María Guardiola has fulfilled her threat. The president of Extremadura has called early regional elections after verifying that her Government, which is in a minority, does not have the necessary support to carry out the 2026 budgets and would have to extend those of 2024 again. The Extremadurans' appointment with the polls will be on December 21 and it becomes the first PP community that anticipates the elections in this legislature after the departure of Vox from the governments coalition in the summer of 2024.
The Extremadura Government had tried to pressure the PSOE and Vox this Monday to withdraw their amendments in their entirety without even debating them in the Assembly, something that the socialists considered blackmail. For the PP, maintaining these amendments meant “closing the door to dialogue”, despite the fact that the budgets could continue their parliamentary processing if they declined, something that was quite likely.
However, Guardiola has preferred not to exhaust all avenues and press the electoral button to “not waste Extremadura's time.” In fact, a month ago he notified the parliamentary groups of his intention to call citizens to the polls if there was no agreement on the budgets. This agreement seemed impossible after the PSOE and Vox presented amendments to the entire agreement on Thursday, which the president understood as a “blockade” to the Government at a time when economic indicators are favorable and “converging,” as she stressed.
That is why Guardiola has rejected the possibility of having to extend budgets again as happened last year. The socialists also unsuccessfully presented an amendment to the entirety, however, that did not close the door then to a subsequent negotiation to abstain from the vote in exchange for including a series of partial amendments. The agreement failed at the last moment due to the distrust of the PP, which demanded that the PSOE withdraw the amendments that had not been accepted in case Vox supported them. In fact, the advisor to the Presidency, Abel Bautista, said this Monday that there is no “relationship of trust or honesty” with the PSOE and “a different situation than last year” is not expected either, which ended with the extension of the 2024 budgets.
The relationship with Vox is as cold as ever. In fact, the Extremaduran president described the proposals of the extreme right to negotiate the regional accounts as “unrealizable” and “a return to the past”, which endanger consolidated rights. However, despite his parliamentary loneliness, he also gave red lines to the PSOE: he was not going to take a step back in his fiscal policy, which has meant that, for example, Extremadura is the only community where the Wealth Tax does not exist.
PSOE and PP, tied in 2023
María Guardiola has assured that she has reached out “at all times” to avoid the elections, but has received “contempt” and “blockade instead of continuing to advance.” For this reason, the Official Gazette of Extremadura will publish this Tuesday the decree calling for elections and the Assembly of Extremadura will be dissolved. The regional elections will be held on December 21 and the campaign will take place between the 5th and the 19th of that month.
After the 2023 elections, PSOE and PP tied with 28 deputies each, although the former won the elections with a difference of 6,000 votes. Vox entered the Assembly for the first time with five deputies and Unidas por Extremadura won four seats.
Guardiola won the Presidency of the Board after a pact with the extreme right that he initially renounced. In fact, he assured that he would not allow into his Government “those who deny sexist violence, those who use the broad stroke, those who dehumanize immigrants, those who throw the LGTBI flag in a trash can.” Shortly after, he formed a coalition Executive in which he gave Vox a consultancy position. A year later, Santiago Abascal's party decided to leave all governments with the PP and leave it in the minority.
A decision consulted with Feijóo
Guardiola was in Madrid this Monday morning to receive an award from the ATA self-employed employers' association. There he coincided with his boss, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who was aware of the Extremaduran president's decision, “supports it and shares it,” the PP said in a statement. Furthermore, he has used the announcement of the early elections in Extremadura to attack Pedro Sánchez and his lack of budgets. “Citizens cannot be hostages to the weakness of their rulers,” he says.
“For this reason, given the threat of blockade by parties that supported the investiture of a president, but that now complicate the governability of a territory, elections must be called,” he adds.
Feijóo has also expressed himself on social networks, where he said that the Extremaduran leader's decision “demonstrates responsibility and courage.” “The ruler who respects his people keeps his word and a basic principle: in the face of the blockade, elections,” he wrote on his social network account X, in which he conveyed to his party partner “all the support of the PP.”
A “failure” for Guardiola
The Extremaduran PSOE has also reacted to the electoral advance decreed by Guardiola. Its general secretary, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, has considered the decision a “failure.” “The call for elections is a reflection of the failure of an entire legislature. Two years lost: without projects, without dialogue and with cuts that have set Extremadura back,” Gallardo has published on his account on the social network X.
“We assume this call with responsibility and with a clear commitment: to return to our land the place it should never have lost,” added the socialist.
The main opposition party in the community has criticized that Guardiola has not been able to “offer stability or direction to the region”, with a government that “has been more focused on surviving than on governing, more concerned with pleasing the extreme right than with responding to the real problems of Extremadurans.”
Furthermore, he has pointed out that this decision to call early elections confirms Guardiola's total lack of political autonomy, since “until Feijóo gave him permission today in Madrid, he was not able to take the step”, which “once again, it is demonstrated that Extremadura has not had a president, but rather a delegate of the national PP.”
The spokesperson for Unidas por Extremadura has spoken in the same sense. Irene de Miguel has stated that the early elections are “an electoral experiment” proposed by Feijóo, which María Guardiola has assumed “without raising her voice.”
“We knew that the budgets were an excuse to drag this region towards an electoral call marked by Feijóo,” said the leader of Podemos in Extremadura, who pointed out that this announcement occurred hours before the regional Assembly debated the amendments to the entirety presented by PSOE, Vox and Unidas to the 2026 budgets. “He did not wait for the debate because he did not want to hear how we dismantled him, one to one, his arguments and his publicity in his two years of Government,” he added.