Iván Redondo
The Situation Room
The current political cycle has run its course. It will be renewed. However, a new political cycle is not the same as a new electoral cycle. And there is no change in the electoral landscape according to the latest polls, including the CIS microdata. Madrid DF rests precisely on this small contingency of not knowing how to distinguish an electoral cycle from a political one. Consequently, it lives entrenched in this great confusion, as happened in the previous decade, that of historical acceleration, spanning from 2014 to 2024, during which Mariano Rajoy held the presidency in a precarious state due to a fictitious position after stripping the PSOE of its freedom with that abstention inconsistent with electoral arithmetic, trying to prolong a political cycle with exhausted categories.
Let us look back and provide some instruction. The last electoral cycle shift in Spain took place in a distant July of 2012, without elections, when the PP sent its youngest voters—around three million—into abstention, breaking their trust in fiscal and social matters already in its first year of government, and splitting open the state, the system, and the country. That collapse would crystallize in the 2014 European elections and subsequent contests, ushering in the political cycle of the 2018 no-confidence motion, which has given all it could give and must now be transformed into a new cycle based on the same existing arithmetic. Since the motion, the Spanish universe has tilted very slightly toward the right side of the system, demanding a political response that is technical, strategic, and historical. The picture is not new: in November 2011, the right (PP-UPyD) obtained 12 million votes and 191 seats. These are the same votes that PP-Vox would achieve in 2026. But with five fewer seats: 186.
The voices of Aznar and Felipe can still be heard in Madrid DF. A true cognitive dissonance
The vote market in Spain is a constant. The right-wing bloc's bet on outsourcing its opposition to the hammering of internal squabbles does not necessarily have to lead to the demobilization they seek if the left acts wisely. There is a large base camp, there is no problem with the players, they still have the golden ball, and the initiative, the ball, lies with the left. Demobilization like that of 2011 or 2000 does not have to happen.
José María Aznar himself, even though he now explains it to us as a hawk in reverse, achieved great demobilization through his technical bet on a "plural right." He later lost in 2004 by doing the opposite of what the polls entrusted him with in March 2000. The potential left-wing voter did not demobilize to enter the Iraq war or settle scores with anyone, but rather gave him an opportunity to continue with his "plural right" with a Catalan like Josep Piqué as spokesperson. Aznar tried to change the electoral cycle by striking with politics, as PP and Vox do today, but he did not succeed. In 1996, Felipe González, tired of himself as prime minister, almost won the elections: he was short by 300,000 votes. In 2000, Aznar, therefore, did not know how to make the left's demobilization structural. He got confused, like Madrid DF now. And in 2004, we returned to the same place, though a different location. Zapatero won, although Rajoy could also have won. Spain, as you can see, always so tied and coherent.
A new political cycle is emerging, with a new context that requires a new instruction: that of Spain in 2031. The current transversal, plurinational, and peripheral majority must stop talking about these last eight years, stop resisting, and move toward 2031. The new political cycle does not have to affect Sánchez's presidency. For it is precisely from the Government that cycles of change are driven and connected: the comeback, the relaunch, less presidentialism, more Pedro. He still lacks his final dance. The electoral cycle of "imperfect bipartisanship" lasted 20 years. We have only been in the "multiparty" one for 14 years. There is still room. A clue: the voices of Aznar and Felipe can still be heard in Madrid DF as in 2016. A true cognitive dissonance then and now. Spain, so fascinating and stable, a country you cannot consume in a day and that lives and dies by coherence: if you want to win Moncloa, you must be a free politician capable of guaranteeing democratic coexistence in the state, system, and country. The new political cycle will belong to the freest. We choose free politicians.
Next week
Spain, always coherent
Let us continue with the time machine. The PP obtained 33% of the votes in June 2016. Ten years later, it stands at 31%, two points behind that result, despite everything that has happened. The two major electoral spaces in Spain have been very stable since 2012. A few more points for PSOE-PP, a few less for the new formations, and the nationalists and peripheral forces, always in their place. Spain does not miss its appointment. There is no electoral cycle change, but there is a new political cycle waiting for someone to lead it in their favor.
The hawk's eye
Ten seats
The hammering of internal squabbles and the inevitability of PP-Vox agreements are not causing an electoral cycle change. With everything that has happened, the figures are better for the left than those of eight years ago (the PSOE as the fourth force and then first), and the right is only ten seats above an absolute majority. Two majorities are possible: the transversal, plurinational, and peripheral one led by Pedro Sánchez, and that of the new Youth of the right, PP and Vox, which is not a coalition but a consortium led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo.