They will be the first early elections in Extremadura. , 45 years old, is the current president of the region after losing the elections on May 28, 2023 (they were won by Guillermo Fernández Vara (PSOE), , and integrating them into her own Executive with a department – Forest Management and Rural World -. Now, halfway through her term, with two years and four months in the presidential office of the Junta de Extremadura de Mérida, she has broken the electoral board in Spain.
The popular leader has executed a movement that, despite being announced, is still unexpected and risky. This Monday, by surprise and in an appearance with questions, he called Extremadurans to the polls on December 21. The electoral campaign will begin on the 5th, at the gates of the great bridge of Spain and, as Guardiola herself has said, exactly on her 46th birthday. It will end 14 days later, on the 19th. These are some of the keys to this electoral advance that will be the beginning of a new political cycle in Spain. After the Extremadura elections will come those of Castilla y León and Andalusia, already in 2026.
Why now?
Guardiola only has one option for December 21: the absolute majority, which stands at 33 seats. The Popular Party currently has 28 deputies, the same as the PSOE. While Vox has five seats and Podemos, four. The main argument that the Extremaduran president has put forward for the electoral advance is that without budgets one cannot govern. And she has not approved the accounts in the region for two years. The movement highlights the government pacts of Vox and PP.
The extreme right decided to break all autonomous agreements with the popular ones in July 2024. It decided to go into opposition in the five autonomies where it co-governed: Castilla y León, Aragón, Valencian Community, Murcia and Extremadura. Here, however, the only advisor that Vox had decided to remain in Guardiola’s Government in a clear challenge to the leadership of Santiago Abascal. It lasted only one more year. Ignacio Higueros resigned this summer for inventing his own resume. He said that he had a degree in Marketing from the CEU in 1993, and those studies did not begin in Spain until 2009.
After the resignation of Higueros, the political course began in Extremadura and the rest of the autonomies with an eye toward the Budgets. Guardiola’s regional Executive presented them a few weeks ago and this Tuesday the negotiation period ended with the announcement by PSOE, Podemos and Vox of an absolute rejection. Given this situation—it would be the second consecutive year with extended accounts—the leader of the Extremaduran PP has opted for the electoral advance on the same day that the deadline for approving them ends.
The movement has also served the national PP to focus on Pedro Sánchez, who also has extended accounts. “In the face of the blockade, elections,” said popular leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo. No one doubts that the Extremaduran elections will also be measured nationally.
From criticizing Vox, like no one else, to assuming the discourse.
If he does not achieve an absolute majority, Guardiola will return to his origins. And the newspaper archive does not leave in a good place the Extremaduran president who would need, once again, an agreement with Vox to govern. In Extremadura, no one forgets when, not at all nervous, Guardiola looked out of the corner of her eye at the nine-minute speech that she had placed on the lectern in the stone press room of the Assembly days after the June 2023 elections. “I only have my word and my work,” she said.
And he continued. “I’m not going to give away advice. […] We will go to elections, if we have to go. […] I cannot let into my Government those who deny sexist violence, those who use the broad stroke, those who are dehumanizing immigrants, and those who unfold a tarp and throw the LGTBI flag into a trash can. […] I have done everything in my power. My promise and my land are not a currency for anything. Thank you very much.” No member of the PP, neither regional nor national, had been so fierce against Vox. Guardiola was convinced. Firm to her word, she dispatched the question time like this:
-In no case would Vox enter a María Guardiola Government?
-No. Institutions cannot be used to ideologize.
Seven days later, he was already negotiating his integration. And three days later he already signed the Government pact. Now, the relationship with Vox is not going through its best moment either. What’s more, the spokesperson for the regional PP, José Ángel Sánchez Juliá, said a few days ago: “The grip of PSOE and Vox is increasingly evident in Extremadura.” Hence, Guardiola trusts his order to the absolute majority. However, the PP has come closer to its ideology in these two years of Government. In fact, Vox and PP repealed the historical memory law. And in Guardiola’s own investiture speech with messages unpublished to date in Environment.
Who will be the candidates, how many parties will be presented?
Another of the arguments why María Guardiola has brought forward the elections is due to the current state of her main political rival. The Extremaduran PSOE has been knocked out for months. Miguel Ángel Gallardo, who was the man who was called to lead Guillermo Fernández Vara’s space, will face his first elections as a candidate with his sights set on the judicial bench. Gallardo is being investigated for alleged irregularities in the hiring of David Sánchez, the brother of the President of the Government, and for possible fraud in his capacity.
Ángel Pelayo Gordillo appeared at Vox, who is also one of the main voices of Santiago Abascal’s formation in the Senate. And in Unidas Podemos Irene de Miguel. In the 2023 elections, ten parties were presented in the region with lists in the two provinces: PSOE, PP, Ciudadanos, Unidas por Extremadura, Vox, Together for Extremadura, Extremeñistas, Levanta Extremadura, A dignified Extremadura and For a fairer world.
