Voters in Spain are headed for the polls on Sunday in an election that could make the country the latest European Union member to swing to the populist right, a shift that would represent a major upheaval after five years under a left-wing government.
Final opinion polls, that were published on Monday, tipped the right-wing Popular Party (PP) to win the most seats but without securing a working parliamentary majority.
That could force the PP to form a coalition government with the extreme-right Vox party, in what would be the first time a far-right party holds a share of power in Spain since the end of the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco in 1975.
Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego reporting from Madrid said, “Vox is a relative newcomer to the Spanish political scene; nevertheless, they are proving themselves to be disruptors to that traditional two-party system and have even been going into deals with the PP in regional governments as well and councils.
“Vox’s rhetoric around immigration and regional separatism will put it on a collision course with those separatist movements, not just in Basque country but Catalonia as well,” Gallego said.
But the PP’s campaign has stumbled in the final stretch with its leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo facing renewed questions about his ties with notorious drug trafficker Marcial Dorado in the 1990s when he was a senior official in the regional government of Galicia.
Meanwhile, PP and Vox have portrayed the vote as a chance to end “Sanchismo” – a term the PP uses to sum up what it contends are the dictatorial ways of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
In the other corner are the Socialists and a new movement called Sumar that has brought together 15 small left-wing parties for the first time. They warn that putting the right in power will threaten Spain’s post-Franco changes.
The prime minister has made pacts in exchange for votes in parliament with parties such as EH Bildu, which is linked to the former Basque separatist group ETA, and ERC, which led Catalonia’s 2017 secession bid from Spain.
