On Tuesday 3 May 2016, King Felipe VI formally dissolved the Spanish parliament and called a new general election for 26 June. This will be the second round of elections after parties failed to form a government since the last vote in December 2015. Spain has now been without a government for 136 days.

The December elections
On 20 December 2015, Spain held a general election to elect 350 members to the lower house, the Congress of Deputies, and 208 of the 266 Senate seats. Many commentators speculated that the 2015 elections would spell the end of the duopoly that had dominated the Spanish political sphere since the transition to democracy in the 1970s. The two main parties, the Partido Popular, the People’s Party (PP) and the Partido Socialista Obrero Espãnol, the Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), including their earlier incarnations, had continually taken the majority of the vote, with the exception of two elections held soon after the death of Francisco Franco, in 1977 and in 1979.

The result
The PP won 123 seats, accounting for 28.7% of the vote, not enough to constitute a majority. The PSOE achieved 22% of the vote, which gave them 90 seats. The left wing party Podemos received 20.7% of the vote which entitled them to 69 seats while Ciudadanos, the centrist Citizens party, obtained 13.9% and 40 seats. The remaining 14.7% was divided between smaller parties. Therefore, no party reached the 176 seats required to form a majority government. In January, the leader of the PP and incumbent Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, declined the King’s nomination for a confidence vote, which would have allowed him to take office, stating that he did not have the support required to win.

Stalemate
Since then, negotiations have been slow and difficult. Neither the centrist PP-Ciudadanos alliance nor the left-wing PSOE-Podemos grouping was able to attain enough seats to form a government. After second-round meetings with party leaders on Tuesday 26 April, King Felipe VI announced that, as no political party had enough support to form a government, a second general election would be held on 26 June. The date was confirmed once the parliament was officially dissolved on 3 May, after the deadline for forming a new government had expired the day before.

Looking ahead to June
Opinion polls since the December elections suggest that the results of the second election in June will remain largely unchanged. Voters are expected to once again split their support between parties, resulting in the same difficulties in trying to form a government.

If the polls are correct, the PP may expand its lead over the PSOE, but it is still unlikely to get the absolute majority that it enjoyed from 2011-2015. In this case, a coalition could potentially be formed between the PP and Ciudadanos, although there have been troubled relations between the parties recently, largely caused by Ciudadanos’ swing to the left and its criticism of Prime Minister Rajoy’s approach to combatting corruption in government.

If Spaniards vote similarly to five months ago, parties will be compelled to continue investigating possible coalitions that were too difficult or unpalatable to consider in the first round. If they fail a second time, it is not clear what may happen.

This Just the Facts article is also available as an email information service from European Movement Ireland to our members. For more information on becoming a member of European Movement Ireland, contact our offices or visit our Membership webpages.