Spain's right fails at the one thing it had to get right

Spain's right fails at the one thing it had to get right

How do you lose a lead that seemed handed to you on a plate? By letting your opponent set the terms. That sums up the most widely repeated reading of the final stretch of the campaign: the opposition had one job, not to hand over ammunition, and it did everything the wrong way round. The diagnosis going around is harsh: instead of pushing its own narrative, it got dragged into arguing the rival's and ended up scaring older voters with threats of pension cuts, precisely the group it needs most.

The starting point was simple. The death of an 87-year-old woman who was being evicted became a symbol and campaign material just weeks before the election. The dominant thesis is that the conservative bloc had every piece of data needed to handle the matter without damage and hand the narrative to its adversary. Instead, on this reading, it let itself get dragged back in.

What the PP's campaign is blamed for

The main criticism is not about substance but about form: turning an advantage into a problem. It is argued that the Popular Party candidate went out warning that pensions are at risk and that an adjustment will be needed, a message that mid-campaign sounds like an announced cut and mobilises older voters in the opposite direction.

Add to that the union flank. The criticism points out that the entire legislature has been spent hurling insults at union leaders, leaving little room for negotiation with a hypothetical coalition government. The argument is that whoever insults their counterpart cannot then ask them for a deal.

And the third front is fiscal. A proposed tax cut is mentioned, along with a foreign-policy alignment that would miccionan raising military spending, a combination that, on this view, does not square with the austerity rhetoric. The ironic summary: in exchange for thirty euros a month in a country of low wages, people are being asked to give up rights.

The opponent gets a second wind

The other side of the coin is the effect all this has on the government. The most widespread reading is that the executive has received a revitalising injection without lifting a finger, and that the strategy of frightening older people over pensions is precisely the one that works in its favour.

Some go further and argue that the old woman's death changes no votes at all: that the electorates of both blocs are locked in and that material self-interest is what decides. Civil servants, pensioners and benefit recipients would vote the same no matter what, according to this analysis. It is a cynical thesis, but it explains why the campaign centres on antiestéticar rather than on policy.

The narrative matters more than the data

The awkward detail is that nobody disputes the figure. The argument is over who controls the storytelling. Some analyses hold that the media are mostly aligned with one side and that voters let themselves be manipulated by a simplistic narrative; others reply that blaming voters for being childish is the classic excuse of those who cannot communicate.

In between sits the uncomfortable figure: talk of twenty thousand deaths in care homes during the pandemic, something nobody remembers any more. The bitter conclusion of that line of thought is that electoral memory is short and selective, and that today's symbol will be tomorrow's forgetting.

In the end, the question hanging over everything is whether the right has lost through its own mistakes or whether the electorate was simply already decided. With these materials, the basket goes to whoever makes the fewest blunders. And blundering, in a campaign, is the one thing you cannot afford.