As the weeks go by and\u00a0I continue to live and study in Sevilla, I’ve begun to try to uncover deeper layers of Spanish society and one that cannot go unnoticed especially in 2016 is Spanish politics. As one fellow student told me, “It’s a mess”. As I read through news articles from El Pais and El Mundo, Spain’s leading newspapers and also some outside media, I begin to understand the current scene a little better.<\/p>\n
So let’s start from the beginning of the current “mess” which happened a little more than a month ago, on December 20th 2015, Spain held the most heated elections since the post Franco era in 1977. Four major political parties went head to head in general elections to elect all 350 seats in Congress of Deputies and 208 seats out of 265 seats in the Senate, which together formed the Cortes Generales,\u00a0Spain’s bicameral legislature.\u00a0For decades though Spain\u2019s two major political parties had been the only players\u00a0in town. If you prefered\u00a0the right of the political spectrum you voted Partido\u00a0Popular\u00a0(PP), and if you\u00a0leaned to the left you would vote for the Spanish Socialist Workers Party\u00a0(PSOE). Voting for any other party\u00a0would have been a wasted vote, similar if you were to vote for the Green Party in the US.<\/p>\n
But this\u00a0year was quite different; there were two new cowboys\u00a0in town. The Podemos Party,\u00a0a newly formed party\u00a0unmistakably\u00a0on the far left. Which was led by\u00a0energetic Pablo Iglesias, a self-defined Marxist\u00a0with a knack for populism and emanating a\u00a0hippie vibe with\u00a0his long ponytail and casual apparel.<\/p>\n
The second –\u00a0Ciudadanos – a party whose voters\u00a0historically\u00a0supported the policies of the\u00a0PP but have increasingly grown weary of the PP’s recent stream of\u00a0corruption scandals. The leader Albert Rivera has been referred by many in the Spanish press as a ‘politibot’ due to his robot-like prescence\u00a0and sole purpose of leading a political party. He is young, clean cut, good looking, boasts a nice head of hair and\u00a0without a doubt, an expert at kissing babies.<\/p>\n
So how did these two new parties gain so much popularity that they were able to take hold of 105 seats in the Congress of Deputies, creating a political standstill?\u00a0One\u00a0must take a\u00a0look at what is going on overall in Europe. Migrants are rushing to the shores of Europe demanding humanitarian assistance, Europe is still recovering from one of largest financial crisis in a generation and finally with corruption scandals across Europe and especially in Spain, voters domestically were ready for change in political parties.<\/p>\n
Now, Spanish voters have demonstrated their opinions by casting their votes\u00a0for new parties and have upset the powerful Partido Popular. Without an outright majority the party’s leader and current Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, is currently meeting with\u00a0the King of Spain Felipe VI (a ceremonial procedure) to discuss the possibility of forming a coalition of parties to take control of the Congress of Deputies. But recent news has indicated that no party wants to cooperate and form an alliance. If this is the case, another election may take place to produce new results. I shall keep the readers updated of\u00a0the unfolding events here in the coming weeks but at the moment there is a hung parliament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the weeks go by and\u00a0I continue to live and study in Sevilla, I’ve begun to try to uncover deeper layers of Spanish society and one that cannot go unnoticed especially in 2016 is Spanish politics. As one fellow student told me, “It’s a mess”. As I read through news articles from El Pais and … <\/p>\n