AFP
Madrid
Spain faced a dramatically changed political landscape yesterday after voters in local elections abandoned traditional parties, with an anti-austerity protest movement topping polls in Barcelona and possibly taking power in Madrid.
The political shakeup following Sunday’s elections comes amid voter anger over a sky-high unemployment rate of 24%, government spending cuts and corruption scandals that have rocked both Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party (PP) and the main opposition Socialists.
In a test of the national mood ahead of general elections expected in November, the PP managed the most votes but still lost its absolute majorities in most regions and even fared poorly in historical strongholds.
The PP and the Socialists, which have alternated in government for nearly four decades, captured a combined 52% of the vote nationwide, down from 65% four years ago.
Support instead switched to new centre-right party Ciudadanos and anti-austerity party Podemos, which was born out of the “Indignado” (“Outraged”) protests against corruption and high unemployment that swamped Spanish streets during the recent economic crisis.
A Podemos-backed candidate for mayor won in Barcelona and looked poised to take power in Madrid, a long-time conservative stronghold.
“This will convince many people who feared change that it is possible to do things differently,” said Isabel Fernandez Lopez as she protested against the closure of a municipal carpet factory outside of Madrid city hall.
The results mean the two traditional parties will have to negotiate coalitions with minority parties in 13 of Spain’s 17 regions that voted on Sunday alongside more than 8,000 towns and cities.
“We are seeing a fascinating evolution which could lead to an update of the political system, which is more plural just as Spanish society is more diverse,” said Narciso Michavila, who heads GAD3 polling firm.
Spain has little tradition of compromise politics and the results of the polls will likely lead to weeks of negotiations.
The difficulty that parties will have in reaching pacts can already be seen in Spain’s most populous region, Andalusia, which held its parliamentary election in March.
Two months after the election the Socialist candidate who won the most votes still has not been able to persuade the other parties to vote to install her as regional president.
Former Socialist prime minister Felipe Gonzalez, who served four successive mandates from 1982 to 1996 making him Spain’s longest serving premier, warned that the country’s party system could become as unwieldy as Italy, but “we will lack Italians to manage it”.
Pedro Sanchez, the leader of the Socialists which captured 25% of the vote nationwide, said the results showed voters wanted a swing to the left.
He said his party would work to ensure that “progressive governments” emerged from Sunday’s elections.
The leader of Podemos, pony-tailed political science professor Pablo Iglesias, told public television TVE that his party’s “hand was extended to whoever wants to reach an agreement with us”.
Analysts said it was in the interest of both Podemos and Ciudadanos, which have railed against corruption, to reach agreements with the established parties in the region where they are kingmakers.
“If in the end they do not arrive at pacts and create stability, in four years these new parties will disappear,” said Michavila.
Rajoy met with top party officials later yesterday to analyse the result of the vote, the worst in over 20 years for the Popular Party.
The PP “will lose power in regions that are very important for us as well as in many cities”, the party’s candidate to head the government of the Madrid region, Cristina Cifuentes, told radio Cadena Ser.
Voters “want us to change our behaviour”, she added.
Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera.
