In 2015, when I worked in Spain as a penny-pinching intern, there was an air of excitement with which Spaniards spoke about politics.

My Spanish colleagues were clear: the big Spanish political parties were dead. The small parties of Spain were about to have their time to shine. And they were far from alone in this belief, anyone worth their political salt thought the same.

Seven years later, though, and their dream has died. The estab- lishment hasn’t been replaced by more innovative, smaller parties. But why? To find out what happened here we need to look at the three biggest small parties in Spain, Podemos, Vox and Ciudadanos.

Podemos
This was once Europe’s rising star of the far left. A charismatic leader, Pablo Inglesias, who donned a ponytail and corduroys in parliament, became an idol for Jeremey Corbyn and Bernie Sanders.

But, back before there was a Podemos, there were only really two political parties in town. PSOE (from centre-left) and PP (from the centre-right). But then La Crisis changed everything.

The 2008 financial crisis crippled many Spanish families and relegated the country to the humiliating status of P.I.G.S. and so, a fierce anti-austerity movement, led by the Indignados demanded a complete overhaul of the bipartisan system. Podemos was born out of this movement.

Podemos’s stated aim was to “pose a real threat to… whoever had kidnapped our democracy.”. From the beginning, Podemos represented an anticapitalist movement.

It struck a strong chord with the public. Just four months after it was founded, the party won five seats in the 2014 European Elections. One year later and Podemos won 20% of the vote in a national election. And, in 2020 it made it to the very top. PSOE was forced to form a government with Podemos as its coalition partner.

All of this put a sizeable spanner in the bipartisan works. PSOE and PP were no longer the only important parties in parliament. Both prayed for its downfall. And, sure enough, it came. Podemos’s undoing was slow but steady. At its height, in 2014, it polled higher than any other party in Spain. Now Podemos ranks No4. And, if elections were called tomorrow, the party would fall way short of the seats needed to be a coalition partner again.

The reason, according to a La Vanguardia journalist, is that “Podemos was a victim of… a Game of Thrones.”
Many in the party wanted Podemos to reflect the directly demo- cratic, grass-roots spirit of the Indignados movement. Iglesias had none of it. He blackmailed his own party: either he would receive full, centralised control or he would resign. Iglesias got his way, but instances like these made Podemos’s ‘bottom-up’ appeal bottom out.

Other events didn’t help. There were accusations of Podemos being bankrolled by the Venezuelan government, compromises made as a coalition partner and a luxurious villa found to be Iglesias’s new home. In the end, the party’s leader left his post as Vice President, and then, the party altogether. Since then, Podemos has never fully recovered.

Ciudadanos
Perhaps the prize for the sharpest fall from grace of any Spanish political party should be given to Ciudadanos (C’s).

C’s started off in life free from the baggage of the two big parties, expressing a bold stance on anti-corruption and a sense of pragmatism.

Like Podemos, C’s promised to clean up and stabilise the Spanish ‘system.’ Unlike Podemos, it vowed to do this from a sensible middle-ground: it was economically conservative but socially progressive. Hence, it was also able to draw voters in from all sides. In its heyday (circa 2015-2018), C’s had taken over Podemos as the third most popular party in Spain and was polling at 19% – just two points behind PSOE.

Even internationally C’s star shone bright, apparently inspiring Emmanuel Macron to form his political party En Marche!

In 2019, the party’s leader, Albert Rivera, could smell victory. In a bout of hubris, he refused a minority stake in a coalition government with the PSOE – refusing Spain the stable leadership it so badly needed.

His reason? He thought that might jeopardise his chance of taking the presidential crown for himself.

In protest, several high figures resigned from C’s and Rivera lurched further to the right, trying to differentiate himself from PSOE. He then agreed to a few power-sharing arrangements with the far-right. This drew sharp criticism from Macron.

It didn’t take much for the party to lose its sense of stability. By 2022 C’s had gone from third to sixth place in polling, with just 1.7% of the vote.

Once the party lost momentum in the polls, everything else start- ed falling apart. More C’s members (including Rivera himself) resigned and its failure became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If we look to the right of the political spectrum, where C’s have now moved, we’ll find PP, whose new leader has managed to occupy that ‘sensible-centre’ space that C’s originally claimed. The PP is now eating up C’s votes – oh how the tables have turned!

Then, there’s another beast swallowing up remaining C’s votes. This time on the far right of the political spectrum. A newer kid on the block: Vox.

Vox
First, it was Brexit in Britain, Trump in the U.S. and then, finally, it was Spain’s turn to have a dose of far-right politics – in the form of Vox. Vox’s ideology is rooted in tradition, averse to immigration and glorifies nationalism. Others believe it’s a form of ‘neo-Francoism.’ Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, had always been part of PP. Then, he started to feel the party had gone too far to the centre. In Abascal’s words, Vox now offers “a real alternative” not just “more of the same.”nAre you getting a déjà vu? Well, a lot of Spain didn’t. Despite empty promises of radical change before, over 20% of the population (many of whom are ex-Podemos and C’s voters) wants to see Vox in government.

Although the party was founded in 2013, it wasn’t until 2018 that this small party made it big. Around this time, Vox met with the ex-Trump advisor, Steve Banon. But, the tipping point was when Vox won 12 seats in a 2018 election in its stronghold, Andalucia. Vox then became a major political player overnight.

That being said, since the beginning of this summer, Vox’s popularity has dropped suddenly by four percentage points. It’s no coincidence that PP’s has gone up by five.

Now that PP’s leader, Alberto Feijóo, looks like a serious Presidential candidate, many Vox voters have switched back to PP. Partly because of this phenomenon, Vox has recently suffered a brutal defeat back in Andalucia. Instead of Vox being able to lead the local government, as expected, PP won by a landslide – allowing PP to form a government without Vox. This has given many the impression that the wind has left Vox’s sails.

So, have we seen Vox peak? Vox’s chances of rebounding in the national polls look slim. But that doesn’t signal the end of Vox. In the next General Election, it looks as though the PP need Vox’s parliamentary seats if it wants to form a government. And, obviously, it does. And there’s a precedent for this. In the province of Castilla y Leon, there is already a coalition agreement between Vox and PP.

So before Vox’s complete demise, we might see it in government first. But becoming a ruling party has all but confirmed Podemos’s imminent death. Could it be the final nail in Vox’s coffin as well?

(News/Politics: Spain)