A series of regional votes, capped by a conservative win in Andalusia on Sunday, has cemented Spain’s rightward shift, even as Pedro Sánchez builds his international profile as the leader of the progressive left in defiance of President Donald Trump.
Successive regional votes in Aragon, Castilla y León and Andalusia this year saw Spain’s Socialist Party lose seats, with the conservative People’s Party coming out on top and the hard-right Vox emerging as kingmaker.
The ballots paint a complex picture of Spanish society, where the coexistence of the mainstream right, backed by the hard right, is becoming the norm at regional level.
The successive defeats of the Spanish Socialists, including candidates backed by Sánchez, point to a protest vote and, to a certain degree, a popular rejection of the progressive agenda pushed by the government in Madrid.
That contrasts with the international profile Sánchez has built for himself and the country as one of the last bastions of progressive ideals in Europe in the age of MAGA politics.
