The battle for 14 seats that has forced Sánchez to give rallies again in the final stretch of 23-J

SPAIN / By Paul Torres

Pedro Sánchez returns to rallies in the last days of the campaign. The PSOE leader had designed a strategy with a large presence in the media, but with few public events. However, the President of the Government will now focus his efforts on the provinces in which up to 14 seats are at stake on 23-J.

The PSOE's options go through those constituencies in which, in addition to winning some deputy, it would reduce representation to the conservative bloc. To do this, Sánchez traveled from Brussels to Huesca this Monday and this Tuesday he will return to the Belgian capital to later fly to San Sebastián.

The socialist general secretary continues to believe in the comeback and the key is in those provinces where some seat of the fork dances. According to PSOE sources, “a lot” is at stake and they are going to make “an effort in this final stretch of the campaign.”

[Tezanos says goodbye with a CIS that once again gives Sánchez the winner in front of all the polls]

In the PSOE they believe that “if 7 or 8 block deputies move” there will be a party, since they have “positive trend figures” and they are “going to hit an acceleration this week”. The PSOE points out that in Huesca, the place of the rally this Monday, it can reach the second seat, as in Guipúzcoa. In these fiefs, Sánchez has secured a deputy, but he can get another two by taking it from the PP-Vox bloc.

According to data from the CIS, to which the President of the Government entrusts his comeback, the PSOE is fighting for a seat in up to 14 constituencies. Five of them grant five or fewer deputies in total: Ceuta (1), Huesca (3), Orense (4), Cantabria (5) and Navarra (5).

The other provinces in which Sánchez trusts to be able to tip the balance in his favor in the last seats at stake are medium, with the exception of Barcelona (32): Guipúzcoa (6), Pontevedra (7), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (7) , Asturias (7), La Coruña (8), the Balearic Islands (8), Murcia (10) and Alicante (12).

The PSOE aspires to achieve the only seat in dispute in Ceuta (0-1), the second in Navarra, Orense, Cantabria, Guipúzcoa, Huesca (all of them with a fork of 1 or 2 deputies for Sánchez) and the third in La Coruña , Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Murcia and Pontevedra (between 2 and 3 seats).

In addition, in Alicante, the Socialists move between 3 and 4 deputies, and in Barcelona between 9 and 10, where it aspires to be the force with the most votes and to increase its advantage with the pro-independence parties and the PP.

For Sánchez it is also important that Sumar scratch seats in all those constituencies in which a representative is disputed with Vox, since it is important to repeat a left-wing coalition government after 23-J.

The PSOE, to the attack

“We are attacking most of the seats, we are going to take them away from PP or Vox, we are not defending them,” say PSOE sources to keep the fight for a comeback alive. The last CIS by José Félix Tezanos, published this Monday, has once again given Pedro Sánchez the winner with 32.2% of the votes, compared to the 30.8% that Alberto Núñez Feijóo would achieve.

[Sánchez plants Latin American leaders at the Brussels dinner for a rally in Huesca]

This poll, which did not include an extrapolation in the number of seats, does reflect the effect caused by the face-to-face between Sánchez and the leader of the PP. However, Tezanos has not hesitated to put the PSOE ahead again in the vote estimate, thus opposing all the private polling companies, whose studies are being published in the media.

The CIS of Tezanos and the PSOE forks in 14 provinces have caused a change in socialist strategy, in search of the vote in the rallies held in key constituencies, despite the fact that for this the President of the Government has had to leave Brussels and not go to the dinner of members of the EU with the Latin American leaders.