Party leader Albert Rivera delivers a speech in Madrid. Demotix/Jose_Hinojosa. All rights reserved.With the latest polls predicting a tight four way race in the Spanish general elections in November, international attention has shifted from the anti-establishment new kids on the block, Podemos, to the surging Ciudadanos (Citizens) party. Its leader, Albert Rivera, who had to strip naked in a campaign poster to get attention a few years ago, now has the highest personal approval rating of any national political figure.
His media savvy is unquestionable, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the way the party is being described by the media and think tanks abroad. In a blog for Open Europe, Vincenzo Scarpetti described them as 'centrist', as did a recent article on the BBC News website. A piece in the LSE's European Politics blog went for 'moderate and constructive reformist'. The Guardian didn't buy the 'centrist' line, but did still call Ciudadanos 'the Podemos of the right', highlighting their anti-corruption rhetoric.
This is exactly how the party is trying to position itself in order to hoover up support from disillusioned voters of the conservative Popular Party (PP) and the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), both of which have spent the past few years mired in corruption scandals.
