Spain's Politics Are Being Reinvented

When Spain went to the polls last December, the outcome sent the country into a state of political limbo. Neither the incumbent conservative Popular Party (PP) nor the main opposition party, the social-democratic Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), captured the majority of seats necessary to form a new government in the Congress of Deputies, Spain’s parliament. The PP won 28.7 percent of votes; the PSOE won 22 percent. At the same time, two political newcomers, bolstered by the economic crisis that has gripped Spain since 2011, managed to capture a third of all votes cast. The resulting 20 percent for the leftist Podemos, which translates to the Obama-esque “We Can,” and 13 percent for the center-right Cuidadanos, or Citizens, compounded the complexity of putting together a coalition government.