SPAIN’S political parties are now engaged in negotiations to work out who is going to govern the country.
Although the PP have won the most seats, Mariano Rajoy’s party will find it hard to find other parties to go into power with.
Their 123 seats is the lowest figure for the winning party of a Spanish general election since 1977, far below the 156 won by Jose Maria Aznar’s PP in 1996.
It is well below the 176 needed for an absolute majority, and an alliance between Ciudadanos and PP would still manage only 163 seats.
A coalition of the left between PSOE and Podemos would not achieve the magic figure of 176 deputies either.
However, they could take control of Congress if they cobbled together an alliance with some of the smaller Catalan or regional parties.
A highly unlikely alliance of the PP and the PSOE would be able to form a government with 213 seats.
Just do whatever it needs to get Rajoy out.
Not enough. Spain has still managed to keep a far-right government, drawn from the descendants of fascist Franco’s regime, as its leading party.
I cannot fathom what further freedoms Spaniards can accept losing before elections are abolished altogether and a new caudillo is installed.
Albert,
once I had spent some time living in Spain and understood what the craic was, I realised how much alike most English and Spanish were, probably the ’empire effect’.
Your comments apply equally to both Spain and the UK.
Spain is now deep in the mood. In Germany we are ruled by a ‘Big Coalition’ of three parties. The result is: they are quarreling with each other and spending costly campain gifts to their voters instead of solving the real problems of the country. A coalition which is only based on the required number of seats and not on shared beliefs and intentions will fail.
Facing a left coalition with PSOE, Podemos and some small parties or a conservative coalition with PP, Ciudadanos and some small parties may result in internal quarrels too. I also wonder how long it takes until some subjects of Podemos and the small partners will be infected by corruption as being demonstrated for a long time by PSOE officials. The same is true for a right wing coalition being infected by PP habits.
You have also to bear in mind that a change in political leadership does not grant a change in administration where PP and PSOE for a very long time have placed their partisans.
If Julio Iglesias happens to become the prime minister of a left wing coalition he soon will understand the difference between a inspired political speaker and a political manager who has to make decisions for the country, with regard to foreign policy, external wars and empty public funds.
I fear, a new election in February will not produce different results. Time to buy some cheap Spanish blue chips at the stock exchange?
Wolfgang,
Julio has never shown a willingness to get involved in politics and I don’t think Pablo has a particularly good voice.
The UK has a completely undemocratic system of voting and one party rule is never a good idea, take a look at history – Fascist Austria/Germany/Spain and Italy or State Capitalist Russia and China, not to mention North Korea or the political charade in the USA. I’ll take coalition any day over one party rule.
Stuart,
I would agree, if the leaders of most of the parties show a minimum of willingness to form a coalition with someone else. But in the moment for Spain this cannot be seen.
It will be hard for newcomers like Podemos or Ciudadanos in their very first appearance in the central parliament to take over responsibility in a government. You could watch that in Germany with the Green Party or later with the Left Party. The mere existance of those parties in the parliament results in a Big Coalition again and again. This leads to more frustration for the voters and a growing abstention rate in votes and in more new parties like right-wing AfD, which again reduces the votes for the big parties and forces a big coalition again…. I have no solution for this, but I feel this is a great danger for democracies in Europe at all.
On the communal level we have some examples that vote splitting plus vote accumulation could help out of the dilemma. But on the state-level this will not be discussed.
Wolfgang, you make some very interesting points. I know you often have grand coalitions in Germany but I don’t fancy Spain’s chances of making a three (or more) way coalition work. Once you have small regional parties involved with all their issues, it will get very contentious and create a very weak and ineffectual government that is unlikely to find consensus on major national issues.
You need look no further than Andalucia to find an example of weak and ineffectual governance at the hands of the PSOE led Junta de Andalucia. They had a coalition with the now vitually defunct IU and it was a complete failure and early elections were called when the coalition finally collapsed.
It’s very easy for protest parties to shout their heads off while in opposition but in the cold light of day and faced with a budget deficit, national security issues, high unemployment and an increase in the cost of borrowing, they soon realise how difficult it is to run a country effectively and find themselves forced make deeply unpopular decisions, it goes with the territory.
What Spain needs right now is stability and a continuance of economic growth. Whoever takes over must be business friendly, encourage inward investment and concentrate on the economy and job creation.
Jane, I agree that in the current situation a grand coalition between PP and PSOE could be a valid and necessary option to keep the Spanish kingdom running. But I do not really imagine how cat and dog could fix this temporary marriage. I also fear that corruption + corruption equals to corruption³. In the worst case, what we see now, may be the beginning of a failed state. When you throw a glance at Greece, people there say they do not trust into any political party any more, but they trust in the Greek Army. Hopefully this becomes not the blueprint for Spain (when I was young I demonstrated at Munich against the Greek military Junta. Political parties were forbidden by the junta and the king had to resign and to leave the country).
Wolfgang, agreed. Frankly, I think it’s a mess and new elections will probably have to be called but there is no reason to believe that the result will be radically different next time around. I too fear the Greek effect which is a distinct possibility because it looks increasingly unlikely that there will be any real consensus between any of the parties and yes, this will result in a failed state.
Many in the UK dislike our “first past the post” electoral system and we had a refendum on it a few years ago and about 67% decided to stick with the current system. When you look at the alternative, it is easy to understand why.
Wolfgang,
Bismark was a really great politician and sadly they are few and far between. He saw that having dozens of little states meant that they had no real influence in Europe. He was successful in creating the state of Germany because there was a basic language and culture that all these little states shared.
The UK was created by brutal violence and subjugation of Celtic cultures and languages by alien Aryans, of course this is never taught to English children. Spain also was overrun by Aryans and their very basic culture was imposed on Iberian Celts/Euskadi and Catalans. None of these peoples wanted this.
You cannot make peoples live together unless they want it, sooner or later all these type of states fail. Too many Aryans are dismissive of the history of Aryan invasion into Europe from the Steppes. However these peoples who have had their lands stolen and their cultures oppressed and do not forget and will not be bullied into forgetting.
Far too many of these Aryan peoples cannot/will not confront the reality of what their ancestors have done – history is only dead to idiots – we are all history without it we do not exist.
The Madrillanos are of Aryan blood, the Catalans, Celts and Euskadi are’nt. It is’nt a case of what the Madrillanos want anymore and they need to realise this now and stop trying to dictate or there will be civil war.
Stuart,
I do not know enough about early history of UK and Spain. Provided your statement is correct: what is the advantage of being a ‘clean race’? For Germany this concept has caused the greatest catastrophy in the history of my country (having in mind we adopted Hitler from Austria). Being situated in the heart of continental Europe, Germany is now proud to have 40% of citizens with a ‘migrant’ background. In 2015 alone, 500.000 refugies from Syria, 100.000 from Afghanistan, 100.000 from Iraq, 100.000 from Turkey, 200.000 from Africa and 30.000 migrants from Israel joyned Germany, together with one million migrants from EU countries, Albania, Cosovo and Serbia.
None of them are Aryans and they all came to us voluntarily.
It’s funny that you praised Bismarck the way you did. In 1864 Bismarck was at war with Denmark, and inserted Danish territories Schleswig and Holstein into Prussia.
In 1966 Bismarck was at war with the ‘Confederation of Germany’ (Deutscher Bund) and defeated Bavaria, Saxonia, Hannover and Austria. In the Prussian army fought Polish soldiers. In the army of the German Confederation fought soldiers from Hungary, Venecia, Croatia, Czechia and Slowakia. Then Bismarck replaced the German Confederation by the ‘North-German Confederation’ (Norddeutscher Bund) in order to leave Austria outside of ‘Germany’. In 1871 Bismarck defeated France and founded the German Empire (Deutsches Reich) at the castle of Versailles. Former French provinces Alsass and Lorraine were inserted into the German Empire. I cannot see where in this historic process ‘Aryanism’ played any role. It was only a war game between European aristocrats. Bismarck was not interested in the consolidation of small aryan monarchies but he wanted to expand Prussia, reduce Austria and Denmark and keep down France as competing powers in Europe. Wilhelm I was unhappy being proclaimed as the first emperor (at Versailles) of the Second Reich. If he could, he had preferred to stay as a King of Prussia.
Merry Christmas!
I’m afraid this “Aryan” theory is quite the maddest thing I’ve seen here. It’s a common opinion in Madrid that it’s very hard to find anyone who has all four grandparents from the region. During the 20th century in Spain there was huge migration from the countryside to the towns, and from the provinces to the capital (and at the end of the century you started having a lot of external migrants such as those from Ecuador, Morocco and Romania settling in Madrid). There may not be too many Catalans who moved there, but there were (and are) huge numbers of Basques, Andaluces, Gallegos etc who came to Madrid and made it their home. So it’s nonsensical trying to claim that the “madrileños” are of Aryan blood and the Celts and Basques aren’t…in many cases and families they are the same people.
StuaRT
Ten thousand years before now the population of the iberic peninsula was characterized for a high presence of the halogroup R1b. With the end of the Ice Age, and the retreat of the ice cap, his descendents colonized the actual France and the British Islands . Five thousand years ago the Iberos (halogroups J2 and G ) arrived to the Iberic Peninsula, and three thousand years and five centuries ago the celts (R1b)arrived . with the pass of the time both peoples mixed with the original people ,and imposed his more evolutionated culture .
The concept of aryan is not racial, ís cultural. The aryans were a group of peoples (associated to halogroups J2 and G) that it was spread from India to Cadiz, including regions as Afghanisthan or Iran. The Celts were aryans, and they was dominated for the Romans , who too were aryans, and the Romans had adopted the culture of the Greeks who were aryans too.
The Basque people is some thousand years more ancient than the Celts, Is not possible to speak about the Catalan people before of the X century a.C.
About the British Islands, the Celts were so Aryan people, as the roman and nordic invaders.
This esoteric rambling is about a million miles from the subject. Anyone remember what that was?
Yes folks, it was about a current political situation, NOT ancient (boring) history.
stefanjo – we are our history, without ancestors you simply don’t exist, not an opinion a fact. Lots of porkys’ and disinformation flying around. Anselmo, bless him is his usual self. What was it the Who said – we won’t get fooled again, yes we, collectively did and 1984 was some time ago, Big Brother is so much more sophisticated nowadays that it can deliver ‘circus’ straight into the proles homes.
The end result will have to pass, in some way, through the PSOE (being, in a sense, in the centre). Pedro Sánchez may not make it to presidente; Susana Díaz, the maleficent leader of the socialists in Andalucía doesn’t like him and won’t allow him to negotiate with the other groups. However, the PP is a spent force and, I think, any new government with Rajoy would produce serious unrest. It’s a hard call for Spain – maybe a president found from outside the political establishment?