Feijóo isolates Vox to court PNV, risking 33 seats

Feijóo shuns Vox to woo PNV, betting on five seats over thirty-three

Can Spain be governed by abandoning existing votes to court those who never gave them? Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s Popular Party (PP) decided to try. According to leaked reports, the conservative leader told his regional barons he intends to deepen the so-called "Moreno route": distancing from Vox to capture the center and attempt to pull the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) away from Pedro Sánchez. His literal instruction was: "We won't concede an inch." The arithmetic problem is elementary. Vox holds 33 seats; the PNV holds five. And Basque nationalists have already slammed the door three times on any investiture including Santiago Abascal’s party.

What Feijóo promised his regional leaders

The strategy was shared privately with the party’s regional presidents. The stated goal is to replicate the playbook that worked in regional and municipal elections: growing through the center without looking at Vox, as summarized by Andalusian president Juanma Moreno. Génova (the PP headquarters) believes this path allowed the party to expand its electorate and wants to clone it nationally. The phrase summarizing the new doctrine is one: "We won't concede an inch".

The problem is that theory clashes with practice. The PP governs with Vox in Extremadura, Castilla y León, Valencia, and Aragon. In other words, they distance themselves in Madrid while sharing government councils in four regions. One affected regional leader summarizes the contradiction pragmatically: "Ignoring them works in the long run." Translation: endure the strain and wait for Abascal’s voters to disengage.

Why the PNV won’t invest Feijóo

Basque nationalists have rejected Feijóo’s investiture three times. Their condition is unequivocal: no support if the operation includes Vox. And Génova knows this. Leadership sources admit they have "accepted there is no possibility of investiture." So why the courtship? The circulating answer is that the real objective isn’t La Moncloa, but the Basque elections. The PNV would have the so-called "nuclear button" there: a national motion of censure in case of a hypothetical alliance between EH Bildu and the PSOE.

Some argue the PP doesn’t seek to govern, but to install the narrative that it tried everything. The internal reference is avoiding the "Inés Arrimadas syndrome": projecting the image of a party that gave its all before a repeat election. The most optimistic calculation assumes Junts breaks with the PSOE and the King proposes Feijóo with 172 supporters against Sánchez’s 171. The pessimistic scenario, held by almost all consulted leaders, is impossible investiture.

The electoral cost of snubbing Vox

The paradox has a price. If the PP insists on isolating Vox, it risks losing the 33 seats needed for any majority. Abascal’s party has hardened its stance: demanding the PP publicly clarify if excluding Vox from the Congress Bureau was a commitment to the PNV. Without explanation, their votes are no longer guaranteed.

The most repeated analysis antiestéticatures an uncomfortable comparison: the PP could end up like Ciudadanos, the party obsessed with isolating Vox that disappeared from the map. The difference here is that the party facing extinction isn’t emerging, but Spain’s main right-wing force. Voters who chose the PP to oust Sánchez may discover their vote served to sustain the PNV in Murcia or Andalusia.

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With these elements, Feijóo’s investiture depends on Junts betraying Sánchez or the PNV betraying its own discourse. Both can happen. What cannot happen is 33 seats magically becoming five. Politics has these quirks.