Major rally elevates leftists challenging 2-party system
MADRID — At least 100,000 people marched through Madrid on Saturday in a show of strength by a fledgling radical leftist party, which hopes to emulate the success of Greece’s Syriza party in the Spanish general election this year.
Supporters of Podemos (“We Can”) converged from across Spain around the Cibeles fountain Saturday before packing the avenue leading to Puerta del Sol square in what was the party’s largest rally to date. Police said at least 100,000 people participated in the march, while Podemos put the figure at 300,000.
Podemos seeks to shatter the country’s predominantly two-party system, and the March for Change gathered crowds in the same place where sit-in protests against political and financial corruption laid the party’s foundations in 2011. The party’s rise is largely because of the charisma of its leader, Pablo Iglesias, a 36-yearold political science professor.
Hailing from the Madrid working-class neighborhood of Vallecas, Iglesias prefers jeans and rolled up shirtsleeves to a suit and tie and champions slogans such as Spain is “run by the butlers of the rich” and that the economy must serve the people.
“We want change,” Iglesias told the crowd. “This is the year for change, and we’re going to win the elections.”
Speaking at a meeting in Barcelona, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he didn’t accept the bleak picture of Spain that Podemos described.
“They’re a sad bunch who go around saying how badly things are going,” he said, giving them no chance of winning the elections. “They’re not going to do it.”
In roughly a year, Podemos has leapfrogged from being the dream of a handful of university professors and activists to a political party.
Opinion polls show the party could take the No. 1 spot in elections and cause one of the biggest political shakeups in Spain since democracy was restored in 1978 after decades of dictatorship.
Podemos has often expressed its support for some of the policies of left-wing governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, which makes many Spanish mainstream politicians bristle.
In Europe, it openly supports Syriza, which won national elections in Greece on Jan. 25 and has pledged to challenge the austerity measures imposed on the country by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
While there are major political and economic differences between Spain and Greece, both countries have suffered severe economic crises and major unemployment.