Politico: Sánchez loses bid to be reelected Spanish PM

Spanish lawmakers on Thursday voted down Pedro Sánchez’s bid to be reelected as prime minister — triggering the countdown for a new election to be held in November if the Socialist leader doesn’t manage to assemble a majority within two months.

Sánchez — whose party came first in a general election in April with 29 percent of the vote but fell short of a ruling majority — had been negotiating a potential coalition deal with the far-left Podemos. But the two sides failed to reach an agreement and accused each other of blowing up the talks in a parliamentary session that turned into a blame game. [...]

Ciudadanos head Albert Rivera used the word “gang” to refer to Sánchez’s potential allies among the far-left and regional nationalists, and argued that “the gang just couldn’t agree on how to share the lot.” [...]

It took close to three months after the April 28 ballot for the Socialists and Podemos to start talks, which took place against a backdrop of mutual mistrust, threats and ultimatums aired in media, and leaks of both parties’ negotiating positions.

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The Guardian: Fear of the far right and the collapse of Podemos gave Spain’s socialists victory

Sánchez’s victory is the result of two main trends. First and foremost is the rise of Vox, a new, openly misogynistic and xenophobic party that toys with nostalgia for Franco’s dictatorship. Backed by the likes of Steve Bannon, Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini, and indirectly financed (via the Madrid-based CitizenGo organisation) by a US super PAC with ties to Donald Trump, Russian oligarch Aleksei Komov and the Italian MP Luca Volontè, who is accused of bribery, Vox rode a wave of anti-Catalan sentiment into the government of Andalucía in December. Sunday’s massive turnout (75.8%) was most likely driven by widespread fear of a rightwing coalition government that would include it.

The second trend that explains Sánchez’s staggering victory is the decline of Unidas Podemos, the radical-left party that emerged in the wake of the anti-austerity indignados movement. Though the party initially promised to implement a progressively participatory new style of politics, over time its leadership has adopted a more traditional top-down approach that has been overly reliant on individual personalities. It lacked proper channels for democratic deliberation, so internal dissent most often took the form of high-profile desertions, such as that of former party leader Íñigo Errejón. It was also recently revealed that a group of police officers have been accused of conducting a smear campaign against the party, with help from government officials. Much was made, too, about the purchase of a pricey chalet by party leaders Pablo Iglesias and Irene Montero, which was depicted in the media as a betrayal of the couple’s leftist ideals. [...]

Towards this end, Podemos could take some cues from the leftwing councils currently governing most of Spain’s major cities, including Madrid and Barcelona. Though not without significant shortcomings, these councils have made citizen participation a crucial part of their brand by organising citizen consultations and participatory budgets. On the other hand, a more radical approach to participation would involve opening the party up to more meaningful forms of deliberation and participation. Over recent years, Podemos’s failure to do so has come off as a disavowal of its initial promise. This is most disheartening because it leaves the impression that a new approach to politics simply isn’t possible. And when the new seems impossible, people are tempted to go back to the old ways or, worse, to embrace the destructive, authoritarian political nihilism of the far right.

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Politico: Spanish left’s top-level split

Errejón, who took on — and lost to — Iglesias for Podemos’ leadership in 2017, had been tapped to represent the party in May's election, when a new regional parliament will be chosen. But on Thursday, Errejón said he had joined a new, cross-party movement called Más Madrid (More Madrid) and would run on its ticket in the election instead.[...]

Podemos' branch in Andalusia, Adelante Andalucía, finished fourth in an election in December that saw its share of the vote plummet by more than 30 percent from a 2015 ballot. Podemos is currently the third-biggest party in the national parliament, but most recent polls place it fourth.

Analysts often blame Podemos’ loss of support on decisions such as refusing to endorse Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s bid for power back in 2016 — which effectively allowed the conservatives to stay longer in office; striking an alliance with the communist United Left; and its stance on Catalan independence — Podemos often sides with the separatists, backed the vote on secession and opposed Madrid assuming control over the region after the declaration of independence. 

Errejón — a 35-year-old politics professor — has been portrayed as a moderate in contrast with the hard-liner Iglesias, although public differences between the two have often been more about marketing than policies. Errejón has been a firm defender of using language that goes beyond old leftist stereotypes in a bid to attract wider support.

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UnHerd: Could Spain’s Pedro Sánchez save Europe’s centre-Left?

Down but not out, Sánchez subsequently toured the country in his beaten-up Peugeot, meeting with grassroots PSOE members and drumming up support. Like Corbyn – and in contrast to figures from the political centre – Sánchez draws his support predominantly from the grassroots. As a result of reaching out to Socialist Party activists he was easily re-elected as party leader in June 2017. A year later he became the first politician in Spain’s history to unseat a prime minister through a no-confidence motion. [...]

Sánchez’s ruthlessness in deposing the stale and corrupt Rajoy government changed that. A poll taken shortly after Rajoy’s departure had the PSOE on 28.8% of the vote, ahead of the PP on 25.6% and Ciudadanos on 21.1%. Support for the PSOE’s Left-wing rivals Podemos also fell, slipping to 13.1% – less than half of what the insurgent party were polling three years earlier. [...]

Sánchez is therefore under huge pressure to call an election. He had initially promised to do so – a move calculated to win support from other parties during the no confidence vote against Rajoy. Yet since becoming Prime Minister he has done a swift about-turn, announcing recently that he would stay on until his mandate expires in 2020 so as to “normalise” the country.  [...]

The biggest sticking point for the new government, however, will be in delivering a budget that moves Spain firmly away from austerity. This week Sánchez agreed a deal with Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos. The deal proposes a raft of Left-wing measures for next year’s budget, including a 22% increase in the minimum wage, heavy investment in education, longer paternity leave and higher spening on benefit payments. The deal seeks to avoid an early general election, which benefits both men: if one were held, Podemos would likely do poorly and there is no guarantee the PSOE would win a majority.

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