“A Surprise” and a “tsunami” were the words used in war rooms to describe Spain’s reaction to the results of the municipal and regional elections, as well as the unexpected announcement by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call for early general elections on July 23 on Sunday night.

Once King Felipe VI signs the royal decree of dissolution, the Cortes Generales will be dissolved this Wednesday to meet legal deadlines.

At that point, Sánchez will continue to hold office for ongoing matters.

Let’s go through the reasons for the victory of the Popular Party (PP) and the motives behind the decision made by the leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE).

The election results speak for themselves.

In the municipal elections, the EPP-affiliated party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo accumulated over seven million votes (31.53 percent of the total), surpassing the Socialists, who received 6.2 million votes (28.11 percent).

Compared to the municipal elections four years ago, Pedro Sánchez’s party lost over 388,000 votes, while the PP gained over 1.9 million votes, mainly due to the collapse of the liberal party Ciudadanos (Renew Europe), which disappeared from the political landscape.

The first inevitable comment on Sunday’s election result is that an alternative to Sanchez has proven effective.

In Spain, there are two dominant political alignments: the conservatives of the Popular Party and the socialists of the PSOE.

The unpredictable variable in the political-democratic process is the game of alliances, as neither the PP nor the PSOE can govern alone.

By advancing the general elections, Sánchez avoids the risk of a prolonged erosion of support, preempts any internal factions within the PSOE, and forces the hand of present and future allies.

These allies range from Podemos-Unidas, currently facing a consensus crisis, to his Labor Minister Yolanda Diaz, who established a new leftist party called Sumar and aspires to become Spain’s first female prime minister.

The challenge, however, is primarily directed at the right-wing opposition.

The prime minister provides the opposing front with as little time as possible to form an electoral alliance with the ECR-affiliated party Vox, a move that the PP secretary, Feijoo, would have preferred to avoid.

And it’s VOX, the only party that will gain more from these early elections.

However, the winning element of the conservatives’ election campaign was highlighting the PSOE’s alliance with extremists.

The headlines for weeks focused on the “Basque terrorists” case, where 44 people convicted of collaborating or being part of the former terrorist organization ETA ended up on the lists of the Basque Independence party, EH Bildu.

Sanchez referred to it as a mistake and was visibly distressed.

Seven candidates convicted of violent acts were removed from the lists.

Independents, nonetheless, performed well in the Basque Country, gaining nearly 4.5 percent of the vote share and challenging the supremacy of the traditional Basque Nationalist Party. Thirteen former Eta members were elected.

Like Greece’s Syriza party, the radical left party Unidas Podemos faces a significant setback.

The party, born out of the “indignados” movement, is witnessing an unstoppable decline.

It only managed to retain its presence in one of the six autonomous governments it previously participated in Navarre.

The party, led by Ione Belarra and Irene Montero, finds itself in a position of apparent weakness for potential negotiations with the new leftist players, such as the emerging party Sumar.

Although Sumar did not participate in the local elections, it supported the re-candidacy of Barcelona mayor Ada Colau, who ultimately lost and came in third.

With the recent Greek national elections and the Spanish local elections, coupled with the evident success of the center-right in winning all significant cities in Italy, one must question whether the era of left-leaning governments in Europe is coming to an end.

If so, socialists and left-leaning parties need to understand why voters are turning against them, even in countries with a solid-recovering economy like Spain.

Failure to do so within the next six months could result in them being out of the next year’s majority in the European Parliament for the first time in 30 years.