Spaniards decide in repeat poll

JUST days after a shock Brexit, Spaniards voted in repeat elections yesterday to decide if they too want a radical shift as promised by a far-left coalition led by Podemos.

Polls opened under generally blue skies in a vote pitting those hungry for change in a country with high unemployment against those who fear it would torpedo Spain’s slow economic recovery.

Britain’s surprise vote to leave the European Union has further exacerbated this cleavage.

The outgoing conservative Popular Party (PP) is insisting on the need for stability in the face of populism – a thinly-veiled dig at the Unidos Podemos coalition.

More than 36 million Spaniards were eligible to vote yesterday.

They had a choice between four major political groupings after the emergence of Podemos and centre-right upstart Ciudadanos last year uprooted the country’s two-party dominance.

General elections in December resulted in a 350-seat parliament so splintered that parties failed to agree on a coalition, and this is what prompted yesterday’s repeat vote.

Opinion polls – conducted pre-Brexit – suggested yesterday’s results would also be fractured, with the PP coming first without a majority, tailed by Unidos Podemos, which could replace the 137-year-old Socialist Party as Spain’s main left-wing force.

Political leaders will have to go back to the negotiating table, under more pressure this time to form a coalition.

The Socialist Party is going through what analysts call its worst crisis in decades as Podemos gnaws away at its support base, with some voters disillusioned with what they see as a staid party that has strayed from its workingclass roots.