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Parties in Spain Wrestle to Form a Government Spanish Election Marks Another Rejection of Austerity
(about 5 hours later)
MADRID — The leaders of four political parties in Spain found themselves struggling on Monday with the question of which party could form a government, a day after a fractious election in which support for the two establishment parties plummeted and voters flocked to two insurgent parties that might now be able to act as kingmakers. MADRID — European leaders and economists are still locked in a heated debate about whether austerity policies have done more to help or hurt people in the region, particularly in Europe’s heavily indebted south.
The governing conservative party of Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s incumbent prime minister, received the most votes on Sunday, but it lost its parliamentary majority, leaving Mr. Rajoy with an uphill task to stay at the helm of either a minority or a coalition government. But as the election Sunday in Spain showed, voters have made up their minds. A backlash against austerity has now clearly cracked the club of parties that had a lock on politics, and ushered in a new generation of challengers.
But if Mr. Rajoy’s future was in limbo, so were those of his main rivals, who also failed to achieve the decisive victory they had hoped for. The outcome in Spain was messy and it could well take weeks of haggling among the parties to sort out who will be able to govern. But in a close approximation of the October election result in Portugal, a majority of Spaniards voted against what had been an austerity-minded government. Those outcomes followed the repudiation of an austerity government in Greece early this year.
Mr. Rajoy’s Popular Party won 123 of the 350 parliamentary seats, down from 186 in the last election, in 2011. The Spanish Socialist Workers Party got 91 seats, compared with 110 four years ago, when it was ousted from power. Two emerging parties — Podemos and Citizens — will enter Parliament for the first time. Podemos won 69 seats and Citizens took 40. “The sense of political crisis in Spain and some other European countries is clearly the fruit of the economic crisis,” said Jaime Pastor, a professor of politics at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia in Madrid.
The election was a resounding manifestation of the political fragmentation in Spain, where mainstream parties have alternated control of the government since the restoration of democracy in the late 1970s. The financial crisis, he argued, first put into question the viability of the region’s economic model and welfare state, but eventually turned into “a debate over whether the cost of the crisis was shared fairly, to which many voters answered negatively and are therefore demanding the removal of the crony capitalism of the big parties.”
Still, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain is hoping to stay in office, at the helm of a minority or coalition administration, after his conservative Popular Party won the most votes on Sunday but lost its parliamentary majority.
Even if Mr. Rajoy succeeds, some analysts say the shake-up of Spanish politics is irreversible after two emerging parties, Podemos and Citizens, made enough gains on Sunday to lower the combined share of the two traditional parties, the Popular and the Socialist parties, to just over 50 percent of the vote.
“Crises take place with a certain time lag, so it’s clear the Spanish system of political parties has entered a transition, but not clear how long that transition will take,” said Antonio Barroso, a Spanish political analyst at Teneo Intelligence, a think tank in London.
Indeed, the changes to political establishments in southern Europe have come with a high degree of uncertainty and turmoil. In Spain, the result shattered a political landscape where mainstream parties had alternated control of the government for decades.
The insurgent Podemos, which did not exist two years ago, took 20.7 percent of the votes, just behind the Socialist Party, which had its worst showing ever.
The returns also underlined a generational shift in regional politics. Mr. Rajoy, 60, tried to contrast his three decades in politics with the untested leadership of his three far younger rivals — all of whom are in their 30s or 40s. It did him little good.
Elsewhere, Greece is led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, 41, who became a role model for the rest of the European anti-establishment left.
On Monday, Mr. Tsipras congratulated Podemos and its leader, Pablo Iglesias, 37, on becoming the third-largest party in Spain, as well as the country’s main anti-establishment force. “Austerity has now been politically defeated in Spain, as well,” Mr. Tsipras said.
In southern Europe, perhaps Italy alone has been spared the instability of a breakdown of its main party system. But it seems that is largely because Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, 40, safeguarded his center-left Democratic Party from the threat of political insurgents by trying to rejuvenate the party and the political establishment from within.
But even there, it is not clear that the storm has passed, and analysts note that Mr. Renzi’s popularity has declined since he took office last year, as the public pressure for changes has not relented.
“Renzi was able to convince a lot of traditional voters that he could change things from the inside and at least in part stop the emergence of protest parties, but there’s been a growing sense of disappointment ever since he’s been in power,” said Federico Santi, an Italian political risk analyst at Eurasia Group, a consultancy.
In Portugal, the Socialist leader António Costa, 54, survived a poor election result and then managed last month to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat after striking an improbable alliance with far-left, anti-establishment parties in order to oust the center-right coalition that had won most votes in the national election in October.
But even if more voters have rejected austerity, where this will take the region is uncertain. As the result in Greece showed, even anti-austerity parties have to answer to financial markets and balance national budgets, and the numbers are still deeply stacked against the policies of the old left and their heavy spending on welfare states.
In Portugal, Mr. Costa leads a fragile administration after striking a coalition deal aimed at reversing some tax increases and spending cuts that Portugal made in return for a 2011 international bailout. Since taking office, however, Mr. Costa also has had to reaffirm his commitment to the fiscal targets set for Portugal by the European Union.
Faced with such budgetary constraints, the new political leaders of southern Europe may make more headway in introducing political reform, according to analysts, particularly in a country like Spain, where a majority of voters voiced their frustration on Sunday not only with austerity but also with stagnant, closed and often corrupt establishment parties and the institutions they support.
Mr. Iglesias, the leader of Podemos, said at a news conference on Monday that his party would “extend a hand” to those willing to push through major reforms, but without committing support to any specific government leader.
“All of us must do some thinking in the coming weeks, but particularly the old parties,” Mr. Iglesias said. The election, he added, needed to result in “a new political system” for Spain.
For now, however, Mr. Rajoy faces an uphill struggle to form a government and avoid a period of prolonged political uncertainty, even a new election, that could undermine Spain’s fragile economic recovery. The main Spanish stock market index fell 3.6 percent on Monday.
Mr. Rajoy said at a news briefing on Monday that “the fragmentation of political forces cannot be an element of paralysis, blockage and inaction,” which could also endanger Spain’s economy.
Among various scenarios for a possible coalition government, the only one that would ensure a parliamentary majority would be an alliance of Mr. Rajoy’s Popular Party and the opposition Socialists, led by Pedro Sánchez.Among various scenarios for a possible coalition government, the only one that would ensure a parliamentary majority would be an alliance of Mr. Rajoy’s Popular Party and the opposition Socialists, led by Pedro Sánchez.
Such a “grand coalition” has governed in countries like Germany, but it would be unprecedented for Spain. Such a “grand coalition” has governed in countries like Germany, but it would be unprecedented for Spain. It would also require resolving a very difficult relationship, given a heated confrontation between the embattled leaders of the two parties during the campaign.
It would also require resolving a very difficult relationship, given a heated confrontation between the parties’ leaders during the campaign. In the final televised debate before the election, Mr. Sánchez accused Mr. Rajoy of being dishonest, referring to the prime minister’s failure to take responsibility for corruption scandals, including one centered around the Popular Party’s former treasurer.
The Socialists insisted on Monday that they would stick to their electoral pledge and would not facilitate another term as prime minister for Mr. Rajoy. César Luena, the secretary of the Socialists, said at a news conference that the executive committee of his party would demonstrate “prudence and responsibility” and would allow Mr. Rajoy, as leader of the party that got the most votes, to attempt to form a government. But Mr. Luena said that his party would “vote no to Rajoy” when Parliament reconvenes next month.
“What came out of the ballot boxes is a monumental mess,” Bieito Rubido, editor in chief of the conservative newspaper ABC, told Spanish television on Monday. “Almost everybody has lost.”
The one possible exception, Mr. Rubido and other commentators have suggested, is Podemos, which established itself on Sunday as the largest anti-establishment party in Spain. Podemos was formed early last year as a far-left, anti-austerity party, modeled in part on the success of Syriza, the governing party in Greece. However, Podemos failed on Sunday to supplant the Socialists as Spain’s main left-leaning group.
The leader of Citizens, Albert Rivera, forecast on Monday that a minority government could run Spain by striking a series of temporary, issue-by-issue agreements with other parties, including his. The Citizens party transformed itself last year from a regional party in Catalonia — fiercely opposed to the Catalan secessionist movement — into a national party with a pro-business economic agenda. But while Citizens also managed a breakthrough on Sunday, it came in a distant fourth, with too few seats to allow Mr. Rajoy to join with it to form a center-right coalition.
Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos, said at a news conference on Monday that his party would “extend a hand” to those willing to push through major overhauls, but without committing to supporting any particular new leader. “All of us must do some thinking in the coming weeks, but particularly the old parties,” Mr. Iglesias said. The election, he added, needed to result in “a new political system” in Spain.
Podemos and Citizens wanted the elections to end a political system dominated by two parties, and they came close to achieving that goal.
Together, Mr. Rajoy’s conservatives and the Socialists won 50.7 percent of the votes, their lowest combined total and down from 73.4 percent in 2011.
But the election was also generational. Mr. Rajoy, 60, who was already a government minister in the 1990s, trumpeted his experience in contrast with that of untested challengers. Among his opponents, Mr. Sánchez, the Socialist leader, is 43; the Podemos leader, Mr. Iglesias, 37; and Mr. Rivera, the leader of Citizens, 36.
Mr. Rajoy also warned that any change of tack, after a 2012 bailout of Spanish banks and years of fiscal belt-tightening under his conservative administration, could once more derail Spain’s economy, which is expected to grow 3 percent this year, outpacing that of most other European countries.
The Socialists failed to shake off the legacy of their previous time in office, from 2004 to 2011, during which the global financial crisis helped push Spain into recession and caused joblessness to soar. The party has also been entangled in corruption scandals, including a court investigation into the embezzlement of public funds earmarked for the unemployed.
Mr. Sánchez could struggle to remain in charge of his own party unless he can muster enough support to form an alternative coalition government, as his Portuguese counterpart, António Costa, has done. In October, a center-right coalition won the most votes in Portugal’s elections, but it was then ousted from office in a parliamentary vote after Mr. Costa formed an improbable alliance with radical left-wing parties.
Mr. Rivera, the Citizens leader, told the television station La Sexta on Monday that the “hot potato” was now in the hands of the Socialists.
The Eurasia Group, a political consultancy, predicted in a research note that the most likely outcome would be for a Socialist minority government, “supported by Podemos on the left and Citizens on the right,” with Mr. Sánchez responsible for holding together a highly tenuous and fragile coalition.
“In spite of the significant differences that separate the three parties, they could find some common ground on a number of areas, such as a drive against corruption and tax evasion, the introduction of income support measures for low-income workers and the unemployed, a revamp of active labor market policies and a reform of the electoral system,” Federico Santi, a London-based political risk analyst, wrote in the Eurasia Group research note.