MADRID (AFP) – Spain’s northwestern Galicia region voted yesterday in a tight election that could see the country’s opposition conservative party lose control of its traditional stronghold in a blow for its leader.
The Popular Party (PP) has governed Galicia since 2009, winning majorities in the last four elections under Alberto Nunez Feijoo who in 2022 left the region of some 2.7 million residents to become national party leader.
The first opinion polls published in January suggested the PP was on track for another victory but the race has since tightened with surveys suggesting the party could lose its absolute majority in the 75-seat regional Parliament.
That would open the door to a coalition between the surging left-wing nationalist BNG party and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists, which govern at the national level in a minority coalition that relies on the support of smaller regional parties to pass legislation.
The election comes as Feijoo is under fire after he announced last weekend he was in favour of granting a conditional pardon to the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont over his role in the region’s failed 2017 independence push, and had even studied “for 24 hours” an amnesty for separatists before ruling it out.
