MADRID (AP) – Voters punished Spain’s mainstream political parties in local elections Sunday as many people switched their allegiance to new parties that campaigned on a promise of change amid chafing austerity policies, high unemployment and political corruption scandals.
The governing conservative Popular Party and the main opposition Socialist Party – which have alternated in government for nearly four decades – surrendered control of some city halls and regional governments. The two mainstream parties snared 52 per cent of the nationwide vote, with around 90 per cent of the votes counted. That was significantly down from the 65 per cent of the vote the pair gathered in elections four years ago but short of the political meltdown that some party officials feared.
Meanwhile, the radical leftist We Can group and business-friendly Citizens party, grass-root organisations which began operating on a national level just a year ago, were the third and fourth most popular parties in a landmark result. That could leave them holding the balance of power in local governments.
“We would have liked the decline of the old parties to have been quicker,” said Pablo Iglesias, the leader of We Can. “But circumstances compel us to keep working on it.”
Spain isn’t the first southern European country to witness a shift in the political centre of gravity since Europe’s debt crisis prompted governments to slash spending on such cherished budget items as public health and education. In recent years, the traditional parties of governments in Italy and Greece have also seen their influence eroded by new – and often radical – choices.
In Spain, corruption scandals dogging the two mainstream parties have fueled voter disaffection with business-as-usual choices.
The elections, for seats in more than 8 100 Spanish town halls and 13 of 17 regional parliaments, were seen as a barometer for scheduled national elections in the European Union’s fifth-largest economy at the end of the year.
The Popular Party lost control of prestigious Madrid city hall, which it has run for more than 20 years. A coalition of new parties, including We Can, came out on top there.
