Far left party offers helping hand to ruling Socialists

To an American this should be scary as hell!

MADRID (AP) — As Spain voted Sunday in the country’s fourth election in as many years, a leading leftist party pledged to help the incumbent Socialist party in the hope of staving off a possible right-wing coalition government that could include a far-right party.

Spain’s United We Can party leader Pablo Iglesias said he will offer a helping hand to the ruling Socialist party to form a stable leftist government.

Failure to reach agreement between the Socialists and United We Can, Spain’s fourth largest party in parliament, following the last election in April was one of the main reasons for the calling of Sunday’s vote, the fourth in as many years.

“We are going to offer a helping hand to the Socialist party. We think that combining the courage of United We Can and the experience of the Socialist party we can convert our country into a reference point for social policies,” Iglesias said Sunday.

“We are going to leave behind the reproaches,” he added.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who won the most votes in the last ballot in April but failed to whip up enough parliamentary support to form a government, voted in the morning.

Sánchez is tipped to win again but Spain may face another stalemate situation and months more without a stable government.

“I think it’s very important that we strengthen the democracy with our vote, encourage all citizens to vote and as of tomorrow we may have the stability to form a government and get Spain moving,” Sánchez said after casting his ballot. His party won 123 seats in the 350-seat lower house last time.

The four main parties contending centered their campaigns chiefly on ways to deal with Catalonia’s independence push and the feared surge of the far-right party Vox (Voice).

Julia Giobelina, 34-year-old web designer from Madrid, was angry at having to vote for the second time in less than seven months, but said she cast her vote at the Palacio de Valdés public school in central Madrid in the hope of stopping the rise of Vox.

“They are the new fascism,” Giobelina said. “We citizens need to stand against privatization of health care and other public services. Also, because I don’t know if my daughter will be transsexual or lesbian and because of our friends the immigrants, we need to vote against the far-right for them.”

Abstentions loom, with polls suggesting up to 35 percent of the electorate could stay away from the polling booths, up from 28 percent in April.

Voting stations opened at 9 a.m. (0800 GMT) and are set to close at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT), with results expected within hours.

Spain, a country which returned to democracy after a near four-decade right wing dictatorship under late Gen. Francisco Franco, used to take pride in claiming no far-right group had seats in the national parliament, unlike the rest of Europe.

But that changed in the last election when Vox erupted onto the political scene by winning 24 seats on promises of taking a hard line on Catalonia and immigration.

The Socialists’ April victory was nonetheless seen by many as something of a respite for Europe where right-wing parties had gained much ground in countries such as France, Hungary, Italy and Poland.

But many polls predict Vox, headed by Santiago Abascal, may do even better this time and capitalize on the pro-Spain nationalist sentiment stirred by the Catalan conflict and in response to the caretaker Socialist government’s exhumation of Franco’s remains last month from his gargantuan mausoleum so that he could no longer be exalted by supporters in a public place.

Vox has already joined forces with the other two right-of-center parties to take over many city and regional governments and no one doubts the three would readily band together to oust Sánchez.