Spain is holding a snap election on April 28 – its third in four years. The vote may throw up some surprising results that will have wide-ranging ramifications for Europe. But with opinion polls suggesting a deadlocked parliament is possible, political alliances may be an attractive option.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, the leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, called the election two months ago.
Sanchez’s minority government relies on Catalan pro-independence parties who decided to reject the government’s 2019 budget proposals.
Sanchez came to power only last year following a vote of no-confidence in the previous conservative People’s Party administration.
And the general election in 2015 led to a hung parliament, resulting in a fresh vote in 2016 that put the People’s Party in power.
The left-wing Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE)
The centre-right People’s Party (PP)
The far-left Unidos Podemos (United We Can) party
The centrist Ciudadanos (Citizens’ Party)
The populist, far-right Vox party
What is the expected result of the 2019 general election?
Opinion polls in recent weeks have consistently indicated Sanchez’s socialists will win the largest share of the vote.
However this is unlikely to be enough for the Socialist Workers’ Party to govern alone.
Sanchez’s socialists has been overseeing a minority government with only 84 seats in the 350-member lower house of parliament.
And even if the political party gains scores more seats, they are likely to fall short of the 176 seats required to gain a majority.
PSOE leads by a wide margin and opinion polls indicate it could win between 28 to 31 percent share of the votes.
The PP is trailing with around 20-24 percent of the vote.
Ciudadanos has around 15 percent and Podemos with approximately 12-13 percent.
The Vox party – employing a brand of right-wing populism and nationalism – is expected to get about 9-11 percent of the vote.
But importantly, a huge number of voters – 25-30 percent – remain undecided, and this will play a crucial role on the final result.
Speculation is already growing over what political coalitions PSOE could attempt to enable it to form a government.
Anna Rosenberg, partner and head of Europe and UK at Signum Global Advisors, believes socialists will benefiting from the fragmentation on the right.
She said: “People are really scared of the rise of the right-wing parties and that will mobilise voters that might not have been expected to vote before.
“Sanchez has also actually done quite well and doesn’t represent the status quo.”
Some have also predicted that a right-wing coalition could be formed by PP, Ciudadanos and Vox or that the socialists could try to form an alliance with Podemos and regional parties, like Catalonia’s separatists.
Ms Rosenberg said the socialists could even attempt to form an politically tricky alliance with centre-right party Ciudadanos — a party that is staunchly against Catalan independence and not an obvious bedfellow for the PSOE.
She said: “PSOE has said it won’t do alliance with Ciudadanos but they have had such an alliance in the past and actually, the parties are not too far apart on the Catalonia issue.
“This government could be quite stable, both parties are pro-Europe, but the government would not be so friendly to Catalonia.”
