In some ways, Spain’s problems closely resemble those of Italy’s. In both countries, public disgust with a corrupt elite combined with the financial crisis to bring about a partial collapse of the mainstream centre-right and centre-left, and facilitated the rise of new anti-elite challengers. In Spain, the conservative People’s Party (Partido Popular – PP) and the centre-left Socialists (Partido Socialista Obrero Español – PSOE) have had to contend with the left-populist Podemos and the centrist Ciudadanos, which somewhat resembles Macron’s La Republique En Marche in France. The PP and PSOE declined to record lows of support in the December 2015 elections; the PP recovered slightly in June 2016’s repeat polls and formed a minority government. However, the PP’s position was very weak; Rajoy only won office with Ciudadanos support, and even then relied on the Socialists abstaining, a decision that nearly tore that party apart and briefly cost Sánchez his job as leader. [...]
Sánchez won office by exploiting a confluence of events that benefited his party. Firstly, although both of Spain’s legacy parties have been touched by accusations of corruption, the Socialists’ most notable scandal erupted in Andalusia, home of Sánchez’s chief internal rival, Susana Díaz. Meanwhile, the PP’s scandals have tended to receive more coverage in recent months. First, there was the discovery that the president of Madrid’s regional government, Cristina Cifuentes, had fraudulently obtained a master’s degree, and had been caught trying to shoplift. Then came the handing down of verdicts in the long-running Caso Gürtel. This years-old investigation looked at the illegal financing of the PP, and on 24 May, the Audiencia Nacional sentenced its ex-treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, to 33 years in prison. It also convicted Rajoy’s former health minister, Ana Mato, and found the PP itself guilty, fining the party €245,000. It was the Gürtel ruling that gave Sánchez his opening to introduce a motion of no confidence. [...]
Ciudadanos, on the other hand, has been leading recent polls, well ahead of the PP, its rival on the centre-right. The party draws votes from both the PP and the PSOE, has strong anti-corruption credentials and is perhaps the most adamantly centralist party in Spanish politics – that is, it tends to oppose concessions to Catalan or Basque nationalism. The Catalan crisis has thus helped its support to grow. Although Ciudadanos has worked with the Socialists before, the party had been backing Rajoy since his re-election in 2016. In this case, it decided not to back Sánchez, instead claiming to want snap elections (rather disingenuously, since it had agreed to support Rajoy’s proposed budget). Most likely, Rivera did not wish to be seen voting alongside Podemos, or worse yet, Catalan nationalists.
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