The conservative People’s Party (PP) won the Andalusian regional election on Sunday with 53 seats, but lost the absolute majority it held since 2022 after Adelante Andalucía, a left-wing regionalist party, quadrupled its parliamentary representation to eight seats. Despite securing nearly 150,000 more votes than in the previous election—a record for the PP in a regional contest—Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla’s party slipped from 58 to 53 deputies in the 109-seat chamber, undone by a surge in turnout driven by younger, urban voters who flocked to Adelante. The result, as analysts in Madrid note, leaves Moreno dependent on the far-right Vox, which won 15 seats, to govern, a prospect he had sought to avoid by campaigning on a centrist platform.

For the Socialist Party (PSOE), the election delivered a historic blow. Its candidate, María Jesús Montero—who doubles as deputy prime minister and finance minister—saw her party fall to 28 seats, its lowest ever in a region it dominated for nearly four decades. The defeat, the fourth in a string of regional losses for the PSOE this year, has triggered open internal criticism. Socialdemocracia 21, a faction led by former minister Jordi Sevilla, has called for Montero’s resignation as party deputy leader and for an urgent federal committee meeting to “reactivate” the party. Ferraz, the party’s national headquarters, has avoided self-criticism, arguing the result is not “extrapolable” to general elections, but regional barons such as Emiliano García-Page of Castilla-La Mancha have urged the leadership to “reconnect with society.”

The spectacular rise of Adelante Andalucía, which grew from two to eight seats on a platform of Andalusian nationalism and left-wing economics, reshaped the political map. It outpolled Vox in Seville and Cádiz and drew support from disaffected left-wing voters alienated by the PSOE’s moderation and Sumar’s association with the national government. Viewed from Brussels, the result reinforces a broader European trend: the decline of mainstream social democracy and the rise of regionalist or identity-based alternatives on the left. In Andalusia, however, the PP’s hold on power is not threatened; rather, the fragmentation of the left has allowed the centre-right to consolidate its position, even without a majority.

Inside the PP, the loss of the absolute majority has reopened a strategic debate between the moderate “vía Moreno” and the harder “vía Ayuso” championed by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the Madrid regional president who retains her majority. Ayuso, who gains influence as Moreno’s position weakens, told her party cadre on Monday that “now is not the time for relaxation” and called for “root-and-branch changes” to regenerate Spain. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the national PP leader, has sought to balance both currents, promising “change” while avoiding explicit endorsements of Vox’s policies. Yet in Andalusia, Vox is already pressing its advantage: secretary-general Ignacio Garriga declared on Tuesday that he expects Moreno to accept Vox’s principle of “prioridad nacional”—which would give Spaniards priority over immigrants in access to public services and housing—as a condition for support.

The outcome has immediate implications for Spain’s national electoral landscape, with a general election expected within the next year. The PP has now won four consecutive regional contests, consolidating the rightward shift observed across Spain. But the need to rely on Vox in Andalusia—as it already does in Extremadura, Aragon, and Castile and León—could undermine Feijóo’s attempts to present the PP as a centrist alternative, particularly if Vox’s demands become more exacting. For Pedro Sánchez’s government, the continued erosion of the PSOE’s strongholds raises questions about its survival, although Ferraz insists that a national campaign would mobilise voters differently. As one European analyst put it, the Andalusian result is a warning shot for both main parties: the PP must navigate the alliance dilemma, while the PSOE must find a way to reverse its decline before the next general election.