Will Things Be Different Now? The Spanish Have Voted, But There’s Still a Deadlock
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Spanish acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy once more got
the most votes in the general election but, once again, his People’s Party
failed to get that much needed majority government.
Mariano Rajoy definitely looked triumphant, and it’s not
hard to see why. His party once again won the most votes in the general
election. It would appear to be a good sign that the country has a lot of faith
in his ability to run the country but, as things always are in Spanish
politics, things are never how they appear.
While the country did manage to win the most votes once
again, winning 137 seats and 33% of the votes, this still wasn’t enough to
secure them an overall majority. So once again the country is in almost the
exact same situation they were after the general election of December.
If there is to be a proper government in Spain then a
coalition needs to be put together. If Rajoy wants to stay Prime Minister then
he needs to get the support of other parties in order to put together a
majority government. This might not be too likely given that his party leans to
the right while his main rivals, the Socialist PSOE (who won 85 seats and 23%
of the votes), Podemos (71 seats and 21%) and Ciudadanos (32 seats, 13%) are
all leaning to the left.
What this means is that the PP would likely need to get
support from the smaller parties. These parties only have 25 seats between them
though. Even if he got the support of all of them it would not be enough to put
a majority government together.
Rajoy is optimistic though. He said that he believes they
will be able to come to an agreement within a month and that there was no point
in continuing to drag things out for longer.
The PP received some surprising support from within the
Socialist PSOE party. The Extremadura leader Guillermo Fernández Vara believes
that Rajoy should be back in government as soon as possible. The PP at least
managed to secure more votes than they earned in December with 15 more seats
than that general election. Vara believes that this shows the voters back Rajoy
and now it’s what they need to do too.
The secretary of PSOE César Luena has other ideas however.
He says that their party doesn’t plan to support the PP because of his taxation policies in Spain; saying instead that
they plan to replace Rajoy. So this political circus is set to carry on for a
while yet. Podemos, who were expected to earn more votes this time, actually
lost around a million votes. One suggestion political commentators have made is
that the Brexit has put people off voting for the radical parties with more
people voting for the status quo.
In the end though the extra PP votes are not enough to let
them assume control of the country. Even though the party was in charge as the
economy began to recover many people in Spain are still eager to see change
happen. It may be that Podemos are trying to change too much however and the
change the Socialists are offering is less dramatic than that of Podemos.
It’s not hard to understand why all of this has become so
confusing. For now though it’s hoped that the political parties will be able to
put aside their differences and come together to do what is right for the
people of Spain by keeping the economy moving and the cost of living in spain down , but only time will tell.
