Conservatives hang on to Power in Deeply Divided Spain

by Colin Fox

Spain sets aside the Saturday before polling as ‘a day of reflection’ to allow the electorate time to collect its thoughts, consider the various election messages it has heard and make up its mind how to vote.

The results of yesterdays Spanish General Election on the face of it resolved very little yet there is much for everyone now to reflect upon.

Election Result – June 26th 2016

Party	June Result	December election
Partido Popular [PP]	33% and 137 seats	123 seats
PSOE	23% and 85 seats	90 seats
Unidos Podemos	21% and 71 seats	71 seats
Cuidadanos	13% and 32 seats	40 seats

Relatively speaking the Partido Popular of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will be pleased today even though it won the support of only one third of Spanish voters. They advanced from its position in December but still remain way down on the support they recently enjoyed. In 2011 for example they won an overall majority of 184 seats in the Cortes with 45% support. Nonetheless, they will be happier with this outcome than they were with the recent polls that suggested they would lose and the Left would form a coalition government.

For their part PSOE – the Labour Party equivalent in Spain – are also relieved. For despite the fact they lost 5 seats they defied the pollsters and saw off the threat to their historic Left hegemony from Unidos Podemos. PSOE leader Pedro Sanchez has announced he will not stand in the way of Rajoys return to power. They will abstain in any Parliamentary vote to halt the PP’s victory.

For Pablo Iglesias and Unidos Podemos the result feels like a defeat. Although they consolidated the 5million votes and 71 seats they won in their famous breakthrough in Parliament in December, their disappointment stems from the fact the opinion polls had suggested they would surpass PSOE and be able to form a Coalition Government with Iglesias as Prime Minister. That clearly did not happen and the fact they trailed in behind arch rivals PSOE represents a considerable loss of momentum.

Continuing Crisis

These results and the relative balance of political forces however does not conceal the fact Spain is a country in the midst of an enormous economic, social and political crisis. It is deeply divided between Left and Right and many unresolved political differences remain.

Rajoy would appear to have benefited marginally by a belief in some quarters that as bad as the economic situation is at least it is slowly improving. He also seems to have gained from an unease about the consequences of that Brexit result and a risk averse mood.

Unidos Podemos secretary of policy Inigo Erregon quoted Gramsci: ‘the old regime is dying but the new one is not ready to be born yet’. It remains to be seen whether this is so or the loss of momentum for Unidos Podemos is serious. Last night a visibly crestfallen Pablo Iglesias promised to seriously reflect on their result and campaign as a whole to see what lessons to learn.

For my part this was an important and highly informative trip, both frustrating and exhilarating at times. I look forward to elaborating fully on the significance of the result, the campaign and on the lessons learned. The SSP report back meetings are in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. All are welcome!

Photos: Colin Fox