IN THE midst of a recession that may yet require an EU-IMF bailout, Spain has opted very decisively for the right-wing Partido Popular (PP) over the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE) in municipal and regional elections. The PP is now well placed to replace the PSOE in government in the next general elections, due to take place next March at the latest. However, the sudden emergence of the 15-M mass protest movement, which became the story of the election campaign in its final days, suggests that the winners will face unconventional challenges.
Tens of thousands of citizens, proclaiming “outrage” against unemployment, corruption, and both main Spanish parties, occupied Spanish city centres illegally over the election weekend. Many protests remain in place today.
Victory for the PP had been widely predicted. The PSOE, under the once-charismatic leadership of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, had first ignored the gathering economic storm and then taken severe measures that only seemed to add to the misery. Depressingly, neither big party used the campaign to articulate practical solutions to the grave debt crisis. Nor have they curbed the rampant corruption in their own ranks.
Spain has chosen an increasingly right-wing PP over the centre-left, and indeed over the former communists of Izquierda Unida, who improved their vote but remain marginal. The 15-M movement suggests that those seeking radical solutions are looking elsewhere.
In the Basque Country, the radicals have already surged back into office. After an eight-year ban on Batasuna, linked by the courts to the terrorist group Eta, a new leftist and pro-independence coalition, Bildu, performed very strongly. Bildu’s formal rejection of violence persuaded the constitutional court to let it stand for election.
It was rewarded with an unprecedented 25 per cent of the vote, second only to the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), a much less radical grouping.
As the rest of Spain suffers a crisis that many are describing as existential as well as economic, the message is again coming clear from one of its most prosperous regions that many Basque citizens simply do not feel Spanish at all. Happily, it now seems that Eta will no longer claim to represent them, if its current ceasefire really is permanent. Nevertheless, the victorious PP will have rough seas to navigate if it returns to government next year.