By Alyssa McMurtry
MADRID (AA) – Spain’s King Felipe VI signed a decree Tuesday calling for repeat national elections on June 26, some six months after December’s polls.
The king’s gesture on Tuesday came as no surprise. Last Wednesday, after a final round of talks with Spain’s political leaders, he determined that no candidate could make last-minute deals to form a coalition government before Monday’s midnight deadline.
This is the first time in Spain’s modern democracy that voters will have to return to the polls due to a lack of government.
Spain’s last elections were held in December. The results were unprecedented — with the parliamentary seats divided between four parties instead of the traditional two. The two new parties, Ciudadanos and Podemos, both surged up in the last few years from virtually nothing, partially in response to widespread corruption in the traditional parties and the deep economic crisis that still affects Spain.
Acting Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party won the elections with a slight margin, but in order to form a functioning government, a coalition was needed — another first in recent Spanish democracy. While the Socialist party did attempt to form a “progressive coalition”, and were joined by the centrist Ciudadanos party, it still wasn’t enough. They also needed the support of the far-left Podemos party, which they were unable to win due to issues such as a referendum for Catalonia.
In 2011, Rajoy’s Popular Party won an outright majority government with 44.6 percent of popular support. However, in last December’s elections, that support had plummeted to 28.7 percent and current polls suggest that he is only slightly up, with 29.2 percent.
The latest voter surveys suggest that June’s elections will produce a similarly fragmented parliament. There have been only slight gains or losses for the four parties, and no party is currently forecast to win an overall majority.
Experts predict that in June’s elections, voter turnout will be lower than in December — which had relatively high participation rates of 73 percent.
So far, Spain is still far behind Belgium’s notorious record of 589 days without a government, but by June 26, Spain will be at more than six months without a functional government. Neighboring Portugal also faced inconclusive elections last year but managed to form a government within two months.
