As some of you may have read, last November I wrote about the Spanish elections that were taking place in December 2015.  Fast forward 10 months and we still haven’t elected a president, but believe me, most Spaniards seem to be happier without one.

Historically Spanish politics has been dominated by 2 main parties – the socialist PSOE  and the more conservative PP and since the early 80’s Spanish presidents have been elected from one of these parties.

But since 15-M, a social movement and protest that took place in 2011, two other parties started to rise: Ciudadanos (central-right) and Podemos (left-wing) and you can see the results of the 2015 election in the image on the right.

As there was no outright majority, the only option was for the parties to negotiate to form a government, yet all attempts failed. PP won the most votes but none of the other parties were willing to negotiate with them as a stand against political decisions made while in office and allegations of corruption.

So PSOE and Podemos, the two left-wing parties,  decided to form an alliance and try to make a coalition. But they also failed to reach an agreement and after few months of attempting to negotiate they had to repeat the elections, which took place in June 2016.

At the time the polls were predicting a big increase for Podemos at the expense of the traditional parties, however according to experts, Brexit changed everything. 

The Spanish elections were only three days after the Brexit vote and the Spanish people watched as media reports forecasted crisis and instability in the UK following the unexpected vote.

Fear of further instability in Spain led the people to reject change and to vote once again for the traditional parties. The result is shown in the image above whilst the image below shows predictions before the election.

Again, the results showed parties had to negotiate. PSOE and Ciudadanos lost votes whilst PP won some. After the second election, PP and Ciudadanos have come to an agreement to renew Mariano Rajoy’s presidency, but they still need support from either Podemos or PSOE, which is very unlikely.

So after 3 months of negotiating it seems as though we will have elections for a third time in 1 year. The Spanish society is tiring of this process and many people are choosing not to vote in the next elections.

Whilst this is ongoing, more allegations of corruption are beginning to surface.  The most recent and one of the most important, involves Rita Barberà, mayor of Valencia for 25 years who was reportedly using her power for her own interests.

If you would like to read more here are some links to Spanish media:

http://www.elmundo.es/espana/2016/09/14/57d856e2e5fdea40318b4579.html

http://www.elmundo.es/espana/2016/09/02/57c96cd322601d2a2d8b4614.html

http://www.elmundo.es/espana/2016/09/01/57c738b7e5fdea7b0b8b4606.html

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