After Spain’s right fell short of outright victory, what next?

An uncertain future awaits Spain after Partido Popular performed worse than expected while the Socialists rebounded. He had one shot at taking power, and he missed.” Bartomeus said the PP has become so closely associated with Vox that they can’t reach out to the moderate Basque Nationalist Party for support – as has happened with two previous PP governments – “because the two parties just wouldn’t work together”. “It’s complicated, because the Catalan parties have suffered a serious setback in the elections and it remains to be seen what they’d ask for in exchange for supporting Sánchez,” Bartomeus said, noting that if neither the PP nor the PSOE can form a government, “then we’re set for fresh elections in October or November”. “The way the right-wing media bombarded the public with polls through the campaign saying the Socialists were set for a debacle means the Socialists can frame this relative defeat as a success.” “Sánchez’s decision to call snap elections was very risky, because there have been some moments during the campaign when it looked like he’d blown it, but he’s got through it by the skin of his teeth.” At the grassroots level, PP supporters are seriously dismayed at the Socialists’ ability to retain a slender chance of holding on to power, and their own party’s even smaller options on wresting it from them. It’s impossible for them to take power, while the PSOE can rely on a number of potential allies to do the same.” Castillo believes that the PP’s lack of political partners other than Vox, which lost over a third of seats on Sunday and with it nearly all their potential to act as kingmaker for a PP government, “sums up their narrow-minded, musty vision of Spain as a society”.