PSOE leads in first poll after Catalonian regional election: A testament to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's political strength and willpower

Pedro Sanchez's centre-left Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) or "Spanish Socialist Workers Party" currently leads in CIS polling against their main rivals, the centre-right Partido Popular (PP) or the "People's Party" by 4.5 points: 33.0% to 28.5%. This is the first major poll after the formation of the Catalonian state government, where the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC), the Catalan chapter of PSOE won a plurality of seats and denied Catalan Separatists their usual majority they used to enjoy. But how did we get here, and how is PSOE doing so well?

2023 General Election

Incumbent Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez was at a crossroads, in the summer of 2023. Constitutionally, elections were supposed to be held at the end of the year, around November or December - but he just saw his PSOE party essentially been given a beating in local and regional elections across the country. With PP and VOX, the far-right party, gaining huge numbers across the board, Sanchez called the general election on July 23rd to cut the right's victory lap.

PP's leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo welcomed the decision saying that the "Spanish people has had it up to here", claiming that the Spanish have grown tired of Sanchez's government that has been governing since 2018, when he proposed a vote of no confidence to oust the then corruption-embattled, Mariano Rajoy. The general election was to elect the 350 members of the Congress of Deputies, Spain's lower house, using multi-member constituencies via the D'Hondt method with a closed list, proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of three percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied in each constituency.

In the closest election since 1996, the PP secured the most seats at 137 seats - gaining 48. Meanwhile, PSOE secured 121 seats, gaining one - and VOX, won 33 - a massive decrease of 19 seats. This made the right-wing in Spanish politics unable to reach the 176 seats required to command a majority in Congress. The rest of the parties did not want to work with Feijóo because of his perceived closeness to VOX - a dangerous force in Spanish politics as it is the first far-right party since the Falangist party of Franco to gain representation in the Spanish legislature. With the right on the cusp of victory, and basically handing the keys of government and of power to, essentially, the heir of Franco was as appealing to parties as eating and drinking their own piss and shit.

Regardless, King Felipe put up Feijóo's name to form a government and to win an investiture vote on the floor of Congress. Spain's investiture vote works as the following: the first round will be to see if any member can win at least 176 affirmative votes. Should that fail, they will vote again and if that candidate gets more affirmative votes than negative ones, the member is formally elected President of the Spanish Congress of Deputies - the Prime Minister. Feijóo did not win either round of voting, on the 27th and 29th of September respectively. King Felipe instead put Sanchez's name to be Prime Minister and he got it on the first round, with all parties - including Catalan separatist parties like Junts, the party of Spanish fugitive Carles Puigdemont - except for PP, VOX and the 1-seat Unión del Pueblo Navarro or "Navarrese People's Union" voting in favour of making Sanchez Prime Minister again.

Dealing with Catalan Separatists

One thing that Sanchez had to do once he got back into power was to deal with the Catalan separatists. In 2017, Junts leader, Carles Puigdemont, organized a succession referendum in Catalonia, with the approval of the Catalan Regional Parliament and it passed with a 80% voting in the affirmative. However, there was one problem: it was unconstitutional - by the Supreme Court's decision and then-Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy implemented a policy known as "direct control", over Catalonia - essentially overriding and rendering the Catalan parliament useless. Not long after, Puigdemont was declared a fugitive and was forced to flee to Belgium. To this day, he is still considered a fugitive - and is not welcome in Spain. Plenty were arrested for their part in relation to this unconstitutional ballot and people still debate whether the harsh approach to crack down on separatism was the right one or not. Regardless, this "direct control" approach essentially backfired and Catalan separatism was widespread on the streets of its Capital, Barcelona.

Ten years later, this issue still hadn't been resolved. Therefore, it was in Junts best interest to negotiate for a favourable amnesty deal in exchange for their support. So, in March this year - the Spanish congress of deputies passed an amnesty law for Catalan separatists. In what was widely called, "a political gamble on his future", with the passage of the bill, Prime Minister Sanchez could breathe a sigh of belief - for now, because 2 months later - Catalonia would go to the polls and it was widely believed to be a referendum on Sanchez's tenure, chief of which was the handling of the Catalonian separatist question

2024 Catalonia Regional Election

Catalonians went to the polls on the 12th of May 2024, in a hotly watched race. In the end, PSC secured a commanding victory for the first time in history, securing 42 seats in the 135 seat Catalan parliament, whereas Catalan separatist parties collapsed and their joint seat totals did not hit a majority for the first time since the 1980 Catalan regional election. First Secretary of PSC, Salvador Illa was elected president of the government of Catalonia on the 8th of August 2024 with support from the centre-left separtist Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) or "Republican Left for Catalonia" and leftist Comuns Sumar or "Commons Sum". This was largely seen as the end of Catalan separatism, at least in the short term.

With victory in Catalonia, Sanchez can go into the next party's congress singing La Internacional with pride and satisfaction, and we should too.