Spain is heading for new elections in the summer after parliament failed to choose a prime minister for the first time in the nation’s democratic history.
King Felipe VI on Tuesday called a halt to the efforts to forge a governing majority after a third round of talks with party leaders, concluding that none of the candidates had enough support to win an investiture vote. The official deadline for the parties to reach an agreement is on Monday. The new ballot is likely to take place on June 26.
Party leaders are struggling to get to grips with the tectonic shift in national politics caused by the election in December last year, which produced the most divided parliament ever and ended more than 30 years of two-party rule in Western Europe’s youngest democracy. While the anti-austerity group Podemos and pro-market Ciudadanos both pushed for a Socialist-led administration, their policy differences made a three-way alliance impossible.
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“This makes Spanish institutions look very old-fashioned — more than a change of parties, it seems like we need a change of attitudes,” former Socialist lawmaker Juan Moscoso said in a telephone interview. “In that sense the last four months have been a failure.”
Polls suggest the result of a new ballot may be little different from December, forcing a fresh round of coalition talks with the economy losing steam and the EU demanding urgent action to rein in the biggest budget deficit in the euro area.
“Turnout will probably be the key to any difference from the December results,” said Lluis Orriols, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University. “It will be useful for voters to know which alliances are feasible and which ones aren’t.”
A last-minute bid to broker a deal floundered on Tuesday as Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera rejected a proposal from a regional party associated with Podemos and attention swung toward the coming campaign.
Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez blamed Pablo Iglesias of Podemos for negotiating in bad faith while Acting Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Sanchez had ignored voters’ calls for compromise and Iglesias questioned the Socialist leader’s commitment to the progressive cause. Rivera said party leaders had let the voters down.
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