Democratic Rebellion: Some Lessons From the Municipal and Regional Elections in Spain
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- Published on Tuesday, 30 June 2015 22:30
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1135 .... July 1, 2015
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Democratic Rebellion:
Some Lessons From the Municipal and Regional Elections in Spain
Mario Candeias
Barcelona and Madrid are won. With Ada Colau and Manuela Carmena, two women will now occupy the mayoralties of both metropolises. Barcelona en Comú and Ahora Madrid were the names of the municipal connective platforms. Barcelona en Comú won the most seats in the city and can form a left-wing majority with both leftist parties for Catalonian independence, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and the Popular Unity Candidates (CUP), as well as with the Catalan Socialist party. Ahora Madrid rests only one seat behind the right-wing ruling party People's Party (PP), but can form a left-wing majority with the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). After decades the PP can now... be expelled from the mayoralties. The PP is in collapse everywhere; even where it holds steady it has lost its absolute majorities.
At the same time, the right-wing anti-corruption party Ciudadanos was unable to gain as much as expected and as a result fails by a large margin to be a majority creating coalition partner for the PP. In the five largest cities of the country left-wing majorities will now govern: in addition to Madrid and Barcelona, we can add Valencia, Seville and Zaragoza, but also A Coruña, Cádiz, Santiago de Compostela and Terrasa. "The democratic revolution is beginning in the cities," rejoiced Ada Colau on election night. Some preliminary lessons can be drawn from all this.
