Given the results of 23-J, it seems reasonable to assess that Vox has not only lost votes and seats, but also seems to have been an important obstacle for the PP to achieve the objectives set in these general elections. It is not an exaggeration, therefore, to conclude that the pacts of the PP with Vox in several autonomies, including the Valencian Community, and in not a few important capitals, have conveyed a message that has hindered the electoral growth of Feijóo and has managed to mobilize the vote of the left in favor of the PSOE and Sumar. Those who believed that agreeing with the extreme right was going to be priceless in these elections, who ventured that Spanish society was going to normally assume alliances with those who continue to offer regressive messages, are wrong. Vox does not add up, it slows down the PP, and that is one of the key lessons tonight.
It is important to do a detailed reading of what happened in the Valencian Community. The PP has won the elections, and together with Vox the right-wing block has won 18 of the 33 seats at stake. A right-wing victory that follows in the wake of the past 28-J. That is the first reading. But if the image is enlarged, data appears that the PP must take into account: the PP loses some support compared to the last regional elections, it goes from 36.2% to 34.8%. Would the result of not having agreed with Vox in the institutions have been different? It is not disposable. Carlos Mazón's agreements with the extreme right have not benefited him. There were surveys that gave many more seats to the Valencian PP. In addition, the distance in votes between the PSOE and the PP is close: 917,000 of the popular against the 844,000 of the socialists. Important fact: the PSOE has achieved one more seat than in 2019.
23-J draws a complex governance scenario in Spain, with the possibility that there could be a blockade and we will go to a repetition of the elections. But the Valencian PP must know how to extract a regional key reading of the price that embracing the alliance with Vox may entail. Carlos Mazón, who has shown himself to be a very skilful politician, must work so that the ultra-right does not contaminate Valencian politics beyond gestures. Otherwise, he will hyperventilate arguments against his political project and will mobilize a left that, as demonstrated in today's elections, continues to have a great capacity for mobilization.
We have said it. The victory of the PP in the Valencian Community in this 23-J is indisputable. The popular ones are confirmed as a party that has recovered much of the muscle lost in 2023; but it is still far from being a hegemonic force, even if it controls all the institutions. To be so, he must achieve total control of the vote to his right, as has happened in Madrid and Andalusia. Carlos Mazón can achieve it if the left is not capable of reacting in this legislature. But today's lesson is blunt: Vox does not add up and slows down the PP.
