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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez\u2019s Socialists seek to avoid a drubbing in the key region of Andalusia on Sunday. (EPA Images pic)
\nMADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez\u2019s Socialists seek to avoid a drubbing in the key region of Andalusia on Sunday, following a string of electoral losses ahead of next year\u2019s national vote.<\/p>\n
While Sanchez\u2019s international profile has risen amid clashes with US President Donald Trump and criticism of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, graft scandals involving relatives and former close political allies have eroded his standing at home.<\/p>\n
Andalusia, known for its whitewashed villages and Costa del Sol beach resorts, is Spain\u2019s most populous region, with about 8.7 million inhabitants, roughly 18% of the country\u2019s total.<\/p>\n
For nearly four decades, the southern region was governed by the Socialists before they ceded power to the mainstream conservative Popular Party (PP) in 2019.<\/p>\n
Polls suggest the PP is close to retaining its absolute majority in Andalusia\u2019s 109-seat parliament, while the Socialists are set to finish second with what could be their worst-ever result in the region.<\/p>\n
The Socialists\u2019 candidate is Maria Jesus Montero, who stepped down as Sanchez\u2019s finance minister and deputy prime minister to contest the regional election.<\/p>\n
Sanchez is \u201ctaking a big risk because the person who would be defeated is precisely someone who until very recently was his right hand in government and in the party\u201d, political scientist Cristina Monge told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cSymbolically, it would be a very hard defeat.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PP has won regional elections in Extremadura, Aragon and Castile and Leon in recent months, though short of outright majorities.<\/p>\n
That has forced it to form coalition governments with the far-right Vox party in Extremadura and Aragon, with talks underway for a similar pact in Castile and Leon.<\/p>\n
In exchange, Vox has pushed for access to state benefits to be based on a principle of \u201cnational priority\u201d, which would give preference to those with a \u201creal\u201d link to a territory.<\/p>\n
Sanchez has said the policy promotes \u201cxenophobia, racism, segregation and confrontation\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018Fiscal hell\u2019<\/p>\n
Andalusia\u2019s PP leader, Juan Manuel Moreno, has said he would like to renew his absolute majority to govern without Vox.<\/p>\n
He has framed the election as a choice between \u201charmony or discord\u201d, accusing Montero of turning Andalusia into a \u201cfiscal hell\u201d due to her tax policies as finance minister.<\/p>\n
Montero, in turn, has attacked Moreno over a healthcare scandal that emerged last year involving delays in follow-up screenings for hundreds of women who later developed breast cancer.<\/p>\n
She has accused his administration of failing to provide transparency on the number of affected patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t they release the data? Are they afraid the truth will be known?\u201d she said during a televised debate, questioning how many women might have died as a result of delayed diagnoses.<\/p>\n
Whatever the outcome of Sunday\u2019s vote, the PP\u2019s strategy of using the series of regional elections to highlight the Socialists\u2019 \u201cmoment of weakness\u201d will have succeeded, Monge said.<\/p>\n
But she cautioned against reading too much into the Andalusian result for national politics. Sanchez, she said, was likely to shift focus to international affairs or Spain\u2019s relatively strong economic growth ahead of the general election expected in 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez\u2019s Socialists seek to avoid a drubbing in the key region of Andalusia on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[41348,41349,41350,41351,304,11835,4624,41352,24097,41353],"class_list":{"0":"post-72035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pedro-sanchez","8":"tag-andalusia-vote","9":"tag-graft-scandal","10":"tag-juan-moreno","11":"tag-maria-montero","12":"tag-pedro-sanchez","13":"tag-popular-party","14":"tag-socialist-party","15":"tag-spain-election","16":"tag-spain-politics","17":"tag-vox-party"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116577203790882546","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}