Contrary to the forecasts of almost all the demoscopic houses and the bulk of the analysts, the elections of the past 23-J are not going to translate into a change in the government of Spain. Everything indicates the reissue of the parliamentary coalition that has supported the Socialist Cabinet with its far-left partners, this time, articulated around Sumar. The PP has no choice and it does not seem that it is going to come to power. The analysis of the causes of this unforeseen scenario has been extensive and it may be unnecessary, due to its repetitiveness, to delve into it further. For this reason, it is more relevant to consider what the future may bring.
To begin with, the left and its allies have a much more fragile position than in the last legislature. On the one hand, the opposition has a majority in the Senate, which can significantly hinder the government's legislative work; on the other, their supporters present antinomies that are difficult to manage between parties that are rivals in their autonomous communities and, furthermore, have very different ideologies, if not incompatible, for example in their approach to economic policy.
This is going to generate problems both to intensify the nationalization agenda deployed by the left in the previous five years and to address the demands derived from the entry into force next year of the European fiscal rules. That said, the government will be in iron poor health because once elected it could only be brought down by a constructive vote of no confidence, which would force any of its potentially disgruntled allies to vote with Vox, necessary to set up any alternative formula from the right in The congress. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to get the support of the Basque nationalists facing decisive and very complicated regional elections next May. This makes them, at least for the moment, hostages of the social communist left; a situation similar to the one that the PNV found itself in the final phase of the Second Republic.
The PP faces a complicated situation in the short term. The Spanish center-right has only obtained power when it has grouped around a single party and has obtained an absolute majority or has been able to add up with the Basque-Catalan nationalist center-right. Either of these two options is unfeasible as long as there is a formation to your right with the number of votes and seats of Vox. In part, this has been due to the design of a campaign and a message that was too watered down and with few ideas so as not to jeopardize what was considered the broad victory that its polling guru prophesied.
The continuity of Sánchez is not good news for Spain because a socioeconomic model is being built that is incompatible with a modern and efficient State. There is no hope, quite the contrary, of strengthening the already very weakened institutions of liberal democracy or the creation of an economy with macro, innovative and competitive stability, which allows sustained growth and a rise in the level of citizens.
In the last five years, the redistribution of power between society and the State that has been taking place since 2004 has deepened. There has been an increase in state power in all fields, which has increasingly reduced the sphere of autonomy and Therefore, the freedom of individuals, whose dependence on the public sector is increasing. The Spanish left, as Madison wrote back in 1794, has used "the old trick of turning all contingencies into a resource to accumulate strength in the government." The Spains have entered a path of Argentineization of the system and that is not a good thing.
In the immediate horizon, this trajectory can only be altered and only in the field of the economy, not in the ideological agenda, if the entry into force of the fiscal rules in the euro zone force the government to rectify its policy orientation. There is no margin to cut the deficit-debt binomial through new tax increases, unless the Spanish middle class ends up being proletarianized, and tackling a cut in public spending is a politically impossible task for a government with the alliances that are emerging . And, in between, the government will have to give in to the growing demands that its allies will put on it...
