The buzzword is ‘fragmented’ and looking at the Spanish General Election results from 20 December it’s not hard to see why. In the congress the PP won the popular vote with 123 seats but sustained major losses and fell well short of the magic figure of 176 to be able to claim an absolute majority. The PSOE had their worst night in recent history gaining 90 seats but the big winners on the night were “Podemos” who proved all the doubters wrong coming in with 69 seats if you include all their regional offshoots, not bad for a party less than 5 years old. Talking of new parties let’s not forget the Ciudadanos who came in with 40 seats, another stunning result that ends Spain’s 2 party political domination.
In Ibiza the PP managed to win the popular vote in all municipalities except for Sant Josep where Podemos claimed victory. Again PSOE lost out to Podemos cutting into their vote and reducing them to 3rd place overall in the islands. As far as Balearic politics goes the PP will have 3 congress representatives in Madrid while PSOE and Podemos will have 2 each and Ciudadanos will have 1. Of the 8 Balearic representatives the politicians specifically from Ibiza will be Jose Vicente Mari Boso (PP), Santiago Mari (PP) and Sofia Hernanz (PSOE). These are the people who will ‘fight’ for Ibiza at central government.
Spain now has an even split between the right and the left. In the blue/orange corner we have the PP/Ciudadanos and in the red/purple corner we have the PSOE/Podemos.
So while PP and especially PSOE lick their wounds Podemos can now claim to be a major force in Spanish politics with their charismatic leader Pablo Iglesias leaving the door open for coalition negotiations. Alberto Riviera from the Ciudadanos has already claimed that he won’t enter into government but that could change quickly.
As we saw in May’s local elections things are changing very quickly in Spanish politics where proportional representation enables new parties to get a foot in the door. The up side is that more people have a voice, the down side is that unstable governments create doubt. Interesting times indeed.
"MAN IN SAN AN" by Martin Makepeace 