The right is advancing, abstention triumphs and the political and social crisis continues
The European Parliament elections on June 9 have confirmed the trends observed in the recent Catalan, Galician and Basque regional elections. Abstention is growing throughout Europe: voters are participating less and less to elect a Parliament without real power, which is barely useful for ratifying government institutions and decisions taken by states, whose directives and decisions appear to be alien and harmful to the interests of the people, cut budgets and freedoms, threaten social rights and increase military spending, etc. The cost of living and especially the rise in housing due to speculation by property owners and large international funds generate social conflicts and independent social movements are emerging that are critical of the parties of the “progressive” government.
Large sectors of people are disappointed with the traditional left and the passivity of the majority unions, they fear a decline in their social position and are sensitive to the demagogy of reactionary and xenophobic anti-politics. The Spanish turnout was 49% and that of Catalonia 43% (it has grown by a million!). The working class and the left sectors are the most abstentionist in the whole State and in Catalonia there is also a strong decline of the pro-independence forces, repeating the result of the May election. It is the consequence of the loss of credibility of these parties (ERC, Junts and CUP) after the collapse of the previous autonomous government. With an absolute pro-independence majority, it was unable to advance on the sovereignist path and was broken by economic contradictions and partisan interests making impossible the strategic unity necessary to maintain popular mobilization.
The lack of unity eliminates the expectation of achieving independence in the next period and the frustrated electorate distrusts the parties and their secret negotiations with the central government. The tangible result of the amnesty can be considered a partial victory (for obtaining a concession to cancel repressive measures, fines and sentences that weighed on thousands of activists of the Procés), but it is obvious that the amnesty is obtained by supporting the government of Pedro Sánchez, who presents the agreement as the “reunion”, that is, the acceptance of the legal and political framework of the Regime of 78. The repeated abstention of the pro-independence electorate has been so important that they announce Congresses (ERC), carry out processes of reflection and debate (CUP) and all are changing their directions. In the constitution of the new Parliament of Catalonia, they have united the vote after two years of division to name the Junts candidate as president of the table. This anticipates the rejection of the PSC candidacy to preside over the government (with the 28% of voters obtained in May, it can only form a “left” government with ERC and Comuns), but ERC fears the cost of surrendering to Spanishness and may prefer to remain in the opposition. The probability of repeating the Catalan elections in October increases.
The PSOE has been strongly challenged by the right (PP, VOX), which is also using the largely conservative judiciary to put obstacles in the way of applying the amnesty and trying to undermine the government with corruption issues. The European elections were seen as a plebiscite to censure the “progressive” government and force its downfall. The PP has managed to outperform the PSOE by 4% and the far-right forces have greatly improved their results (more than double that of 2019). There is even the candidacy (SALF 4.59%) of a far-right media agitator convicted of defaming left-wing politicians and there were several convicted of corruption on the list!
The rise of the extreme right is not only due to the neoliberal turn of social democracy, it has also been favoured by the big bourgeoisie, which in the face of the crisis embraces authoritarian forms, cutting back on liberties and civil rights along the lines that Berlusconi started: ceasing to isolate the racist and retrograde right by normalising government pacts with the extreme right, as has occurred in several Spanish regions whose autonomous regions are governed by the PP in coalition with Vox.
An even greater difference between the right and the PSOE would have forced the government to resign and call elections, but Sánchez chose to resist, knowing that the PP has no alternative government without the support of the Catalan, Galician and Basque nationalist forces. The reactionary and assimilationist Spanish centralism of the right and the extreme right prevents pacts and progress towards the democratic structuring of the Spanish State. The permanent political crisis, added to the effects of the economic crisis that leave social democracy without room to sustain the “welfare state”, cause the tendency towards ungovernability.
With difficulties in approving the budget, with a growing public debt, with military expenses on the rise and the need to make social cuts, health and education are under tension and pensions are threatened with new restrictive reforms.
The reformist left (Sumar, Comunes, Izquierda Unida) has even less scope: it has abandoned the streets, emptied social movements and subordinated its program to support for the PSOE government and the dictates of the EU, including Atlanticism, betrayal of the Saharawi people and military supplies to Ukraine, accepting the new NATO base in Menorca, etc. Its credibility fell after the split of Podemos, which was excluded from the government and has obtained poor results in all the elections held in 2024. Its role is increasingly irrelevant and it clings to remaining as a crutch for the Sánchez government (whose own weakness makes it dependent on all its partners). The failure of the Sumar coalition that was formed to ensure control of Izquierda Unida-ICV by excluding Podemos and imposing itself on its minor partners has made it lose half of its electorate and has given hope to Irene Montero's party: Podemos has obtained two MEPs and will opt to dispute the space on the left. The leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, has resigned from the leadership of the coalition although she will continue as a deputy and vice president of the central government.
With the parliamentary "left" in political decomposition, the working class and the people of the Spanish State will have to defend themselves from the authoritarian and militaristic pressure coming from NATO and the EU by their own means. There is a great task to be done to reconstitute the organizational, social and cultural fabric of the popular classes, as a basis for the rise of class consciousness. This must be done independently of bourgeois institutions, supporting grassroots social movements, denouncing the collaborationist attitudes that validate submission to imperialism, cover up the Zionist genocide and reproduce the fetishism of democracy and bourgeois justice with its parliamentary pacifism that acts as a trap to spread individualism and passivity. The only way out of this situation is the self-organization of the masses to fight for their demands. This is the basis for raising a class political force that recomposes the groups of the anti-capitalist left and prepares to contest political power.