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Here's What Spain's Messy Election Result Looks Like Right Now
Update: Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s PP places first with 114-118 seats, TVE exit poll shows.
- Socialists second with 81-85 seats
- Podemos third with 76-80 seats
- Ciudadanos fourth with 47-50 seats
- TVE exit poll after Sunday’s election
From Bloomberg:
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is on track to claim most seats in Spain’s election, though the vote produced no clear winner as new parties wrenched support away from his People’s Party and the Socialists, an exit poll showed.
The PP is on course to win as many as 118 seats in Spain’s 350-seat parliament, according to the poll by state broadcaster TVE. The Socialists were neck-and-neck with anti-austerity party Podemos for second place. TVE projected as many as 85 seats for the Socialists, though with fewer votes than Podemos, which would get up to 80 seats. Ciudadanos will win up to 50 seats.
From AFP:
Spain's ruling conservative Popular Party won the most votes, 26.8 percent, in a general election Sunday but lost its absolute majority in parliament, an exit poll showed.
New anti-austerity party Podemos, a close ally of Greece's ruling Syriza, came in second with 21.7 percent support, according to the poll of 177,000 voters carried out across the country for public television TVE.
* * *
Spain heads to the polls on Sunday in a historic election that may well spell the end of two-party dominance in a country racked by high unemployment and beset with corruption scandals.
The election is a four-way race between the Socialists, Podemos, Ciudadanos, and PM Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party. “With no party expecting a majority of parliament’s 350 seats, Spain appears headed for a minority or coalition government,” WSJ notes, adding that “wheeling and dealing among political leaders in search of a winning alliance will likely start almost as soon as the polls close and could last for days or weeks.”
Like October’s elections in Portugal, the vote will serve as a kind of referendum of Spain’s adoption of austerity and a slavish adherence to Berlin-style fiscal rectitude. Brussels has held up Spain and Portugal as examples of how bailouts, when paired with harsh fiscal adjustments, can work to right the proverbial ship, but the numbers tell a different story. Austerity looks more like “fauxterity” when one looks at the trajectory of the periphery’s debt-to-GDP ratios (see below) and as we’ve noted on any number of occasions (see here for instance), Spain’s economic “recovery” is anything but.
Clearly, Brussels does not want to see another outcome like that which unfolded in Portugal where the Socialists aligned with the Communists and the Left Bloc to overthrow the Passos Coelho government early last month. New PM Antonio Costa has pledged to honor Lisbon’s obligations but as we explained, the new government in Portugal will almost certainly be less amenable to further fiscal retrenchment than its predecessor and that’s bad news for Brussels.
As for Spain, the rise of Podemos shows that like their Portuguese counterparts, Spanish voters have become fed up with austerity policies that many everyday Spaniards believe have done more harm than good. “Spain emerged from a biting recession in mid-2013 and is growing at around 3% this year, the fastest rate among major eurozone economies, but the country is still coping with an unemployment rate of more than 20%, only slightly below the level when Mr. Rajoy took office four years ago,” WSJ writes.
"The outcome is the most uncertain in the 40 years since the end of the Franco dictatorship and the return of democracy," Reuters adds, before noting that "about one in three of the 36.5 million eligible voters were still undecided going into Sunday.
"Podemos’s ponytailed 37-year old leader, Pablo Iglesias, is considered too radical to serve as prime minister by most of the Spanish establishment," Lluis Orriols, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University told The Journal. The media has long equated Iglesias with Alexis Tsipras.
Podemos is the most vocal critic of the austerity policies that WSJ correctly notes "have made Mr. Rajoy’s government a favorite of European leaders in Brussels and Berlin."
Guess when #Syriza came to power #SpainElection v @guardian pic.twitter.com/aIFZZm55V2
— Yiannis Mouzakis (@YiannisMouzakis) December 20, 2015
All of this is complicated by the situation in Catalonia where a fifth of Spanish GDP voted to secede last month.
"Political risk in Spain could materialise from three directions," Deutsche Bank says, in the bank's comprehensive election preview. Here are the bullet points:
- First, a government heavily influenced by Podemos could lead to a reversal of recent structural reforms. Based on opinion polls, Podemos’ chances of driving the policies of the next government have fallen sharply.
- Second, a fragmented parliament could lead to an unstable government if not to an outright impasse in building a majority. However, this risk has also decreased materially. With the recent surge in the vote intentions for pro-business Citizens, a centre-right coalition could have an absolute majority without the additional help from small regional parties. That said, we think that Citizens will not enter into a formal government coalition with the centre-right PP but rather provide only external support.
- Third, the situation in Catalonia remains unresolved. We continue to see a compromise centred on an overhaul of regional financing as the most reasonable outcome. But PP and Citizens are strongly pro national unity, hence reaching a compromise with the pro-independence parties will not be easy and a negative outcome cannot be excluded.
Deutsche goes on to note that political risk has caused Spanish financial assets to underperform their Italian counterparts.
"The rise of radical-left Podemos in 2014 was the first element pointing to weakening of the PP-PSOE 'duopoly'", Deutsche goes on to note, adding that "one of the costs of Spain’s economic rebalancing was a dramatic increase in unemployment – especially among the young – which fuelled support for Podemos [and] a series of corruption allegations which affected the traditional parties played an equal if not greater role in [their] rise."
More from Deutsche on Ciudadanos:
The second element was the even more recent, but no less remarkable: the rise of Citizens (Ciudadanos in Spanish). Citizens provides a more pro-business alternative to Podemos for those who are disillusioned with traditional parties but do not share Podemos’ radical views. Citizens was a party mainly based in Catalonia. It is against Catalonia’s independence and its young leader, Albert Rivera, is one of the most popular political leaders based on polls.
And here's Deutsche's take on possible coalition governments:
- A PP and PSOE grand coalition: numerically strong, politically highly unlikely. A grand coalition would have a large majority (c200 seats). However, such a grand coalition would be unprecedented. Indeed, we think it would be feasible only under a national emergency scenario.
- A centre-right PP-Citizens “alliance”: our central case scenario. Mainly thanks to the recent surge in the vote intentions for Citizens, a PP- Citizens alliance could have an absolute majority with about 185 seats (Figure 7). Politically we also think that the PP and Citizens could reach an agreement on the economic programme. Although this is our base case, Citizens will also consider alternatives.
- A centre-left PSOE and Citizens coalition: our alternative scenario. Citizens could also form an alliance with the PSOE, above all if it manages to be close enough in terms of seats to the Socialist party. In this case, Citizens would have more leverage than with the PP and it could put forward more convincingly its case of representing an alternative to a PP-government. However, based on current polls PSOE and Citizens would fall 24 seats short of a majority (Figure 7).
In simpler terms, Rajoy's PP will probably win but won't end up with an absolute majority. "The Socialists are expected to come second with Podemos and liberal Ciudadanos vying for the third place which would make them kingmakers in post-election talks," Reuters explains before boiling it all down to this: "...any of three outcomes are possible - either a right-wing or left-wing coalition government or a minority administration."
Polls close at 9 p.m. local time.
And so, Brussels and Berlin are holding their breath as an "undesirable" outcome could push the periphery even further away from an austerity regime that, even if it hasn't produced any tangible results when it comes to bringing down debt, has unquestionably created quite a bit of misery for the citizens of Spain on the way to exacerbating the ideological gap between the periphery and the core.
We close with the following quote from El País:
“The new system, is not a revolution but, indeed, a change of great magnitude in response to the wishes of Spaniards who, fed up with sterile confrontations in a highly polarized system, are asking for negotiation and consensus.”
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no matter who you vote for you lose
A Strange Game.
The only winning move is not to play.
Wargames 1983
..."Master" locks protect the "Diebold" voting machines in upcoming Spanish elections.
Outcome is guaranteed.
Podemos...just another Syriza knock off...
Sweet!
Fauxsterity turns into real spending!
Krugman's climaxing in his PJs all over his cat stuffed down the front
The old duopoly scam again. The duopoly gives the appearance of choice yet both sides are bought off by the same oligarchs.
Hmmm.... Spain's Debt to GDP is almost as high as the United States.... and less than half of Japan. If ZeroHedge could overlay the US Debt to GDP for the similar time range, that would be telling...
OLE'
Don't look at me dude. Whatever it takes place.. I did not even leave my home today.
Fuck them all.
My gold is buried.
My faith is in freedom.
My beer is in the fridge.
Fuck them all.
The kid, unbeknownst to himself, was the proverbial image of the Spanish sentiment that is of the burgeoning, yet abandoned, generation that is having to figure out that the pathways that lead to systematic change will occur in ineffable moments that will measure the individual's duress. As Fleece Johnson once stated in a Kentucky jail yard: the choice is yours.
That is, when in the face of Absurdity, select what you believe to be your most dexterious and durable fist, coil it and punch Absurdity in its own face. It should be noted that there is nothing absurd about committing oneself to this action; it is deliberate and removes the individual from the insanity of using the same solutions that fail.
Turns out the kid who punched Mariano Rajoy in the head is one of his own relatives.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mariano-rajoy-punch-spain-prime-minister-punche...
Refrain from validating a corrupt system...do not GIVE them your vote, make them EARN IT!
The Greeks and more recently the French had a chance to vote against the status quo but chose not to, The Spanish will probably follow suit.
You can change the name of the parties but they are practically all the same and the alternatives are always labelled as extreme, so people will not support them, although that is what is needed. Therefore nothing will change!
The agenda rolls on unabated......
http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/12/as-events-spiral-ou...
When you've got to choose
Ev'ry way you look at it, you lose
ku ku ka jew
"no matter who you vote for you lose"
Yup, looking like Greece all over again.
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No matter who you vote in Europe super mario winz!!!
So here are the Spanish, mistakingly thinking their vote matters!
Same old shit! The masses vote for continued ass raping.
They must teach ankle grabbing at an realy age.
Much like here in the USSA!
"Ankle grabbing" as you so indelicately label it, is nothing more than Upright Citizens Who Love America simply taking a position which shows Love Of Government: The PATRIOT POSITION!
Talk such as yours really demeans the tenor of this August Forum, and offends Gentle Readers and Posters such as MDB, etc.
From this point hence, please, The Patriot Position!
See a patriot Position a patriot
"Podemos’s ponytailed 37-year old leader, Pablo Iglesias, is considered too radical to serve as prime minister by most of the German establishment,"
A pony tail is an almost sure sign of a douchebag.
Only when it belongs to old and balding hippie.
Podemos is funded by Venezuela.
Geebus why don't they get out of the EuroZone already? It's sickening to watch that Euro boa constrictor slowly squeeze the life out of them.
Because Spain have been net recipients of EU funding since joining. Like most of the southern European countries they were poor. They wont get out of the EuroZone or the EU, Like Greece the abundant free stuff is just to good to turn away from
That's ridiculous. Spain is fracturing. Barcelona is about to secede, and Spain has somewhere like 50% youth unemployment, and debt that will crush the life out of them. They have received some cheap debt yes, but free shit, no. Monetary union has been by far a net negative for the Southern countries.
Yeah, I want to see the results broken down regionally; like did Catalonia overwhelmingly vote for a particular party (an indicator of secessioninst sentiment) or were the results homogeneous across Spain as a whole?
BTW the EU does not give a fuck if Catalonia wants to break away, anymore than it gave a shit if Scotland broke away, they would still be slaves to the EU and thats all that matters to them
Remember Catalonia is trying to break away from Spain, not from the EU, same as Scotland were voting to break away from the UK not the EU. Both Scotland and Catalonia would want to stay within the EU if they got their wish.
The end goal for these cunts is a United States of Europe, and if pissy little Catalonia or Scotland want to call themselves countries it makes not one bit of fucking difference to the basteds in Brussels
"the EU does not give a fuck if Catalonia wants to break away"
Who is the EU ?
You are naive in the extreme if you think any of these once poor countries want to leave the EU, they have done extremely well out of EU handouts at the expense of the richer northern european countries, especially when it comes to fishing.
If you want an example of how bad things can get yet the population are still totally addicted to staying in the EU then look no further than Greece.
Spain Portugul Greece Italy, all poor countries before they joined the EU, all now totally addicted to the handouts, totally.
Italy is part of G7
They don't call them PIIGs for nuttin...
4 paries all offering the same policies as directed by the EU / EZ. Kind of pointless voting if the outcome is already known.
Then unemployment stuck at 20% even with 3% growth suggests ... ??? Growth being observed has no correlation with employment because it is a rise in values only not more consumption that could employ a few more.
Whoever gets elected, whatever they promise just like Greece will not be able to keep the promises they make.
"Liberal Ciudadanos" is too much credit for these EU whores, especially considering the term liberal is used in its European meaning. And the outcome of the election is by no means uncertain: the EU wins. It seems the new reality/normal, not "crisis", is a favourite with MSM followers.
When there are enough people to vote in more free money for themselves, the country is lost - wait that is USA - sorry wrong site.
Now, where is that austerity site?
It was a left hook.
The problem is that all these unhappy people do not want real independence, fairness and self reliance.
What they want is something for nothing.
They want to continue sucking on the government's teet.
Instead what they get to suck on is government's dick.
The problem is people like you - especially in angloamerican sphere - talk a lot about things they dont know about.
There is nothing 'self reliant' or 'independent' about your country's ENTIRE GDP being siphoned off to austerity loans in order to back the sunken assets of PRIVATE bank shareholders which were sunken due to financial scams these did to profit.
This 'by the bootstraps' nonsense is killing your countries. UK now has soup kitchens wereas Cameron's ilk live in extravagant luxury, and wall street brokers in us pop $10,000-a-bottle champagnes every night while there is 40 million effective, 3 million chronic homeless in USA.
Selfishnes rationalized. Except there is nothing rational about it.
Sheeesh. its 15 years into 21st century, and 'chicago boyZ' are still alive and yapping.
Did you miss my point about fairness???
There is nothing fair about the way the current financial system works not the quazi monopoly that infests the world and the ability of those with wealth to buy off politicians.
However, neither the socialists nor communists have the answers.
Socialists and Podemos or Groko for the Spaniards ;-)
Ben Affleck is running for Spanish parliament?
That explains the Spanish 10 year bond---
Spain 10Y 1.702 1.688 1.747 1.680 +0.014 +0.83% 19/12"radical-left podemos"
The moment you see some source labeling center left parties as 'radical left', understand that you are reading a quotation from a sociopath neoliberal source.
Anything that deviates more than just superficially from the status quo is labeled "radical".
In a police force filled with criminals a honest cop would be considered radical.
While we could hope for a separate Tea Party as a third party -- the problem is that the combination of Democrats and Republicans would still be a majority - and there is no difference between this two.
I don`t know why they even bother pretending that anybody`s vote even matters.....
Just like Greece, whoever wins, will take their orders from Brussels for a bailout......