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.