Partido Popular wins European election in Malaga province for the first time in 25 years

The conservative Partido Popular (PP) won Sunday's European elections in Malaga, which means the party is the first political force in the province in EU elections 25 years after winning the last ones, in 1999.

With this victory, the party led locally by Patricia Navarro completes the board having won the Andalusian elections of 2022 and the municipal and general elections last year.

The socialist PSOE, the winner in the last EU poll in 2019, came second, while the results strengthen hard right Vox as the third provincial political force. The surprise of the election day was Se Acabó la Fiesta (The Party's Over), the group promoted by controversial analyst Alvise Pérez, who collected the vote of citizen discontent and indignation with the traditional parties and came in as the fourth most voted.

For the fourth time in the last two years, the Avenida de Andalucía in Malaga city, where Partido Popular has its headquarters, was a scene of celebration. The PP won 38.73% of the votes on Sunday, which is its second best result in a European election in Malaga after the one obtained in 1999, and an increase of 13.71 points compared to five years ago. A total of 202,754 Malaga voters put their trust in the centre-right party, which is an increase of 34,158 ballots on 2019.

In what is the third victory of the Partido Popular in Malaga in a European election, it gained 9.21 points over the PSOE and consolidated its political dominance in the province. It is also the third consecutive victory for Patricia Navarro since she took over as provincial party leader in October 2022.

In second place was PSOE, which won 29.53% of the vote with 154,575 votes and a drop of seven points compared to five years ago when they won the European elections. Compared to these elections, the Socialists have lost some 90,400 votes.

These results represent a new setback for provincial leader Dani Pérez, who since he was elected, at the end of 2021, as provincial secretary general of the Socialists has yet to win an election in the province. The new defeat at the polls could stir up internal party pressure from those who question his leadership.

Sunday's elections served to strengthen Vox as the third political force in the province, a position it already achieved in the general elections of July 2023. The party chaired locally by Antonio Sevilla won 11.37% of the votes with 59,520 ballots, an increase of 3.52 points and a gain of more than 7,000 votes compared to five years ago.

With a campaign carried out through social media, Luis Pérez, a 34-year-old from Seville, known as Alvise, has managed to make an impression on the people of Malaga, 38,946 of whom gave Se Acabó la Fiesta their vote. This figure represents 7.44% of the total and places Malaga as the Andalusian province with the highest percentage of support. His emergence on the political scene is reminiscent of that achieved by the businessman José María Ruiz Mateos at the end of the 1980s.

The emergence of Se Acabó la Fiesta and the division between the radical left has damaged Sumar and Podemos in Malaga. If five years ago, when they went together under the IU-Podemos Andalucía banner, they won 75,960 votes, on this occasion, having gone their separate ways, they have won 40,544, which means they have lost 35,416 votes along the way.

In their particular battle, Sumar came fifth in Malaga with 4.94% of the votes and 25,896 ballot papers, while Podemos came sixth with 2.79% of the votes and 14,648 ballot papers.

In seventh place was Pacma with 5,617 votes, which means having lost 6,641 ballots with respect to the 2019 European election. Ciudadanos, which five years ago, was the third party in Malaga with 13.77% of the support with 92,090 votes, this time barely reached 0.86% and just over 4,500 votes.

Of all the candidates who stood for the European elections, there were votes in the province Malaga. Among them, Ahora Repúblicas, which includes Catalan and Basque nationalists ERC and Bildu, won 196 votes.

Turnout in the province stood at 43.68%, a decrease of 11.71 points compared to the 2019 European election, which coincided with that year's municipal elections, which benefited from a higher voter turnout. Compared to the 2014 EU election, which were held alone, turnout in the province has risen by 3.21 points.