On the heels of last weekend’s regional and municipal elections which saw Spain’s right-of-center opposition make notable gains across the country, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who leads the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), announced the dissolution of the legislature and called for snap elections next month.
The general elections, previously scheduled to happen in December, are now set to take place on July 23rd after the prime minister’s socialist party suffered a major defeat in local elections on Sunday, May 28th, losing eight of the twelve contested regions to the center-right People’s Party and eleven of its 22 big city mayors, El Mundo reports.
In a televised address delivered to the public on the day after his party’s clear election defeat, Prime Minister Sánchez, speaking from the Moncloa Palace, which serves as the official residence of the head of the government, told the people he had informed Spain’s monarch, King Felipe VI, of his decision to dissolve parliament and call for early elections.
During the speech, Sánchez assumed personal responsibility for the election’s outcome, where the People’s Party won at least a half million more votes than PSOE.
The prime minister said that he had “taken this decision in light of yesterday’s election results” which “suggest Spaniards should clarify which political forces they want to take the lead.”
“There’s only one infallible method for resolving those doubts—and that method is democracy. As a result, I think the best thing is for Spanish men and women to have their say and to decide the country’s political direction as soon as possible,” Sánchez said.
Analysts and commentators say the prime minister’s decision to hold snap general elections is a risky move. Some, like Antonio Barroso, who serves as an analyst at the political consultancy Teneo, have suggested that holding elections in the summer holidays could minimize voter turnout.
“Spain has never held a general election in the middle of the summer, which generates some uncertainty regarding whether the chosen date will have a negative effect on turnout,” Barroso said. It is uncertain, however, whether a low voter turnout would work to the benefit of Spain’s right-of-center or left-of-center parties.
Some have also speculated that the prime minister’s unexpected decision to hold early elections may have been made, at least in part, to prevent the country’s right-of-center opposition, which has grown considerably since the last parliamentary election, from further increasing its share of the vote. Additionally, analysts suggest Sánchez may attempt to use the prospect of a PP-VOX coalition government at the national level to mobilize Spain’s left-wing voters in the general election.
