site.btaSpain's Popular Party Remains Ahead of Socialists, Newly Emerged Far-Right Party Debuts with 3 MEP Seats

In an interview for BTA, journalist Arturo Lopo from Spain’s TVE told BTA which are the key takeaways from the European elections in Spain and what is the most interesting development in Spanish voters’ support in these elections. The Popular Party remains ahead of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party with 4% more support but with just two MEP seats more. A new far-right party emerges on the political scene, debuting with 3 MEP seats.

 In Lopo’s words, Spain leaned to the right in the European elections, but not as far as it happened in France and Germany, for example. The Popular Party, which is a conservative one and the main opposition leader in Spain, won the elections by a wider margin than expected in the last week of the election campaign. It got two MEPs more than the Socialist Party, which leads the current government in Spain, as well as a lead of 4 percentage points, which is also a bigger advantage than previously expected.

According to Lopo, that is good news for both parties - for the Popular Party  because it won, and by a larger margin at that, and for the Socialist Party because despite falling to the second position, it is still resisting regardless of the corruption scandal that involves the Prime Minister’s wife and the controversy surrounding the amnesty law, which intends to pardon some crimes to the Catalan pro-independence leaders. 

“Due to the growing polarization here in Spain, a new party emerged in these European elections: Se Acabo La Fiesta, which means The Party Is Over. This party is led by a very popular far-right activist called Alvise Perez. He is not very well-known in the mass media or among political pundits and analysts. He channels all his messages through the social networks, through Instagram and Telegram, he got 800,000 votes just in his first appearance on the political landscape. It earned him three MEP seats, which is a huge result for him,” Lopo told BTA.

“Ten years ago, it was a far-left party, an anti-system party that emerged and completely changed the political landscape, and now it is a far-right party of this kind and once again anti-system-focused,” he went on to say. According to analysts, Se Acabo La Fiesta’s supporters are mainly male, conservative and young. In Lopo’s words, this is a kind of game changer in Spain because it could steal some of the votes from the main far-right party, Vox, which also had a good - but not its best - performance in these European elections.