1. The left and the political situation in Spain 2014-2017
Dr Raul Gomez
University of Liverpool
The left and the political situation in Spain

2. 2-party system collapse
2014
IU (10%) Podemos runs for 1st time (8%)
Growth process
Many small left-wing and green movements and parties join
2015
Imperfect two-party system (since transition to democracy) turns into an imperfect 4-party system
Local elections: Podemos (and allies) controls many of the largest cities (Madrid, BCN, Zaragoza, Cadiz, Valencia, Santiago de Compostela, Coruña…)
Dec. 2015
General election
Podemos & allies 21% vote share (3rd parliamentary party); United Left – 3.7%
Hung parliament. No agreement with PSOE to form minority govt.
June 2016
Agreement Podemos – IU to run togerther
Early polls showed small decrease in Podemos’ support
Podemos + United Left + regional allies: 20% vote share

3. Who supports Unidos Podemos?
Dissatisfaction with the overall political system drives the vote for UP (and Ciudadanos)
Effect is much stronger among younger people
Clear age gap:
younger voters with left-wing orientations UP v PSOE
 young voters with right-wing orientations Cs v PP
Demographic profile of UP’s voter similar to other cases of libertarian radical left parties:
Socio-cultural professionals and technical professionals are over-represented in UP
Support among production and service workers is just above the average (no clear over-representation)
Voters with low levels of education are infra-represented in UP
More success in urban areas
Who supports Unidos Podemos?

4. Podemos and IU (United Left): similar but different
Similar age and class profile
Podemos’ “left-wing populist” strategy helped to attract a sizable amount of non-politicised voters in Dec 2015 – less so in 2016
Compared with IU, Podemos also attracted more voters defining themselves as “centre-left” or “centre” (many of whom were former PSOE voters)
Podemos and IU voters are both highly educated (but proportion of voters with higher education is larger for IU)
Economic insecurity and negative evaluations of the political situation and govt performance stronger impact on vote for Podemos than IU
Ramiro and Gomez (2017)

5. What prospects for the left?
Control of local city halls in large urban areas – visibility
But polls show stable support for all the four parties
Catalan issue might change this (esp. in Catalonia) but no visible fluctuations at the moment
UP not able to reach out to traditional PSOE voters, particularly those over-50 and service/manual workers
Possibility of left-wing coalition? Unlikely before next election – no clear majority without support from nationalists. PSOE divided over this (UP somewhat divided over specific conditions).
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