Spain votes again in attempt to break government stalemate

Spaniards voted Sunday in an unprecedented repeat election that aimed to break six months of polit.

“They are not good for Unidos Podemos and we don’t think they’re good for Spain because they reverse the move for political change”. In the December election, the party claimed 123 seats. The negotiations between the parties dragged on for months as Pedro Sanchez, leader of the second-placed Socialists, also failed to clinch a deal that would let him govern.

Spain has never had a coalition government before, so this experience is quite new to the political system, but may be the only way out. Europe is still bearing the scars of its recent financial crisis. But there’s not much trickle-down effect yet, and the jobless rate remains the second-highest in the European Union after Greece. The Popular Party also won that election, with 28.7 per cent of the vote, with the Socialists in second.

What could happen with the vote?

The last opinion polls – published before the British decision – suggested, however, that Spain was again on course for deadlock.

The Socialist party was set to win 85 seats, down from the 90 it won in the December election.

Throughout the latest campaign – and again on Friday, June 24, after Brexit – the PP has hammered away at the need for stability in reference to the rise of Unidos Podemos, which like Greece’s ruling Syriza party rejects EU-backed austerity and pledges to fight for the least well-off.

With no party getting enough votes to form a government alone, politicians will now have to return to the negotiating table.

Key numbers of the election: Four – the main candidates standing in the election.

Years of domination by the Popular Party (PP), now led by acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, and the Socialist Party (PSOE), led by Pedro Sanchez, were disrupted in the December elections by upstart left-wing party Podemos (We can), headed by former politics lecturer, Pablo Iglesias, and the business-friendly Ciudadanos (Citizens’ Party), led by Albert Rivera.

Its most natural potential coalition partner, the rightist Ciudadanos, looks likely to win only about 40 seats, leaving them well short of the 176 needed for an absolute majority. That group, which includes radical leftist party Podemos along with the communists and the Greens, is expected to finish second.

Spain’s newcomer liberal party, Ciudadanos, is ready to immediately open talks with the People’s Party (PP) of caretaker Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to form a government after Sunday’s general election, Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera said.

With the world still feeling the aftershocks of the United Kingdom referendum to leave the European Union, questions remain about how it will affect the results of the Spanish vote.

11 – the number of groupings that make up far-left coalition Unidos Podemos.