Vox collapses with 19 seats lost and signals new elections

Yesterday evening at Vox headquarters had nothing to do with the euphoria that unleashed that night of November 10, 2019, when the far-right became the third political force after receiving 3.6 million votes – 15.1% of the vote – resulting in 52 deputies. Previous municipal and regional elections, the results of which helped him negotiate accession to governments such as the Valencian Community and Extremadura, were not well received. Ultras leaders wandered the corridors of the headquarters last night between the surprise of the progress of the results and the disbelief of the absolute majority of the right that has faded: Fox lost more than half a million votes and about twenty seats in four years, although he retained his third place in Congress.

At the beginning of the day, when the candidate for president of the government, Santiago Abascal, went to exercise his right to vote, he already expressed the low expectations with which his party faces a recount. “Any result would be heroic,” disregarding that their main goal, at that point, was for it to be so decisive that the sum of rights would reach an absolute majority, no matter what result Vox had. Party sources took the apparent decline for granted, but they trusted everything that this loss of votes would go to the Popular Party. Nothing could be further from reality.

The far right is losing ground in its strongholds: Castilla, Leon, Murcia, Ceuta and Madrid

The 33 seats that the far right will occupy in the next legislature have sat like a bowl of cold water. The few supporters who gathered on Bamboo Street after these weeks could not believe that the alternative to the government of Pedro Sanchez was closer than ever. The ultraconservatives are losing power in two of their great fiefdoms, where they have made a banner with their rhetoric against irregular immigration and supposed citizen insecurity. In Murcia – where they prevented the installation of the popular candidate – and Ceuta, in which the force that had obtained the largest number of votes in the previous general elections, ceded all the land to the Popular Party and the Socialist Workers Party.

In other areas where things have gone very well for the far right – so far – they have also fallen sharply. In Castilla y León, where the ultras are part of the autonomous government in coalition with the People’s Party, they went from six to one representative, achieved in Valladolid. In Madrid they lose two seats, from seven to five. Three remained in Andalusia: from twelve to nine. In the Basque Country, Galicia, Navarra and La Rioja, where the far right did not get any deputies in 2019, the scenario repeats itself: in these regions, Vox does not get representation. In Catalonia, it maintains the two deputies achieved in the previous elections.

In the Valencian Community and Extremadura, whose agreements for autonomous government formations formed a large part of the electoral campaign, Vox is also losing momentum. In the first, he loses two seats: from seven to five. And in the second, it will provide only a representative of the far-right parliamentary faction. On both Vox, more than three points are left in the scrutiny. In the Balearic Islands, which, although it did not join the provincial executive, signed an agreement to provide external support to the people, Vox also lost half of its seats: two to one.

Appearing before the media accompanied by his administration team, the radical candidate pointed to the leader of the populist, Alberto Núñez Figo, as responsible – in part – for the failure of the right, having “lacquered” the government of Pedro Sánchez during the campaign with the charters of state presented to him. Surprised by the “celebration” taking place at the headquarters of the other parties, Abascal is pessimistic: he points to months of blockade that will end, as he predicted, in new elections.