Spain's conservative People's Party and the right-wing Vox party have struck an electoral pact for the Senate ahead of the 29 November general election.
The bilateral arrangement is designed to avoid mutual damage from vote splitting in key provinces, according to an account published on Tuesday by former Spanish interior minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz.
The agreement between the two parties comes in direct response to a left-wing pact known as Senado de Progreso, or Senate of Progress. That coalition united the governing Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, known as PSOE, and the left-wing Frente Amplio across 43 electoral constituencies to challenge the People's Party majority in the upper chamber.
Because the legal deadline to register formal electoral coalitions had already expired, the People's Party and Vox negotiated a bilateral coordination deal instead of an official joint ticket. The objective is to ensure that competition between the two right-wing slates does not leave both groups without representation in tight races.
Terms of the bilateral agreement
Under the terms of the pact, Vox agreed not to field any candidates in six electoral constituencies: Las Palmas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Cadiz, Valencia, Castellon, and the Balearic Islands.
In another 14 constituencies, Vox will put forward only a single candidate instead of the three allowed under Spanish electoral rules. In those provinces, the People's Party will include the Vox nominee on its own list as an independent candidate.
The 14 agreed provinces where Vox will field a single independent candidate on the People's Party ticket are Sevilla, Huelva, Asturias, Badajoz, Alava, Navarra, Caceres, Huesca, Zaragoza, Alicante, Granada, Cuenca, Pontevedra, and Jaen.
In return, the People's Party will stand down entirely in three Catalan and Basque constituencies: Guipuzcoa, Girona, and Tarragona. Fernandez Diaz noted that this marks the first time in a Spanish general election that the People's Party has decided not to present any candidacies in those three areas.
In the remaining 23 constituencies across the country, both the People's Party and Vox will campaign normally and present their own separate candidate lists.
The Spanish voting system
The tactical pact reflects the unique mechanics of Spain's upper house of parliament, the Cortes Generales. While the lower chamber, the Congress of Deputies, uses proportional representation to allocate seats, the Senate uses a majoritarian partial block voting system in provincial constituencies.
In standard mainland provinces, voters choose up to three individual candidates to fill four available Senate seats. Electors traditionally vote along party lines, meaning the most popular party routinely captures three seats while the second-placed party wins the single remaining seat.
This dynamic heavily punishes divided political movements. If conservative voters divide their support between the People's Party and Vox, a unified left-wing list can finish first and take three seats, while another rival can take the fourth, leaving the right with nothing.
The People's Party currently holds an absolute majority in the Senate. Protecting that majority provides the party with significant legislative leverage, including the power to amend or delay legislation passed by the lower house and initiate parliamentary inquiry commissions.
Historic political polarization
Fernandez Diaz wrote that the upcoming 29 November election will be the first since 1978 in which two opposing political blocs contest the Senate. Spain ratified its post-Franco democratic constitution in 1978, establishing the modern parliamentary monarchy and bicameral legislature.
The former interior minister argued that this division anticipates the coalition that will form the national government in the Congress of Deputies. Whichever political bloc secures a working majority in the lower house will likely govern together.
Fernandez Diaz described the pacts as evidence of the radicalization that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has introduced to Spanish politics and society. He argued that the right was forced to react to polarization created by the left, pointing to the earlier governing alliance between PSOE and Sumar, which has now transitioned into Frente Amplio.
Drawing an international parallel, Fernandez Diaz pointed to the recent presidential election in Brazil as a cautionary tale. In that race, progressive President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defeated conservative Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, in a tight runoff after a narrow first-round loss. Fernandez Diaz concluded that the Brazilian contest served as a warning to political observers navigating polarized bloc politics.
