We can and Citizens hit center-right – The Economist

The two most important changes in the political map of Spain were Madrid and Barcelona. Regions provisionally won by We can party, who is awaiting concrete alliances that allow them to govern.

Madrid. The Spaniards punished their traditional parties, after nearly a decade of economic crisis, and handed the key of their mayors and regional governments to new formations We can and Citizens, six months before the presidential election.

With 99% of ballots counted, the ruling Popular Party won the municipal elections throughout the country with 6 million votes. The center-right Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is provisionally imposed on nine of the 13 regions, but without sufficient majority and the need to reach agreements if it wants to govern. 8,120 municipalities were also elected.

The number of votes of Socialists, which managed 5.5 million-and popular, that have ruled the country in the last 35 years was 52% compared to 65.3% local elections in 2011. The leftist and centrist Citizens can, not satisfied in the whole country, failed to unseat the big games, but their support will be critical as the third and fourth political force.

With that the two new Spanish political parties confirmed their high expectations on Sunday in local elections and be decisive for territorial governance. The two parties, with one year of life nationally, are jeopardizing the traditional domain of the Popular Party and Socialist Party, who have ruled Spain in the last 35 years, pointing to presidential elections later this year.

“It starts to be written in Spain in order of bipartisanship,” said Pablo Iglesias, leader of Podemos.

We confirmed that aspires to contest the leadership of the Socialist Left Party. Churches formation was not met in municipal elections but supported popular leftist candidates who achieved spectacular results in the big cities of the country such as Madrid, Barcelona, ​​La Coruña and Zaragoza, among others.

In Barcelona, ​​the Ada Colau candidate, a leader of social movements in Spain, won the election.

In 13 of the 17 autonomous regions of the country, we added 1.6 million ballots with 99% of the vote counted. If socialism wants to oust the PP we need to ally with.

Citizens filed only 1,000 candidates for the 8,120 municipalities, but managed 1.4 million votes and became the third city force. The training was in fourth place in the regions and, with few exceptions, its seats will not be as decisive as the Podemos. However, Rivera described the outcome of success. The party has tripled its support from the European Parliament elections a year ago.

Popular Party and Socialist Party still dominate Spanish politics. But wear nearly a decade of economic crisis and corruption cases they are taking their toll. Bipartisanship has left 3.3 million votes -13 points- regarding the municipal elections of 2011 and those supports have gone hands can and Citizens, who have achieved great support in urban areas.

We are a party clearly leftist, born the so-called Occupy movement. Citizens is a party that started in Catalonia nine years ago to combat nationalism and defined as a movement of liberal center.