The center-right People's Party currently leads in national polls, but upcoming elections in the key southern region of 9 million people – whose population exceeds that of EU countries such as Bulgaria, Denmark and Ireland – are likely to decide whether whether the party will take a more moderate or hard line in the 2027 elections.
The main candidate of the Popular Party in Andalusia is its current president in the region, Juanma Moreno. He represents the party's moderate wing, and his expected victory on Sunday will likely put the party on a more centrist course in 2027, assuming he wins with a clear majority, which polls suggest is possible.
If he doesn't do so well and is forced to enter into a coalition with the far-right Vox party, this could strengthen the more right-wing wing of the partyrepresented by the independent populist mayor of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, who is currently engaged in a fierce battle against Mexico's left-wing government.
— Moreno achieved good results in Andalusia precisely because he distanced himself from the Vox party. He is much more moderate, notes political scientist Fernando Vallespin of the Autonomous University of Madrid. However, he adds that “Ayuso has a majority in Madrid because her image is similar to that of the Vox party,” which effectively weakened the attractiveness of ultranationalists in the region.
Colonial conflict
However, despite Moreno's apparent strength in the Andalusia election campaign, the political debate in Spain around the Popular Party was somewhat overshadowed by Ayuso's nationalist confrontation with Mexico.
In recent months, Ayusa described Mexico as a “drug state” and portrayed his government as an authoritarian regime comparable to that in Cuba.
Ayuso's visit to Mexico this month began with controversy when she attended an event that paid tribute to Hernan Cortes, the 16th-century Spanish conquistador responsible for what many Mexicans consider a genocidal campaign against indigenous people.
In Ayuso's speech, she described mestizajethe mixing of cultures and people that occurred after the Spanish conquest, as “a message of hope and happiness.”
Spanish musician Nacho Cano, an Ayuso ally who was also present, went so far as to say, “Without Cortes, there would be no Mexico.”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded in a speech just hours later, saying, “Those who appeal to conquest as salvation are doomed to failure.”
Ayuso ultimately cut short her 10-day trip, claiming Mexican protests against her were part of a plan orchestrated by Sheinbaum in collusion with Sanchez, which he denied.
Isabel Diaz Ayuso in Madrid, Spain, on May 12, 2026.Paolo Blocco/WireImage/Getty Images
Upon her return, Ayuso went one step further.
“Mexico didn't exist until the Spanish came,” she said before the regional parliament in Madrid, drawing boos from the leftist opposition. She also accused the Sheinbaum government of “living in poverty, which is typical of communism.”
The legacy of the Spanish conquest and colonization of the New World for several years is a source of tension between Spain and Mexico.
Sheinbaum's predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, demanded an apology from Spain for human rights violations committed during that era.
In 2024, the current president did not invite King Felipe to her inauguration, claiming that neither he nor the Spanish government responded to the request. However, comments by Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares last October, in which he admitted that there had been “suffering and injustice” in the two countries' shared history, seemed to indicate an improvement in relations.
The king went even further in March when he told the Mexican ambassador to Spain that there had been “many abuses” during the conquest of which “we cannot be proud.” The comments were met with a positive response from the Mexican government, although they angered some of Spain's right wing, which typically takes a more defensive stance towards the country's colonial history.
Support for moderates
The National People's Party leadership, which was often caught off guard by Ayuso's outbursts, stayed out of its dispute with Mexico.
Instead, during the election campaign in Andalusia, party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo praised Moreno's balanced imagetelling supporters in Malaga that “it is more important than ever… to pursue moderate and centrist policies.”
Polls show the Socialists in a distant second place ahead of Sunday's elections. The death of two civil guards during a high-speed chase after drug traffickers in the waters off Huelva appeared to damage the party.
Socialist candidate Maria Jesus Montero described the incident as an “accident at work,” using a phrase that was not well received.
