What Is Pedro Sánchez Thinking?

In a move that left political observers scratching their heads, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez recently called early elections for July 23, five months ahead of schedule. Sánchez cited his left-wing coalition’s poor performance in May 28 local and regional elections as the impetus for his decision, taking personal responsibility for defeats by the conservative opposition. “Spaniards should clarify which political forces they want to take the lead,” Sánchez said after the results were announced.

By moving up the national vote, Sánchez is sacrificing valuable campaign time that could allow him to shore up his base and attack the opposition. He also risks angering the public by dominating the summer with what is expected to be an intensely fought political campaign; Spain has never before held a general election in the middle of the season, raising concerns about low turnout.

At first glance, Sánchez’s decision to call for early elections seems baffling—and potentially self-defeating. But there is a fair bit of strategy behind his decision.

Sánchez leads the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, or PSOE, which has ruled Spain longer than any other party since the country became a democracy in 1977 following the death of its longtime dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco. The party has been the engine behind Spain’s most important political, economic, and social changes over the years. PSOE’s accomplishments include shaping key provisions in Spain’s democratic constitution that was enacted by a 1978 referendum, such as a stipulation allowing for regional self-governance; guiding the country’s 1986 accession to the European Economic Community, a precursor to the European Union; and ushering in a revolution in social rights, including legalizing divorce, abortion, gay marriage, and euthanasia.

The PSOE has kept social democracy a viable political force in Spain at a time when it has struggled for relevance elsewhere in Western Europe. While social democratic parties in Italy, France, and Germany have in recent years either collapsed or become shadows of their former selves, the PSOE has thrived by shifting right on the economy—embracing some austerity measures—while pushing hard on cultural issues like LGBTQ+ rights, social justice, and gender parity.

Sánchez has been in power since 2018, following the ouster of then-Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy—a member of the conservative People’s Party (PP)—by a no-confidence vote triggered by a party-wide corruption scandal. That year, Sánchez made history in Spain by introducing a female-dominated cabinet. He then won a general election in November 2019 and was able to form a coalition with an electoral alliance led by Podemos, a left-wing populist party. It was Spain’s first coalition government since re-democratization.

For many voters, the prime minister has lost the luster of his initial years in office. A big culprit is COVID-19. Spain was hit especially hard by the pandemic, forcing Sánchez to implement one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns. Although an economic recovery is underway—Spain’s economy is projected to grow faster this year than the Eurozone average—this statistic is of little consolation to those hit by inflation and other economic ills. Sánchez also has yet to solve the Catalonia crisis: The prime minister has been willing to engage in negotiations with the region’s separatists but has refused to offer them the official independence referendum they seek.

Now, Sánchez hopes to use early elections to stop the political bleeding from his base—and prevent an implosion of his left-wing coalition. In the May 28 local and regional elections, the PSOE and Podemos sustained losses virtually everywhere, including in traditional strongholds such as Valencia and Andalusia.

Most observers expect a tight national race between the PSOE and the PP, and some polls show the PP ahead. The PP is benefiting from new leadership in the form of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, a former president of the Galicia region. Feijóo took over the party after the scandal-prone and divisive leadership of Pablo Casado, Sánchez’s principal opponent in the 2019 general elections. But polls indicate the PP will not be able to form a government without support from the far-right Vox party, which is currently registering a little over 10 percent in national opinion surveys. By calling early elections and catching the PP off guard, Sánchez believes he can weaken his conservative opponents as they deliberate on how to approach Vox.

Vox currently controls 52 seats in the Spanish Congress of Deputies—the third-largest force in that chamber—and, like most far-right parties, is extremely controversial. The party opposes LGBTQ+ rights, gender parity, and ongoing efforts to help Spain cope with the dark legacies of the Franco period. In particular, Vox has called for revoking the Law of Historical Memory, a landmark piece of legislation the PSOE enacted in 2007 that offered reparations to the victims of the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s political repression and deemed Franco’s regime illegitimate; and the 2022 Democratic Memory Law, which voided all court rulings issued under the old dictatorship, compelled the government to exhume the remains of those killed during the Civil War and the dictatorship and buried in mass graves, and banned the Francisco Franco National Foundation, which had promoted Franco’s legacy in democratic Spain. Vox has deemed both laws divisive and an attempt to rewrite history.

Vox’s political platform also includes erecting a wall around Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish enclaves in northern Africa that have become flashpoints in EU migration policy. Even more controversial is Vox’s proposal to hold a national referendum to ban separatist parties, such as the Republican Left of Catalonia, one of the parties responsible for the illegal 2017 referendum on Catalan independence. Banning separatist parties would likely be illegal, since Spanish law only allows for barring parties involved in criminal activity. (In the post-Franco era, only one party has been banned by the courts: Batasuna, the political wing of the Basque terrorist organization ETA, in 2003.)

There is little sign that Vox intends to moderate its stances going into the elections. “Kicking out Pedro Sánchez to repeal each and every one of his policies” will be the party’s focus, Santiago Abascal, Vox’s leader, said in reaction to the prime minister’s call for early elections. Feijóo, who hails from the moderate wing of the PP, is wary of embracing Vox. But he is also refusing to say whether he would welcome Vox as a political partner, knowing that he might need the party to form a government. As a sign that Feijóo might welcome a national coalition with Vox, he last year approved Vox’s entry into a coalition with the PP to govern the conservative region of Castilla y León in north-central Spain.

On the campaign trail, Sánchez is working overtime to tie Feijóo to Vox. Sánchez is also ramping up his rhetoric about the danger a Vox entry into national government would pose for Spain, even as a junior partner to the more moderate PP. He has warned that Vox could undo or weaken legal protections for abortion and same-sex marriage and rekindle the country’s fascist past. He has even framed the upcoming election as a choice between democracy and autocracy, referencing recent elections in the United States and Brazil. “Spaniards need to decide if they want a government on the side of Biden or Trump,” Sánchez told PSOE members when justifying his call for early elections.

Sánchez is hoping that early elections will help consolidate Spain’s left—the only way he could win reelection. His strategy is already working: Podemos and Sumar—another progressive left-wing party—announced on June 9 that they will run as a single entity along with 13 other left-wing parties. The deal was struck just hours before political parties were required to register for the July 23 elections.

Sumar is an offshoot of Podemos and is a part of Sánchez’s coalition. Its leader, Yolanda Díaz, is Sánchez’s minister of labor and Spain’s most popular politician. She is credited with negotiating a popular pandemic-era program that kept as many as 7 million Spaniards dependent on the state for their income, including furloughed workers and those on medical leave. She also spearheaded Spain’s 2022 labor reform, which cracked down on short-term contracts and secured new union protections. Díaz and other progressives in the Sánchez government are credited with securing the “Iberian exception,” which allows Spain and Portugal to cap electricity prices rather than tie them to the free market—something no other EU member states are permitted to do.

In pressuring Podemos and Sumar to run together, Sánchez hopes to overwhelm any possible coalition the PP could form after the elections. Spain’s electoral law rewards large parties and intraparty coalitions. A poll from El País found that if Sumar and Podemos ran separately, they would win 26 and 3 parliamentary seats, respectively, while a unified platform would net 41 seats—vastly improving the prospects of the left remaining in power.

Undoubtedly, winning reelection will be Sánchez’s biggest challenge to date. He is facing an emboldened right, a splintered left, and restless separatists. But he should not be underestimated. Sánchez’s political obituary has been written before, most notably in 2016, when he was removed from his position as PSOE president. He regained the position a year later and rose to power in 2018. Shortly thereafter, he survived a Catalan separatist attempt to sink his government by forcing him into new elections. It is within him to pull off another victory.