Spain's Popular Party leads EP election but small parties real winners

[Ghost Dog]

Source: New Europe

... The PP were the most voted for political party taking 26.04 percent of the vote and seeing their representation in the EP drop from 24 to 16 seats, while their share of the votes was 18 percent down from their win in the 2011 General Election which they garnered 44 percent of the votes...

... The PSOE polled just 23.02 percent, three percent less than the PP and around 6 percent down from their 2011 General election showing. The PSOE have won 14 seats in the EP, nine fewer than the 23 they won in 2009...

... Perhaps the standout factor for Sunday's results is that Spain's two major parties polled less than 50 percent of the total vote on a day when minority parties saw their share of the vote increase dramatically. This led some commentators to speculate as to whether this could be the end of the two-party dominance in the country.

The United Left claimed 9.99 percent of the vote and now have six seats in Brussels, four more than in 2009, while the newly formed "Podemos" (We Can) party, a left wing coalition, claimed 7.93 percent of the vote and won five seats. The center-right Union Progress and Democracy went from winning one to four seats.

Read more: http://www.neurope.eu/article/spains-popular-party-leads-ep-election-small-parties-real-winners

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My preferred Title: Left,, Green and 'Indignados' parties gain most in Spanish EU election

The United Left is in coalition with Greens in Spain. This is the traditional real left. The new party 'Podemos says it will now, Indignados and Occupy-style (and indeed Chiapas-style), form open discussion circles in every locality on the basis of which to form policy. This is reminiscent of Kropotkin-style political ideas. The UPD's discourse mostly involves criticising the corruption in the two main parties (as do all). There are zero far-right parties with any weight at all in Spanish politics, except of course the PP, or significant sectors of the PP, heir to Franco's Catholic elitist authoritarians, itself.

In Catalonia the Catallan nationalist (seeking independence) ERC-led Left coalition trounced the also nationalist right wing and 'business' party CiU currently governing the Generalitat.

In the Canary Islands a majority voted Left for the first time in a long time, and the United Left and especially Podemos strongly surged.

Similar patterns will doubtless be found throughout the Iberian Peninsula and Islands...

[dipsydoodle]

1. Are the Canaries grouped in with Spain for these elections ?

[Ghost Dog]

2. Of course.

Last edited Mon May 26, 2014, 07:35 AM - Edit history (2)

And the Baleares...

The Canaries consist politically and administratively of the two Spanish provinces of Las Palmas (the Easternmost, or Oriental as we term it) and Tenerife, and is a Spanish Autonomous Community with its own local government, with extensions in even more locally-elected administrations called Cabildos covering the whole of each island, on each of which there are several municipalities each with locally-elected mayor and councillors.

A Brit EU citizen in my situation resident on one of the islands has a vote in the local municipal elections and in the European parliamentary elections. Nothing in between (three more layers up to Spanish General Elections from here). Nor, I've been so long (happily) self-exiled, do I have any vote in UK.

(Have added some more info here and above).

[dipsydoodle]

3. Thanks for the additional info.

.

[Enthusiast]

4. Thank you, Ghost Dog.