MADRID: Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialists won Spain’s national election on Sunday but large gains by the upstart far-right Vox party appear certain to widen the political deadlock in the European Union’s fifth-largest economy.
After a fourth national ballot in as many years and the second in less than seven months, the left-wing Socialists held on as the leading power in the national parliament. With 99.9% of the votes counted, the Socialists captured 120 seats, down three seats from the last election in April and still far from the absolute majority of 176 needed to form a government alone.
The big political shift came as right-wing voters flocked to Vox, which only had broken into Parliament in the spring for the first time. Sunday’s outcome means there will be no end to the stalemate between forces on the right and the left in Spain, suggesting the country could go many more weeks or even months without a new government.
The far-right party led by 43-year-old Santiago Abascal, who speaks of “reconquering” Spain in terms that echo the medieval wars between Christian and Moorish forces, rocketed from 24 to 52 seats. That will make Vox the third leading party in the Congress of Deputies, giving it much more leverage in forming a government and crafting legislation.
The party has vowed to be much tougher on both Catalan separatists and migrants.
Abascal called his party’s success “the greatest political feat seen in Spain.”
“Just 11 months ago, we weren’t even in any regional legislature in Spain. Today we are the third-largest party in Spain and the party that has grown the most in votes and seats,” said Abascal, who promised to battle the “progressive dictatorship.”
Right-wing populist and anti-migrant leaders across Europe celebrated Vox’s strong showing.
Marine Le Pen, who heads France’s National Rally party, congratulated Abascal, saying his impressive work “is already bearing fruit after only a few years.”
In Italy, Matteo Salvini of the right-wing League party tweeted a picture of himself next to Abascal with the words “Congratulations to Vox!” above Spanish and Italian flags. And in the Netherlands, anti-Islam Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders posted a photograph of himself with Abascal and wrote “FELICIDADES” — Spanish for congratulations — with three thumbs-up emojis.
With Sunday’s outcome, the mainstream conservative Popular Party rebounded from its previous debacle in the April vote to 88 seats from 66, a historic low. The far-left United We Can, which had rejected an offer to help the Socialists form a left-wing government over the summer, lost some ground to get 35 seats.
The night’s undisputed loser was the center-right Citizens party, which collapsed to 10 seats from 57 in April after its leader Albert Rivera refused to help the Socialists form a government and tried to copy some of Vox’s hard-line positions.
Sánchez’s chances of staying in power still hinges on ultimately winning over the United We Can party and several regional parties, a complicated maneuver that he has failed to pull off in recent months.
Sánchez called on opponents to be “responsible” and “generous” by allowing a Socialist-led government to remain in charge.
“We extend this call to all the political parties except for those who self-exclude themselves ... and plant the seeds of hate in our democracy,” he added, an apparent allusion to far-right and also possibly to separatist Catalan parties.
United We Can leader Pablo Iglesias extended an offer of support to Sánchez.
“These elections have only served for the right to grow stronger and for Spain to have one of the strongest far-right parties in Europe,” Iglesias said. “The only way to stop the far-right in Spain is to have a stable government.”
Pablo Casado, the leader of the Popular Party, also pledged to work to end months of political instability. He said “the ball was in the court” of Sánchez, though. In recent months his party and Citizens have struck deals with Vox to take over some cities and regional governments.
Bonnie Field, a professor on Global Studies at Bentley University in California, called the political situation a “mess government-wise.”
“Spanish politics are now increasingly complicated and any governing formula is going to require lots of negotiations, and people being open to criticism,” she said.
The Socialists took a hit in the country’s Senate, losing their absolute majority of 133 seats in the upper parliamentary chamber amid the significant conservative inroads.
Julia Giobelina, a 34-year-old web designer from Madrid, was angry at having to vote for the second time this year. But she said she cast her ballot in hopes of stopping Vox.
“They are the new fascism,” Giobelina said. “We citizens need to stand against privatization of health care and other public services.”
Spain returned to democracy in the late 1970s after a near four-decade right-wing dictatorship under the late Gen. Francisco Franco. The country used to take pride in claiming that no far-right group had seats in the national Parliament, unlike the rest of Europe. That changed in the spring, but the Socialists’ April victory was still seen by many as a respite for Europe, where right-wing parties had gained much ground.
Vox relied on its anti-migrant message and attacks on laws that protect women from domestic abuse as well as what it considers leftist ideology disguised as political correctness. Still, it does not advocate a break from the EU in the very pro-EU Spain.
It has nevertheless flourished after recent riots in Catalonia by separatists, capitalizing on Spanish nationalist sentiment stirred up by the country’s worst political conflict in decades. Many right-wingers were also not pleased by the Socialist government’s exhumation of Franco’s remains last month from his gargantuan mausoleum so he could no longer be exalted in a public place.
The debate over Catalonia, meanwhile, promises to fester.
The three Catalan separatist parties won a combined 23 seats on Sunday.
Many Catalans have been angered by the decision last month by Spain’s Supreme Court, which sentenced to prison nine Catalan politicians and activists who led a 2017 drive for the region’s independence. The ruling has triggered massive daily protests in Catalonia that left more than 500 people injured, roughly half of them police officers, and dozens arrested.
Far right surges amid Socialist win in Spain
Far right surges amid Socialist win in Spain
- After a fourth national ballot in as many years and the second in less than seven months, the left-wing Socialists held on as the leading power in the national parliament
- The big political shift came as right-wing voters flocked to Vox, which only had broken into Parliament in the spring for the first time
Afghan returnees in Bamiyan struggle despite new homes
- More than five million Afghans have returned home since September 2023, according to the International Organization for Migration
BAMIYAN, Afghanistan: Sitting in his modest home beneath snow-dusted hills in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province, Nimatullah Rahesh expressed relief to have found somewhere to “live peacefully” after months of uncertainty.
Rahesh is one of millions of Afghans pushed out of Iran and Pakistan, but despite being given a brand new home in his native country, he and many of his recently returned compatriots are lacking even basic services.
“We no longer have the end-of-month stress about the rent,” he said after getting his house, which was financed by the UN refugee agency on land provided by the Taliban authorities.
Originally from a poor and mountainous district of Bamiyan, Rahesh worked for five years in construction in Iran, where his wife Marzia was a seamstress.
“The Iranians forced us to leave” in 2024 by “refusing to admit our son to school and asking us to pay an impossible sum to extend our documents,” he said.
More than five million Afghans have returned home since September 2023, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), as neighboring Iran and Pakistan stepped up deportations.
The Rahesh family is among 30 to be given a 50-square-meter (540-square-foot) home in Bamiyan, with each household in the nascent community participating in the construction and being paid by UNHCR for their work.
The families, most of whom had lived in Iran, own the building and the land.
“That was crucial for us, because property rights give these people security,” said the UNHCR’s Amaia Lezertua.
Waiting for water
Despite the homes lacking running water and being far from shops, schools or hospitals, new resident Arefa Ibrahimi said she was happy “because this house is mine, even if all the basic facilities aren’t there.”
Ibrahimi, whose four children huddled around the stove in her spartan living room, is one of 10 single mothers living in the new community.
The 45-year-old said she feared ending up on the street after her husband left her.
She showed AFP journalists her two just-finished rooms and an empty hallway with a counter intended to serve as a kitchen.
“But there’s no bathroom,” she said. These new houses have only basic outdoor toilets, too small to add even a simple shower.
Ajay Singh, the UNHCR project manager, said the home design came from the local authorities, and families could build a bathroom themselves.
There is currently no piped water nor wells in the area, which is dubbed “the dry slope” (Jar-e-Khushk).
Ten liters of drinking water bought when a tanker truck passes every three days costs more than in the capital Kabul, residents said.
Fazil Omar Rahmani, the provincial head of the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation Affairs, said there were plans to expand the water supply network.
“But for now these families must secure their own supply,” he said.
Two hours on foot
The plots allocated by the government for the new neighborhood lie far from Bamiyan city, which is home to more than 70,000 people.
The city grabbed international attention in 2001, when the Sunni Pashtun Taliban authorities destroyed two large Buddha statues cherished by the predominantly Shia Hazara community in the region.
Since the Taliban government came back to power in 2021, around 7,000 Afghans have returned to Bamiyan according to Rahmani.
The new project provides housing for 174 of them. At its inauguration, resident Rahesh stood before his new neighbors and addressed their supporters.
“Thank you for the homes, we are grateful, but please don’t forget us for water, a school, clinics, the mobile network,” which is currently nonexistent, he said.
Rahmani, the ministry official, insisted there were plans to build schools and clinics.
“There is a direct order from our supreme leader,” Hibatullah Akhundzada, he said, without specifying when these projects will start.
In the meantime, to get to work at the market, Rahesh must walk for two hours along a rutted dirt road between barren mountains before he can catch a ride.
Only 11 percent of adults found full-time work after returning to Afghanistan, according to an IOM survey.
Ibrahimi, meanwhile, is contending with a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) walk to the nearest school when the winter break ends.
“I will have to wake my children very early, in the cold. I am worried,” she said.
