Madrid Elections Show Possible Tie Between Competing Blocs

The campaign for the early elections in the Community of Madrid concluded Sunday night as the people of Madrid will vote this Tuesday, with President Isabel Díaz Ayuso proving to be a clear favorite to govern according to all polls after a campaign with intense ideological differences and few proposals.

The far-right party Vox has polarized the campaign since the beginning. Even if the right-wing Popular Party is the favorite to win, it will need Vox, led by Santiago Abascal, and in Madrid by the Spanish-Cuban Rocío Monasterio, to secure victory.

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The polls show, however, doubt as to what the more or less 20 percent of undecided voters, as studies show, will do on Tuesday. These will be the ones to decide whether the balance leans to the right or the left, and very few seats will likely decide it.

The Madrid campaign has been marked from the beginning with the resignation of the then second vice-president of the Government, Pablo Iglesias (Unidas Podemos); the arrival of threatening letters in the middle of the campaign; and news, during the final stretch, of the arrests of two members of Podemos' security service, accused of attacking the police at the Vox rally in Vallecas.

Meanwhile, the Madrilenian president shunned the Socialist candidate in the community, Ángel Gabilondo, focusing her rivalry on Spanish President Pedro Sánchez.

The PSOE tried to base its proposal in opposition to the polarization that was already taking place in the political landscape of Madrid to try to earn some of the 630,000 votes that Ciudadanos (a party about to disappear since the polls didn't give it the minimum  5 percent to earn a spot in the Assembly) won in the previous regional elections.

All political parties see the Madrid elections as key for national contests since if the People's Party, which has been governing the Community for more than 26 years, wins, it will be in a comfortable position against the PSOE in the general elections of 2022, even if they were to be held earlier.

If a left-wing bloc, led by the PSOE, were to consolidate, Pedro Sánchez would be in the best conditions to redeem his position in the next national elections.