Spain: People's party triumphs while smaller parties make gains

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/26/spain-peoples-party-win-european-elections

Version 0 of 1.

The People's party of Spain narrowly beat out the Socialists in the European elections, but with smaller insurgent parties winning two out of every five votes the Spanish media dubbed the result a "punishment" for Spain's two dominant political parties.

The two parties together lost more than five million votes compared to the 2009 election. The governing People's party won 16 seats, eight less than 2009, while the Socialists came out with 14 seats, nine less.

The big story of the night were the many smaller parties. Newcomers Podemos (We Can), a political movement that emerged from Spain's indignados, earned 7.9% of the vote, enough for 5 seats. "We can't talk about the end, but we can talk about the beginning of the end of bipartisanship. We have to throw them out because they're the one who have ruined the country," Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias told journalists on hearing the results. The leftwing coalition United Left increased their seats from 2 to 6 while the Union, Progress and Democracy went from 1 to 4 seats.

Still, the People's party said they were satisfied with the results. Spain was one of the few countries where the governing party actually won the European elections, pointed out People's party president María Dolores de Cospedal. "Winning is great news," she added.

With unemployment rate in Spain hovering around 25% and the implementation of tough austerity measures that have seen broad tax increases and cutbacks to social services, the economy and job creation figured prominently in the campaign trail.

The Socialists tried repeatedly to introduce social issues into the mix; whether it was alluding to efforts by the People's party to roll back the country's abortion laws to recent comments by the People's party candidate regarding having to hold back in debate because his opponent was female.

Turnout across Spain was 45.6%, up slightly from the 44.9% voter turnout in the last European election.

One surprise came from Catalonia, where voter turnout jumped more than 10%, from 36.9% in 2009 to 47.44% in 2014. The region, whose government is pushing to hold a referendum on independence, has been warned by many critics that its drive for sovereignty could leave Catalonia outside of the EU. Artur Mas, the president of Catalonia, noted that several of the parties in support of the referendum had increased their number of seats in the European parliament. He added, "Everything is moving forward, not backwards."