The strain in Spain

👉Political uncertainty hovers over Madrid as the new PM tries to stabilise his government👈

Spain’s conservative-led minority government, which fell on Friday, has been swiftly succeeded by a wobbly minority government led by the Socialists. It counts on support from, among others, Catalan and the extreme left parties. In this sense, the changeover represents continuity of the relative uncertainty that has characterised Spain since the 2016 general election. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who had held office since 2011, was voted out after top functionaries of his People’s Party were convicted for operating a slush fund during Spain’s construction boom in the last decade. The judicial verdict centre-staged Pedro Sánchez, the Socialist Party chief who masterminded the no-confidence motion against the government. Ironically, Mr. Rajoy had managed to form a minority coalition in October 2016 only after Mr. Sánchez’s failed bid for premiership and ouster as party leader, breaking a prolonged political deadlock and averting a third general election in the space of a year. But in a remarkable comeback, Mr. Sánchez reclaimed his party’s leadership in May 2017 and has now emerged as Spain’s Prime Minister after leading the Socialists to consecutive election defeats in 2015 and 2016. His biggest challenge is to work with the Catalan separatists, whose demands for statehood have long united the country’s conservatives and Socialists in their opposition to the idea, seeing it as a threat to Spanish nationhood. Madrid had imposed direct rule over Catalonia last year after it declared itself independent. Now, a new Catalan government has been formed under Quim Torra, who too is insistent on pushing for independence. No less of a complication for Mr. Sánchez would be working with Podemos, the far-left anti-austerity party that has sought to capitalise on the eroding base of the Socialists to project itself as the more credible progressive platform in Spanish politics.

Moreover, given the slender support his disparate new coalition commands in Parliament, Mr. Sánchez has little room for manoeuvre in terms of either economic or political policy ahead of the scheduled 2020 elections. A ray of hope amid this prevailing sense of instability is Spain’s steady recovery from the deep recession triggered by the banking and housing crisis earlier this decade. The country’s double-digit unemployment figures are way above the Eurozone average. But the current healthy rate of growth in per capita gross domestic product is projected to persist over the coming years, according to an International Monetary Fund forecast. This positive trend possibly explains the state of overall political equilibrium in Spain, as compared with the hollowing out of the middle ground in several other countries in southern Europe. Yet, political parties should not lower their vigil against anti-immigrant and anti-European Union forces trying to gain a foothold. Rising above narrow party interests to promote the common good will be the challenge before Spain’s mainstream politicians.