Andalusia election offers clues to Spain’s political trajectory

MADRID — Sunday’s election in Spain’s most populous region — Andalusia — will set the tone for what kind of conservatives will be in pole position to confront Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in next year’s general election.

The center-right People’s Party is currently ahead in national polls but this weekend’s contest in the crucial southern region of 9 million people — with a bigger population than EU countries such as Bulgaria, Denmark or Ireland — will probably determine whether it will pursue a more moderate or hard-line course into the 2027 race.

The lead candidate for the People’s Party in Andalusia is its current regional president, Juanma Moreno. He represents the moderate wing of the party and his expected victory on Sunday is likely to set it on a more centrist course for 2027 if he wins outright, as polls suggest is possible.

If he doesn’t do so well and is forced into a coalition with the far-right Vox, that could boost the more right-wing camp in the party, which is represented by the maverick populist Madrid President Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who is currently locked in a fierce spat with Mexico’s left-wing government.

“Moreno has done well in Andalusia precisely because he has distanced himself from Vox. He’s much more moderate,” said political scientist Fernando Vallespín at Madrid’s Autonomous University. By contrast, he added, “Ayuso has a majority in Madrid because she has an image that is close to that of Vox” and which has successfully limited the ultranationalists’ electoral appeal there.

Colonial clash

Still, despite Moreno’s apparent strength on the campaign trail in Andalusia, the political debate in Spain around the People’s Party has been somewhat overshadowed by Ayuso’s nationalistic showdown with Mexico.

In recent months, Ayuso has described Mexico as a “narco-state” and cast its government as an authoritarian regime comparable to that of Cuba. 

Ayuso’s visit there this month began with controversy, when she attended an event in Mexico City that paid tribute to Hernán Cortés, the 16^th-century Spanish conquistador responsible for what many Mexicans regard as a genocidal campaign against indigenous people. 

In a speech, Ayuso described mestizaje, the blending of cultures and people that followed the Spanish conquest, as “the message of hope and happiness.”

The Spanish musician Nacho Cano, an ally of Ayuso, who was also present, went as far as saying: “Without Cortés there would be no Mexico.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum hit back in a speech just hours later, saying: “Those who hark back to the conquest as a salvation are destined for defeat.”

Ayuso eventually cut short her 10-day trip, claiming that protests against her by Mexicans had been part of a plan orchestrated by Sheinbaum, in league with Sánchez, which he has denied.

On her return, Ayuso doubled down.

“Mexico did not exist until the Spaniards arrived,” she told the Madrid regional parliament, to jeers from the left-wing opposition. She also accused the Sheinbaum government of “living off poverty, which is what communism always does.”

The legacy of the Spanish conquest and colonization of the New World has been a source of tensions between Spain and Mexico for several years. 

Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, demanded an apology from Spain for human rights violations committed during that era.

In 2024, the current president did not invite King Felipe to her inauguration, saying neither he nor the Spanish government had responded to the request. However, comments last October by the Spanish foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, acknowledging there had been “pain and injustice” in the two countries’ shared history, appeared to improve relations.

The king went further in March, when he told the Mexican ambassador in Spain that there had been “a lot of abuse” during the conquest, which “cannot make us feel proud.” Those comments drew a positive response from the Mexican government, although they angered some on Spain’s right, which tends to be more defensive about the country’s colonial history.

Backing the moderate

The People’s Party’s national leadership, which has frequently been wrong-footed by Ayuso’s outbursts, has steered clear of her Mexican dispute.

Instead, on the campaign trail in Andalusia, party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo praised Moreno’s measured image, telling supporters in Málaga that “it’s more important than ever…to have moderate and centrist politics.”

Polls show the Socialists are in a distant second place ahead of Sunday’s vote. The death of two civil guards in a high-speed pursuit of drug traffickers in waters off Huelva appeared to hurt the party.

The Socialist candidate, María Jesús Montero, described the incident as a “workplace accident” in language that played badly.