The Government is not at all worried about the possibility that Alberto Núñez Feijóo will succeed in his recent attempts to reactivate the possibility of a motion of no confidence, even if only instrumental, just to call elections. The Executive constantly surveys its partners, knows well the political situation of all of them, and is convinced that there is practically no chance that the motion of no confidence will succeed for a fundamental political reason that no tactical turn can change: Catalonia and Euskadi, the two key places for a no confidence motion, because the PNV and Junts operate there, are the areas of Spain with the greatest rejection of the PP but especially of Vox.
They are two autonomous communities where the PP has never governed, where it is the fourth party and has even been sixth. The idea that the PNV or Junts would be responsible, even indirectly through an instrumental motion of no confidence, for a coalition of PP and Vox reaching La Moncloa would generate, according to the Government’s view, such a great rejection that both Junts and the PNV will always avoid assuming that cost because it would be a gift to their rivals, Bildu in the case of Euskadi and ERC or Aliança Catalana in the case of Catalonia.
The PP is saying the opposite in private: that the rejection by PNV and Junts of toppling Sánchez allows them to seek votes in both pools among right-wing people fed up with the Government. This last part is more politically debatable, because no poll sees large transfers from Junts and PNV to the PP, but the first can be empirically demonstrated: the vast majority of PNV and Junts voters prefer Sánchez over Feijóo as president.
That is why, despite both the PNV and Junts calling for early elections and distancing themselves from Sánchez, La Moncloa is very calm. They see these moves as an electoral strategy, now that the municipal elections—decisive for both the PNV and Junts—are on the horizon, to distance themselves from a PSOE in decline with weekly scandals. But not as a sign that PNV or Junts are seriously considering supporting the no confidence motion as they did in 2018, when they precisely abandoned a Rajoy in very low times after the Gürtel case verdict and embraced a Sánchez who did not generate that rejection in Catalonia and Euskadi and, moreover, promised a territorial policy much closer to the nationalists’ positions than the PP’s, as he ultimately did.
At La Moncloa they are convinced that the PP, in recent years, has burned all bridges with the nationalists with its positions on territorial policy, and that is why they believe Feijóo will only be president if he achieves a majority with Vox, because no nationalist or separatist will vote for a PP investiture nor for a no confidence motion against Sánchez to bring the Populars to power. “Mr. Feijóo is looking for political forces that want to commit political suicide hand in hand with PP-Vox,” joked the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, summarizing the Executive’s confidence that there will be no no confidence motion.
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This idea is widespread in the Government, which points out that in private the partners convey different messages than those they transmit publicly. If with microphones they call for elections and show their distress at the drip of scandals, in private they also demand measures and explanations, but above all there is talk of pending negotiations, especially in the case of the PNV, and work is underway in the coming months to carry them out, that is, there is no atmosphere of early elections in those conversations. With Junts things are much more difficult and although formally there is practically no relationship or negotiations, because the separatists have broken with the Government, in reality there are some conversations about specific issues, for example housing, and other laws pending approval in Congress.
The Government is, therefore, much more pressured than last year and it will probably be seen in the next polls that it has greater wear than last year, when it was already very sunk by the Cerdán case, but in reality with the partners the situation is not much worse. Sánchez still has a very weakened majority, practically broken with Junts, but there is no way to organize an alternative majority in Congress, and that allows him to move forward.
In the Executive there is genuine despair these days seeing that corruption cases cover everything and block Spanish politics, so much so that they leave in the background data such as the new employment record reached this Tuesday, with 22.3 million affiliates. This is how the press conference after the Council of Ministers began with the spokesperson and Minister of Social Security, Elma Saiz, with that data which at any other time would be a huge political asset for a Government in a country that historically had unemployment as a major endemic problem, but soon the debate moved towards the sustainability of the Government and the possibility of a no confidence motion that no one in the Executive currently sees as a real threat.
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