Tsipras congratulates Podemos leader Iglesias after Spanish electoral results

MADRID (AP) – Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy met Wednesday with the leader of the main opposition party to launch complicated talks on forming a coalition or minority government after his party won the most votes in national elections but fell short of a parliamentary majority.

Since the death of Francisco Franco and the restoration of democracy in Spain in the 70s, the country has had a stable two-party system made up of governments ruled either by the conservative PP or the socialist PSOE. “When the election results are not so clear… the king plays a decisive role in resolving the governmental crisis”, according to Antonio Bar Cendón, a professor of constitutional law, who wrote on the subject in 1996. An abstention from liberals of Ciudadanos wouldn’t be enough because the Socialists and Podemos could still block Rajoy. Breaking the two-party norm that has presided over the country for decades, Podemos, a recently formed left-wing party, won 20.6 percent of the vote and 90 seats in the legislature.

Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez said Monday that Rajoy’s Popular Party had first option to try to form a government, but noted that Spain was “entering a new political phase”.

Rajoy has implemented tough austerity measures, and was asking voters for a chance to see them through. A party needs 176 seats in Spain’s 350-seat parliament to secure a majority.

Despite the fact that Mariano Rajoy’s Conservative Partido Popular won the majority of seats in 13 out of Spain’s 17 regions, it lost huge support in Andalucía, the Valencia Region and Madrid.

Roughly one-fifth of the seats in the new Parliament will be held by the anti-austerity Podemos Party, which was founded past year. Ciudadanos (which translates as “citizens”) came fourth in the highly fragmented election and is regarded as Rajoy’s closest ideological partner.

Even if left-wing and right-wing parties group together – the Socialists with Podemos or PP with Ciudadanos – neither would be able to govern with an absolute majority.

Ciudadanos, which has repeatedly said it will never vote for Mr Rajoy, said that at most it would abstain so the Popular Party could try to form a minority government given that it has the most seats.

A grand coalition crafted modelled on Germany’s with the second-placed Socialists considered hard projects.

The socialist party PSOE, which came in second, said on Monday (21 December) it would vote against a government that has outgoing prime minister Mariano Rajoy at its head.

As expected and feared by many, a hard phase of negotiations must now be undertaken between the four major factions, to which the regional independence parties must be added.

Sky-high unemployment, inequality, corruption and an ever-rising separatist drive in Catalonia were just some of the issues at stake in a country deeply scarred by a financial crisis and fed up with what many considered a staid political scene. “At best, Spain will end up with a weak government”.