THE Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez faces Sunday doubles municipal and regional electionswhich, six months before parliamentary elections, will give an idea of ​​his ability to stay in power.

The stakes are high for socialist Pedro Sanchez, who has governed since 2018 at the head of a coalition with the radical left’s Podemos.

Of the country’s 12 regions (out of 17 in total) that will elect their local parliament and government on Sunday, 10 are governed by the Socialist Party (PSOE), either directly or as part of a coalition.

As local governments have enormous powers, especially in the areas of Health and Education, the regions ruled by the Socialist Party have become valuable allies of Pedro Sánchez in recent years, especially during the Covid-19 crisis.

But Sunday’s election is expected to show “a shift to the right”, the size of which could be a prelude to the outcome of the parliamentary elections, according to Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University. The exact date of the parliamentary elections, which must be held before the end of the year, has not yet been set.

Leading the polls for months nationally, the People’s Party (PP), the largest faction of the Spanish right, has turned next Sunday’s election into a referendum against Pedro Sanchez.

“There are five days left until the elections,” PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijo said yesterday, “and only by voting PP can we begin to turn the page on “sanctions”.

The specific gravity of Vox

Aided by the demise of the centre-right Ciudadanos party, the PP believes it can win six of the left-ruled regions and gain further strength in its stronghold of Madrid, the country’s wealthiest region, governed by far-right Isabel Diaz Saint.

According to the latest polls, the PP can win in four of these six regions: Rioja and Aragon in northern Spain, the Balearic archipelago and Valencia in eastern Spain.

But this, always with the necessary support of the far-right party Vox, which is a double-edged sword.

The PP has been governing together with Vox since last year in the rural region of Castilla y León, but is constantly in a difficult position due to the positions of its ultra-nationalist, ultra-conservative ally, especially on the issue of abortion.

Vox “is determined to participate in the maximum of local governments”, but the PP “would prefer to minimize its presence (…) to avoid confrontations that threaten to alienate centrist voters” during the parliamentary elections, he says Antonio Barroso, Teneo analyst.

The Spanish left is in a position to fight back

According to Cristina Monje, a political scientist at the University of Zaragoza, the “dilemma” is already weighing on Alberto Núñez Feijo, who has created “huge expectations” by assuming the leadership of the PP for a year and projects an image of a moderate politician, however, he does not know what strategy to adopt against the extreme right.

Buoyed by a good economic performance and anti-inflation measures that seem to be having real effects on rising prices, Pedro Sanchez is trying to mobilize the left with the argument that the presence of Vox gives him and has been increasing announcements for weeks about the taking measures for housing and public health.

“The economic indicators are good and (…) voters don’t have the image of the Apocalypse that the right has” about the economic situation, says Cristina Monche, who believes that the different components of the left have more endurance than expected.

This is crucial because, if the right and far-right win the parliamentary elections at the end of the year without a clear absolute majority, the left will have a card to play to stay in power, since the small nationalist and regionalist parties are always more willing to make deals with the left than with the right, concludes Pablo Simon.