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No. 52 (784), 22 May 2015 © PISM
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Editors: Marcin Zaborowski (Editor-in-Chief) Katarzyna Staniewska (Managing Editor)
Jarosław Ćwiek-Karpowicz Aleksandra Gawlikowska-Fyk Artur Gradziuk Dariusz Kałan
Piotr Kościński Sebastian Płóciennik Patrycja Sasnal Marcin Terlikowski
Elections in Spain: No Second Greece
Kinga Brudzińska
Spain is one of several EU countries whose citizens, dissatisfied with the country’s entire political class,
will select their leaders in 2015. High levels of unemployment, foremost among young people,
combined with too slow a pace of economic recovery, and prevailing corruption scandals, may induce
Spaniards to vote for anti-establishment parties. However, Spain will not follow the Greek example.
Thanks to the emergence of the moderate, alternative Ciudadanos party, which is keen to form a
coalition either with the Popular Party or the Socialist Party, the anti-European Union party Podemos is
losing momentum.
On 24 May 2015 Spain will hold local and regional elections, which will kick off the voting year proper (although the
first regional election took place in Andalusia in March). Similarly to France and the United Kingdom, the elections in
Spain will mirror the citizens’ anti-establishment attitudes and their level of Euroscepticism.
Although the results of the local and regional elections will not have a direct impact on the outcome of this autumn’s
general election (date to be announced), they will be decisive in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Bilbao. What’s
more important is they will most probably mark the beginning of the end of Spain’s two-party political system. For
35 years two big parties, the centre right Popular Party (PP) and the centre left Socialist Party (PSOE), have ruled
Spain without the need to form a coalition. In April, the new kids on the block Podemos (We Can) and Ciudadanos
(Citizens) received a level of support similar to that of the main parties (20% each). The same public opinion poll,
conducted by Metroscopia, shows that 77% of the citizens do not want, as in the past, either PP or PSOE to govern
alone. Additionally, two thirds would like to see the two new parties win parliamentary seats and be included in the
decision making process, with 74% rejecting a potential PP-PSOE coalition.
The frustration over the state of play in Spain, which was channelled into the construction of new parties, as in
Greece, comes from the painful consequences of the deepest economic crisis of the last four decades (between 2009
and 2014, average GDP growth was -1%). Additionally, there are record levels of unemployment (on average, 22.4%
between 2009 and 2014), austerity policy, and corruption cases that have disgraced Spain’s established parties (since
2008, about 250 cases have been brought). Yet, regardless of comparable sources of dissatisfaction, Spain will not
follow Greece.
No Unified Protest Party Such as Syriza. In Spain, Podemos and Ciudadanos, which in May have a combined 30%
of the electorate’s support, are competing for the same voters. These are mostly young, urban professionals with a
great desire for change, who are opposed to the traditional PP–PSOE duopoly. Podemos is led by MEP Pablo Iglesias,
from the Confederal Group of the European United Left. Although on the rise during the last year, and, like Syriza in
Greece, harbouring ambitions to win the parliamentary elections, the party is now losing momentum. According to a
May 2015 Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) public opinion poll, support for Podemos fell from 23% four months
ago to 16% this month). There are at least three reasons for the decline in support for Podemos. The first is the fact
that Ciudadanos is less radical and therefore more credible (for example, Ciudadanos blames the people who have
corrupted the system, while Podemos is against system itself, calling for amendments to the constitution the
construction of “real” democracy). The second reason is the disclosure of Venezuela’s illegal financing of the CEPS
foundation, affiliated with Podemos, which amounted to €4 million between 2004 and 2012. Finally, Podemos lacks a
coherent programme that would convince people in the long term. Instead they change elements of their manifesto
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according to opinion polls, for example by withdrawing support for the nationalisation of utilities and publically
rescued banks.
Also, unlike in Greece, the opposition in Spain is not entirely anti-European Union. It is true that the economic despair
and the anti-austerity measures imposed by Brussels have had a negative impact on support for the EU, down from
80% in 2007 to 50% in 2014, according to the Pew Research Centre. However, most Spaniards are still in favour of
the European project. Two thirds of young people, who are most eager to vote for a protest party, have a positive
view of the EU. This was confirmed by the Erasmus Generation Survey, carried out by youth think-tank ThinkYoung,
and Burson-Marsteller, a global public affairs and public relations firm, and published in March 2015. What is more,
young Spaniards trust European politicians (55%) more than national representatives (18%). Finally, Ciudadanos, an
anti-nationalist party founded in Catalonia, is pro-European. One of its slogans, frequently repeated by its leader
Albert Rivera, is “Catalonia is your land, Spain is your motherland, and Europe is your future.”
In Spain, also unlike in Greece, the prospects for economic recovery are favourable for the governing party. The
economic crisis is not over in Spain and the citizens have not yet experienced improvements in their economic
situation (only 28% support the governmental reform policy). The European Commission (EC) forecasts are, however,
optimistic. Spanish GDP is growing at a faster pace than the EU average (according to EC data for 2014, GDP growth
in Spain was 1.4% as opposed to 0.45% in the EU). Additionally, the economy is expected to grow by 2.8% in 2015.
High unemployment, which is the biggest worry, is also decreasing. According to the EC, unemployment stood at
23.2% in February 2015 (as oppose to 25.2% a year ago), and it will keep falling, to 22.5% in 2015 and 20.7% in 2016.
f the macroeconomic forecast to be published by the EC in November remains positive, it is probable that, as in the
United Kingdom, the governing party will remain in power (the only difference being that in Spain it will be forced to
form a coalition with Ciudadanos). The PP may also be helped by the fact that the biggest opposition party (PSOE) is
not yet ready yet to take over its role. The main reasons for this are PSOE’s internal divisions, corruption scandals,
and lack of trust that emerged after it refused to acknowledge that Spain was in crisis in 2007.
Pro-European Government in Spain, Relief for the EU. As opposed to the previous elections, the results of
neither the local and regional elections in May nor the general election in autumn are easy to predict. The only
predictable outcome is a break in the PP and the PSOE monopoly on power. Regardless of election promises, the
winner will have to continue implementing the structural reforms. Neither the budget deficit nor public debt meet the
EU criteria, standing at 5.7% of GDP and 97.7% of GDP respectively in 2014. Even though Spain made a successful exit
from the financial assistance programme for the recapitalisation of financial institutions in January 2014 (with EU
assistance ending at €41.1 billion), the restructuring of the banks receiving public support under the state aid rules is
expected to take up to five years. Additionally, the labour market reforms and job creation programme (which
established 420,000 new jobs in 2014) are not sufficient to reduce the unemployment rate among young people (age
15–24), which still stands at 50.7%.
It should be the highest priority of the EU to avoid a further radicalisation of society in Spain and the EU as a whole.
The EU should keep helping Member States to boost growth and reduce rates of youth unemployment. Up to 71% of
young Spaniards believe that, at this time, the EU should do more as regards economic growth and jobs. The triumph
of an anti-European and anti-austerity coalition in Spain (for example PSOE–Podemos), the bloc’s fourth-largest
economy, would make the European economy even less predictable, and could finish off the EU’s carefully crafted
system of economic governance for good.
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