Pablo Iglesias galvanises supporters at a pre-election rally in Andalusia. Demotix/Kiko Jimenez. All rights reserved.The regional election in Andalusia on Sunday 22 March was the first of three elections in a big election year in Spain. On Sunday 24 May, citizens will vote in local elections across Spain and regional elections in most of the regions, while general elections are set for November. Last year’s EU parliament elections, Sunday’s Andalusian elections and consecutive opinion polls have shown that Spain’s party system has been rocked by the advent of Podemos and, more recently, the centre-right party Ciudadanos. Despite its local peculiarities, the Andalusian election was a test of what is to come.
The Andalusian election did not topple Spain’s two-party system. Since the transition to democracy in the late 1970s, Spain has been dominated by two big parties: the conservative Partido Popular (PP) and the social-democratic PSOE. While PP did poorly, dropping from 40% to 26%, PSOE only dropped four percent to 35%.
Andalusia is an old PSOE stronghold, and they were helped by a campaign centred around their regional leader Susana Díaz, who is far more popular than her party. In Andalusia, PSOE have been able to keep an edge vis-à-vis PP and are still seen as the defender of the welfare state and the poor. That edge has been missing at the national level for the last decade, where PSOE initiated the austerity policies continued by the current PP government. PSOE are heading towards bigger losses in the local and national elections later this year.
