A pair of upstart parties in Spain’s general election Sunday threatens to upend the country’s two-party system, with results showing the ruling Popular Party won the most votes but fell short of a parliamentary majority and risked losing power.
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Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias has said he would ask for major concessions from the Socialists before agreeing to any alliance.
For more than 30 years, Rajoy’s Popular Party (PP) and the Socialists had alternated power, but millions of Spaniards exasperated with austerity and corruption scandals voted relative newcomers Podemos and centre-right Ciudadanos into third and fourth place.
Mr Tsipris, whose Syriza party is an ally of Podemos, said “austerity has been political defeated in Spain”, and the result was a sign that “Europe is changing”.
/Reports suggest that Spaniards could be guessing for days, or even weeks, about the shape and colour of their next Government.
Rajoy recognized his party had taken “some hard and even unpopular decisions” over the past four years.
Rajoy’s government is credited with dragging Spain back from the economic abyss and returning it to strong growth.
The PPs 122 seats will leave it 54 short of the 176 needed for an absolute majority and it would have to win the support of other parties, especially Ciudadanos.
He declined to be drawn on the Socialists’ options for negotiating with possible coalition partners, saying the party’s executive committee would meet Monday to study the results.
The outcome was reminiscent of a similar situation in neighbouring Portugal, where the incumbent conservatives won an October election but a socialist government backed by far left parties was sworn in. “Who wins the election should try and form a government”, he said.
Rajoy presented himself as the custodian of Spanish unity and continuity, in the face of challenges not only from secessionist politicians in Catalonia but also the two emerging parties.
“Once again, we are the largest political force in Spain”, Rajoy told about 200 supporters gathered outside his party headquarters in Madrid early Monday.
Rajoy also warned that any change of tack, after a 2012 banking bailout and years of fiscal belt-tightening under his conservative administration, could once more derail Spain’s economy, which is expected to grow 3 per cent this year, outpacing most other European economies.
That compared with the 17 seats won by the pro-independence camp – nine for leftist party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and eight for centre-right Democracia I Llibertat, the party of acting regional government head Artur Mas.
But the only simple combination of parties that would add up to a clear majority would be an alliance of the PP and Socialists in a “grand coalition”.
What will these elections mean for Spain? . It is a phase of unprecedented ungovernability for the country: the only certainty is that the next government will have to be supported by a coalition yet to be determined and that is very reminiscent of the Italian political scene.
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For now, Rajoy stays on as the caretaker prime minister until parliament convenes on January 13 and King Felipe VI proposes a candidate for prime minister, which could be Rajoy or the leader of another party. Mr Rajoy will try first but will probably fail when he puts his candidacy to the vote in parliament, where his party made many enemies during its four years with an absolute majority.
