The Popular Party (PP) won the early regional elections that were held this Sunday (21) in the autonomous community of Extremadura, maintaining control of the local government and imposing a historic defeat on the socialists of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) in one of its main electoral strongholds.
According to the investigation, the center-right PP re-elected the interim president of Extremadura, María Guardiola, and obtained 29 seats in the regional parliament. In turn, the right-wing nationalist party Vox won 11 deputies, almost double the result of the previous election, while the PSOE fell from 28 to 18 seats, recording the worst performance in its history in the community.
The right has already governed Extremadura since 2023, when the PP formed a government after a technical tie with the PSOE, thanks to an agreement with Vox. The right-wing coalition, however, was broken last year by national differences, leaving the regional Executive in a minority and without sufficient support to approve the 2026 budget.
It was this political impasse that led María Guardiola to dissolve parliament and call early elections – the first in the history of the autonomous community. The new election kept the right in power and further expanded its size and power in the regional parliament. As no party reached an absolute majority of 33 seats, the formation and consolidation of the regional government will depend, once again, on negotiations between the Popular Party and Vox.
The collapse of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE draws attention because it occurred in a territory considered a historical stronghold of the party, which governed Extremadura in nine of the eleven autonomous legislatures, many of them with an absolute majority. The loss of ten seats in a single electoral cycle marks the worst socialist result since the redemocratization of Spain.
The defeat occurs at a time of national fragility for the PSOE, amid internal crises, accusations of corruption and political wear and tear on the part of the Sánchez government. The socialists’ candidate for president of Extremadura was Miguel Ángel Gallardo, a politician who is currently awaiting trial for corruption in a case related to the hiring of Sánchez’s brother for a public position.
