A Spanish Government - Now?

Wake up, folks. The sleepy, drawn-out process of forming a government in Spain is coming to a climax - sort of – mañana! By October 31 Spain must either have a new government, or another general election will be called to take place in two months' time. It will be the unprecedented third election in a row, so far two of them without a government being formed.

Two parliamentary elections (December 2015 and June 2016) have led to no government at all. Spaniards are known to be stubborn, if not mulish, but there is more to it than that. (See also my blog this spring, “A Spaniard is never wrong”.) The previous government of the conservative Partido Popular under Mariano Rajoy (2011-2015) has continued to serve as caretaker government. Two failed attempts to form a government during the year have instead led to the internal collapse of the main opposition party, the Socialist and Workers' Party (PSOE).

After 300 days without an elected government, having a government seems to make little difference. But in reality the Spanish political system has been going through a deep crisis. Barely visible before this year, it has only shown up for real since the last ordinary election. The crisis is due to changes in the main systemic features. Since 1996 Spain has usually been considered a two-party system, alternating between governments of the socialists and the conservatives. Now this picture is fading.

What has buttressed the two main parties' position has been corruption, at all levels of government. (See my blog in July 2013.) Funds siphoned by way of kickbacks from the national government, from the regional and provincial governments and from the municipal governments have kept large numbers of people in a comfortable situation, tying their fate for the long term to that of the party, even if only as sympathizers. Apparently the PP is the grandest culprit, judging from the number of court cases completed or currently underway, but the PSOE is also in the game. Since Spanish politics, the banks and the courts are also intertwined through political appointments, the system is very difficult to uproot.

On top of this, Spain has an extensive regime of immunity from prosecution for elected and publicly appointed officials. This system of keeping politicos free from prosecution has reached a scale apparently unknown in the rest of Europe. We are talking about thousands of public servants. Any thought of combatting corruption and reforming the system will therefore run into massive resistance. Hence the core of each of the two main parties is unlikely to collapse or yield to reform.

The consequences have come out during this year's skirmishing for a new government. On the left the PSOE saw its ranks decimated by the departure of its left wing, which went on to form a new party, Podemos. With its base in protest movements against the government's austerity program, Podemos now even surpasses the mother party in certain polls. One of its key demands is the conduct of referenda on independence for Catalonia and whatever other region demands it. This, of course, is anathema to most other Spanish political parties outside Catalonia.

On the center-right the country's leading party since 2011, the Partido Popular, failed to gain a majority in the elections last December and June, though it was the biggest party both times. The PP has been suffering from a serious loss of support, much due to its entanglement in corruption. The conservatives have also been hurt by the formation of a new center-liberal party, Ciudadanos, which demands “clean hands” in government.

These two new breakaway parties (Podemos and Ciudadanos) have created a situation where their closest political kin are at the same time their bitterest rivals, perhaps most obvious in the case of the PSOE. This has made coalition-building exceedingly difficult. Hard feelings have also led to unwise and endless emotional sparrings in public instead of sitting down in private for serious talks. When negotiations have taken place, a main feature has been the internal debates in the PSOE about what positions to take. The party leader until October 1st, Pedro Sanchez, has had to negotiate – more or less in public - both inward and outward.

Sanchez insisted on neither supporting Rajoy's attempts at forming a government, nor facilitating them by abstaining in Congress. His stance on these points was so unyielding that it earned him the nick-name “Pedro no-no”. As PSOE failed itself at their only attempt to form a government (in March), the sensible way forward to at least get some government in place, would be to yield to Rajoy and abstain. Even the grand old man of Spanish socialism, Felipe Gonzalez, said so publicly later in the spring. But Pedro no-no never yielded, and this may have become his bane. Presiding over two electoral losses and seeing his polls declining, he was increasingly ripe for his critics to harvest. That happened on October 1^st. It was an astounding political event, for a major political party to oust its leader in the midst of a coalition-forming process.

The PSOE “abstentionists“ (centrists) appear to have taken command of the party for now, presumably to be confirmed in a top party meeting on Sunday October 23^rd. Internal party resistance is still evident in some quarters. Voting in the Congress will then take place on the [26^th and] 27^th, and should Mr. Rajoy fail again at that time the King will announce new elections on Saturday October 29^th.

In a hopeful sign Ciudadanos has managed to make a deal with PP on fighting corruption, to support it in the next attempt to form a government. That deal was made on the occasion of Rajoy's most recent attempt to govern (in August), and is likely to stand in the next attempt as well.

If Rajoy and PP pass the investiture vote, they will be living from hand to mouth thereafter. The budget will have to be passed and all manner of cabinet appointments will need support from the enemies on the other side. Support from Ciudadanos will not be enough. Spain has had minority governments before, but never as weak as this.