Spain election highlights fractured politics

Socialists ponder coalition options amid collapse of traditional conservative vote and rise of hard Right

SPAIN was on course for a Left-wing coalition government yesterday after Sunday’s general election led to an implosion in the traditional conservative party amid the rise of the country’s first Right-wing populist movement.

The Socialist party (PSOE) of Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister, began considering its options to secure a majority after winning Spain’s third election in four years with 123 out of 350 seats. The populist-left Podemos was its most likely coalition partner.

However, with Right-wing parties not securing enough seats to challenge the Socialists’ dominance, analysts warned that a new Spanish government was now unlikely to emerge until June, as the parties continued to campaign for May’s local and European elections. Mr Sánchez had failed to win an outright governing majority and it remained unclear if he would seek to form a full coalition government or try to run as a minority administration.

Pablo Iglesias, the Podemos leader, demanded his party’s entry in a coalition government with PSOE. But as Mr Sánchez met his party executive to discuss the next move, Carmen Calvo, the deputy prime minister, suggested that the socialists’ preferred option would be to govern in minority, seeking confidence and supply agreements with groups such as Podemos.

“We think we have more than enough support to be the rudder of this ship,” Ms Calvo said, recognising the role of Podemos in pushing forward progressive policies during the 10-month Sánchez minority government leading up to the election.

Spain’s fragmented politics remains riven by the Catalan independence question. Albert Rivera, leader of the liberal Ciudadanos, which won 57 seats and could form a governing majority with PSOE, had repeatedly ruled out the idea during the campaign because of Mr Sánchez’s willingness to entertain a negotiated solution to the impasse over Catalonia. Speculation that Mr Rivera might now change his mind was seemingly quashed yesterday when he told supporters in Madrid he was now “leading the opposition”.

A catastrophic showing from Spain’s mainstream conservative Popular Party meant it lost more than half its parliamentary representation, falling to 66 seats, while the hard-right Vox party claimed 24 seats.

Even with Podemos seats, PSOE would still find itself nine seats short of a 176-seat governing majority, raising the prospect of once again needing the divisive support of the Catalan parties to cross the line.

In a sign of the ongoing divisions, Spain’s electoral board yesterday ruled that Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan leader, could not run as a candidate for Spain in European elections from his self-imposed exile in Brussels.

The decision prompted fury from Quim Torra, the current leader of the breakaway region whose demands for talks over self-determination – refused by Mr Sánchez – led to the collapse of Mr Sánchez’s first minority government.