Spain: Could Rivera Be The Big One?

Recent surveys state that Ciudadanos has a “proximity effect”, attracting people who would have voted for Podemos a few months ago because they didn’t want to see either conservatives or socialists in power anymore.

Nowadays it’s simply unavoidable. Clicking through the Internet in Spain means finding out about the latest scam involving this or that well-known politician ?probably one you’ve voted for? who has spent the last decade not helping his country grow, but helping himself to zillions of euros of public money. As the two major national parties ?socialist and conservative? strut through this rotten burlesque, the younger generations have come onstage and are offering the exasperated Spanish voter fresh political options.

Will these newcomers be able to curb the pandemic corruption? As glaring as the crime itself is the Spanish lassitude when it comes to punishing guilty politicians where it really hurts: at the ballot box. Ever since democracy was established in 1978, thousands upon thousands of Spaniards have been stubbornly electing and giving away their tax money to the traditional mafias. In March the Andalusian Socialist Party, after three long decades of profiteering, has been reinstated in the regional governance. But Podemos ?a new anti-austerity party similar to Greek Syriza? is now a pivotal group in Andalusia’s parliament, after getting 15 seats in regional elections. And Ciudadanos, with 9 seats won in that same election, finds itself in an analogous position, on the right.

Recent surveys state that Ciudadanos has a “proximity effect”, attracting people who would have voted for Podemos a few months ago because they didn’t want to see either conservatives or socialists in power anymore. If Pablo Iglesias is considered the epicenter of an unstoppable national shakedown, Albert Rivera has taken advantage of the situation, prevailing now as the more realistic of the two new options. Headlines compare the political arena to an earthquake scenario where aftershocks are fairly unpredictable. The Big One in Spanish politics is yet to come.