The far right’s success in last month’s regional elections in Extremadura, Spain, was inevitable. After a series of corruption and sexual harassment allegations surrounding Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s socialist government since the summer, everyone in Spain knew he would never pull off a victory. Although the southwestern region has historically been a stronghold of Sanchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), it has been in the hands of the conservative People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox party since 2023.

This alliance, which until recently governed several other strategically important regions of Spain, such as Valencia and Murcia, is poised to take over the Spanish government in the next general elections in 2027. Its victory would potentially leave Europe without any socialist government. Denmark’s government under Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen – the only other European government still often cited as genuinely socialist in orientation – has increasingly adopted a harsh anti-immigration rhetoric that sits uneasily with socialist principles.

But why is Sanchez heading towards defeat despite making his country the new economic engine of Europe, leading the green transition, and being one of the few leaders denouncing Israel’s genocide in Gaza? How will his inevitable defeat affect the European Parliament, already under threat from far-right leaders across the continent?

When Sanchez managed to form a coalition in the 2023 general elections, it was far from perfect. Among his allies were Sumar, a coalition of leftist parties, and Junts, a conservative Catalan independence party, both of which repeatedly threatened to withdraw their support........

© Al Jazeera