. Sánchez once claimed he would not be able to sleep through the night if the far-left Podemos party entered his government. But Mr. Sánchez needed the party, so it did.Since then, Podemos has collapsed and, experts say, its mistakes and overreaches have turned moderate and swing voters to the conservatives. Mr. Sánchez is hoping that a new left-wing umbrella group, Sumar, can make up for the losses, and get him to a threshold where he can again turn to his secessionist allies for support in Parliament.A rally for Sumar in Barcelona. Mr. Sánchez is hoping the new left-wing umbrella group can lift his chances.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesIn an interview on National Spanish Radio on Sunday, Mr. Sánchez said he would, if necessary, seek support from both independence parties again.“Of course,” Mr. Sánchez said. “To carry out a labor reform, I would look for votes, even under the stones. What I will never do is what the PP and Vox have done, which is to cut rights and freedoms, denying sexist violence. I will make deals with whomever I have to, in order to move forward.”Supporters of Mr. Sánchez point out that the negotiations and pardons have greatly reduced tensions with Catalan’s separatist movement, but conservative voters say that the near-secession still leaves a bad taste in their mouth.Even more so, they say they are disgusted by Mr. Sánchez’s dependence on the votes of EH Bildu, the descendants of the political wing of ETA, which killed more than 850 people as it, too, sought to carve out an independent country from Spain.That Basque terrorist group disbanded more than a decade ago, and Spain’s judiciary has deemed Bildu a legitimate and democratic political group. But for many Spaniards it remains tainted by the bloody legacy of the past and concern for the country’s cohesion in the future.Even Mr. Sánchez’s key allies recognized that the right benefited by dictating the terms of the election as a referendum on Bildu.“Their whole campaign is constructed on this,” said Ernest Urtasun, a member of European Parliament and the spokesman for the left-wing Sumar party. “It mobilizes a lot of the electorate on the right and it demobilizes the electorate of the left.”But he said the race was still fluid in its last days and claimed that internal polling showed them inching up. The more the left could stick to social and economic issues, and not its allies, he said, the better its chances.If Mr. Sánchez does require their votes in Parliament to govern, the leaders of the independence movements have made it clear their support will not come for free.There will be an additional “price,” including continued negotiations toward an eventual referendum for Catalonian independence, Mr. Rufián said. He argued that the right wing, and especially Vox, always had a wedge issue to distract voters from real problems and this time it was the Catalans and the Basques.“We can’t be held responsible” for the talking points of the right, Mr. Rufián said.Mr. Rufián said Mr. Sánchez had warned him that Spain was not yet ready to pardon the secessionists and that his coalition would suffer politically if they were granted, but under pressure the prime minister reversed course anyway.“I think it’s good for democracy that political prisoners are not in jail,” he said of the pardons Mr. Sánchez granted. “If there is a penalty for that, I accept that.”But the pardons and the alliances have made it easier for conservative candidates to convince Spain’s voters to judge Mr. Sánchez by the company he keeps.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the Popular Party, has called Mr. Sánchez the “great electoral hope” for “those who used to go around wearing ski masks,” a clear reference to the ETA terrorists. Left-wing leaders have noted that Mr. Feijóo appears to have had dubious personal friends of his own, drawing renewed attention to pictures taken of him hanging out on a yacht with a convicted cocaine trafficker.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the Popular Party, in Madrid. Mr. Feijóo may want to govern alone, but may not be able to.Pierre-Philippe Marcou/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Feijóo has ducked out of the campaign’s final televised debate, saying he wanted the separatists to be onstage, too. The Socialists believe he was simply pursuing a Rose Garden strategy to avoid questions about his association with the drug kingpin and to distance himself from his nominal ally, the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal.Mr. Feijóo ended up saying he had a bad back.Mr. Feijóo has made it clear that he would prefer to govern alone, without Mr. Abascal. But Mr. Abascal wants in, and has indicated that if Vox entered the government it would crack down hard on any secessionist movements.At a campaign event this month, Mr. Abascal accused Mr. Sánchez of being a liar who made “deals with the enemies of democracy” and added, “As far as Pedro Sánchez is concerned, protecting democracy is about getting the votes of rapists, coup-mongers.”That sort of language is part of the Vox playbook.“Sánchez has a really pathological anxiety for power,” said Aurora Rodil Martínez, the Vox deputy mayor of Elche, who, in a potential preview of things to come, serves with a mayor from the Popular Party. “I think his personality is focused on himself and therefore he has no shame handing himself over to the extreme left, to the heirs of ETA.”She said his allies in the Catalonian independence movement “want to separate themselves from Spain and deny our nation.” Mr. Sánchez, she added, “has got down on his knees” for his far-left allies in Podemos and needed the support of Bildu, “terrorists guilty of bloody crimes.”All of that, experts say, amounted to a distraction from the country’s real challenges.“We are discussing about the partners,” said Mr. Simón, the political scientist, adding, “it’s a terrible thing because we are not discussing about policies.”A poster of the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York Times More

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      España va a estar bien tras las elecciones generales

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      Se elige entre democracia y autocracia.Así es como el presidente del gobierno español, Pedro Sánchez, de centroizquierda, enmarca las elecciones que se celebrarán este domingo. Cuando justificó su convocatoria de elecciones anticipadas, Sánchez estableció paralelismos entre España y otros países cuyas recientes elecciones estuvieron dominadas por el fantasma de un régimen iliberal de derechas. “Hay que aclarar”, dijo sobre la decisión de los españoles, “si quieren un presidente del gobierno de España al lado de Biden o de Trump, si quieren un presidente del gobierno del lado de Lula o de Bolsonaro”. Para no ser menos, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, principal oponente de Sánchez al frente del Partido Popular, conservador, lo acusó a él y a sus socios de coalición de izquierdas de actuar como “un régimen totalitario” y arropar a las autocracias latinoamericanas.Ambos mensajes se inscriben en un discurso más general que ve las elecciones como una contienda entre dos bloques polarizados —derecha e izquierda—, cada uno de los cuales alberga sectores extremos que condenarán al país. Gran parte de la inquietud se centra en Vox, un partido de extrema derecha que podría entrar en el gobierno como socio de coalición del Partido Popular y con ello, según algunas opiniones, poner en peligro la propia democracia española. Pero estos mensajes son desmesurados. Las elecciones del domingo determinarán el rumbo político de España en los próximos años, no la suerte que correrá su democracia.Para empezar, Sánchez no se enfrenta a un candidato trumpista. Feijóo, expresidente del gobierno de la región de Galicia, es un político conservador a la antigua usanza, que se caracteriza por su talante tranquilo y discreto. Desde que llegó a la presidencia del Partido Popular el año pasado, tras el liderazgo, propenso al escándalo y derechista, de Pablo Casado, ha dirigido el partido hacia el centro al tiempo que se ha ganado la fama de aburrido. “La alternativa serena”, es el lema no oficial de la campaña de Feijóo.Según los sondeos, Feijóo solo podría arrebatarle el poder a Sánchez en coalición con Vox, la tercera fuerza en el Congreso español, que ronda el 13 por ciento en las encuestas. Es la posibilidad de una coalición del Partido Popular y Vox lo que ha hecho saltar las alarmas, y con razón: Vox se opone al feminismo, los derechos LGBTQ+ y a cualquier intento de reexaminar las atrocidades contra los derechos humanos durante la Guerra Civil española y la dictadura del general Francisco Franco. También aboga por levantar una muralla alrededor de los enclaves españoles de Ceuta y Melilla para impedir la entrada de los migrantes del norte de África. De manera ominosa, ha planteado la propuesta de celebrar un referéndum nacional para prohibir los partidos separatistas.El altisonante lenguaje de Vox y sus propuestas políticas tóxicas suponen una grave amenaza para la democracia española, pero no tan existencial como muchos creen. Su entrada en un gobierno conservador convencional podría normalizar el partido, por ejemplo. Aun si esto obedeciese más al deseo que a la realidad, ayuda a no perder la perspectiva de las cosas. Vox entró en el Congreso español en 2019, y por primera vez en un gobierno regional en 2022, en una coalición liderada por el Partido Popular. Son logros importantes, sobre todo porque, hasta entonces, la extrema derecha carecía de representación en el poder legislativo nacional de España. Sin embargo, eso atestigua la inexperiencia del partido, que ocuparía una posición subalterna en una coalición.Hay una cuestión más general. El surgimiento de Vox —por llamativo que sea— no supuso ningún cambio significativo para la derecha española y la política en España. Contrariamente a lo que se suele pensar, la extrema derecha no desapareció con la muerte de Franco. Durante la transición a la democracia, entre 1977 y 1982, se aglutinó en torno a Alianza Popular, un partido neofranquista que obtuvo 16 escaños en las elecciones parlamentarias de 1977. A sus fundadores, derechistas ultracatólicos, se los llamaba “los siete magníficos” porque los siete eran antiguos ministros de Franco, entre ellos Manuel Fraga, ministro franquista de Información y Turismo que, siendo diputado, ayudó a redactar la Constitución española de 1978.A finales de la década de 1980, con la fundación del Partido Popular, la extrema derecha se incorporó al nuevo partido y pasó a influir en los futuros gobiernos conservadores y, entre otras cosas, impulsó durante el gobierno de José María Aznar un plan de humanidades que blanqueaba el papel de los conservadores en el ascenso de la dictadura de Franco y alentó el fallido intento de Mariano Rajoy de restringir los derechos de aborto. Animada por el auge de los partidos populistas de derechas en todo el mundo, la extrema derecha española ha decidido que puede salir tranquilamente de su escondite. Pero siempre estuvo ahí.Y lo que es más importante: la democracia española es lo bastante fuerte para soportar la participación de un partido de extrema derecha en un gobierno conservador. Aunque haya dejado de ser la excepción en Europa en lo que respecta a la extrema derecha, España sigue siendo diferente por una importante razón: es notablemente ajena a la temida patología política conocida como retroceso democrático, o erosión de las normas democráticas. La ausencia de dichos problemas en España se refleja en el “Freedom in the World Report”, de Freedom House, que clasifica la democracia española entre las más desarrolladas del mundo. Esto es especialmente reseñable, puesto que España cumple las dos condiciones que suelen reunir los países en retroceso democrático: una corta historia como democracia y una polarización extrema. Sin embargo, la democracia española, respaldada por un liderazgo estable, progresos sociales y económicos y una dinámica cultura política pluripartidista, se ha mantenido firme.Por supuesto, no es inmune a las amenazas. Una gran incógnita es qué papel desempeñará el separatismo en el próximo gobierno, incluso en el futuro del país. Todas sus fuerzas políticas explotan el separatismo para obtener ventajas partidistas. En los últimos años, la derecha —incluido el Partido Popular— ha ganado elecciones arremetiendo contra los separatistas, aunque eso le costase su hundimiento en Cataluña y el País Vasco, las regiones que albergan a los principales movimientos separatistas. La izquierda, a su vez, utiliza a Vox como espantajo para despertar los fantasmas del franquismo, sobre todo en las regiones separatistas, con la esperanza de espolear a sus partidarios. Por su parte, los separatistas enfrentan a la derecha con la izquierda en pro de sus muy estrictos objetivos, al tiempo que presentan injustamente a Madrid como opresora para reforzar sus reivindicaciones victimistas.Nada de esto es bueno para la democracia; de hecho, es francamente peligroso. En 2017, los separatistas catalanes sumieron a España en su crisis política más grave desde la muerte de Franco al celebrar un referéndum ilegal sobre la independencia. Que el país lograra capear la crisis —gracias en gran parte al hábil liderazgo de Sánchez— demostró al mundo que la democracia española, aunque fracturada, pude seguir funcionando mejor que bien. Sin embargo, también sirvió como advertencia de que uno de los mayores peligros en una sociedad democrática, incluso en una tan exitosa como la española, es dar por sentada la democracia.Omar G. Encarnación es profesor de Ciencias Políticas en el Bard College y autor de Democracy Without Justice in Spain: The Politics of Forgetting, entre otros libros. More