Council approves the deal

UPN's Consejo Político, the party's highest body between congresses, met on Tuesday afternoon, 13 October, and approved the coalition with the Partido Popular (PP) with 93.5% support. Of those attending, 5.2% voted against and 1.3% abstained. The vote endorses a preliminary agreement that the two parties announced that morning for the general election on 29 November. According to sources at PP headquarters, the deal was closed between PP secretary general Miguel Tellado and UPN president Cristina Ibarrola.

What the coalition will look like

The joint list will run under the name 'Unión del Pueblo Navarro en coalición con el Partido Popular', with Alberto Núñez Feijóo as its candidate for the Presidency of the Government. Ballot papers will carry both party logos and state which party each candidate belongs to, and campaign events in Navarra will show both symbols. Both parties commit to protecting the foral regime and keeping the Convenio Económico in place. They also back the Amejoramiento del Fuero and, in any future reform, would promote and vote for removing the fourth transitional provision of the Spanish Constitution, which sets out how Navarra could join the Basque Country. On infrastructure, the parties pledge to push and guarantee state investment in the second phase of the Canal de Navarra, a high-speed rail line linked to the Basque Y, Pamplona airport and a reinforced electricity grid, wherever they hold government office. A joint drafting commission will write the electoral programme.

Sign-off and Navarra party leadership

PP statutes require coalition deals to be ratified by the party's Junta Directiva, but its last meeting, on 8 October, authorised the party president to sign any such agreement. Party sources said Feijóo will therefore give the final approval with his signature. The PP's Navarra branch is run by a provisional management committee headed by Sergio Sayas, after Javier García left the post. On Monday, 12 October, Sayas said the talks with UPN were under way, and he insisted on the party's commitment to the deal.

The PP is doing everything possible for that agreement to happen.

The 2023 split and the seat arithmetic

The two parties had run together in general elections since 1982, but they split in 2023. That year Sayas and Carlos García Adanero, both UPN deputies, were expelled after defecting, and they later joined the PP. UPN then ran alone, and the division of the right's vote let the PSN win two of Navarra's five Congress seats with 92,798 votes. EH Bildu, the PP and UPN each won one seat, and the PP and UPN votes added together reached 108,247. The two parties had run jointly under the Navarra Suma label in 2019, when they won two seats, occupied by Sayas and García Adanero.

Outlook and timetable

ElDiario.es reports that coalitions must be notified by 16 October, and the order of candidates on the joint list has not yet been disclosed. In 2023 UPN demanded that its candidate keep the top spot in any deal, and the PP rejected that condition. Electoral lists must be certified before 28 October, the day they are published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado, and the general election is on 29 November. ElDiario.es judged it hard for the two parties together to win more than two seats, given the rise of Vox, which makes a third seat difficult.