Courtesy of Mish.
After six months of failed coalition attempts, Spain’s King Felipe dissolved parliament and announced new elections.
I reported on this last week, but the official document dissolving parliament was signed today. New elections are on June 26.
Will the results be any different?
There are 350 seats in Spain’s parliament. Courtesy of the BBC, the 2015 election went like this (blue highlights mine).
Party Leaders
- PPOE – Former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy
- PSOE – Pedro Sanchez
- Podemos – Pablo Iglesias
- Ciudadanos – Albert Rivera
Coalition Problems
- PSOE and PPOE could have formed a coalition, but the result would not have been stable. The party leaders do not get along and the left and right generally don’t mix.
- The three leftists parties could have formed a coalition, but Podemos is eurosckeptic and in favor of letting Catalonia have a vote on independence. The other two leftist parties are staunch nationalists as well as staunch euro supporters.
- Ciudadanos ruled out forming a coalition with Podemos for philosophical reasons noted above.
- Ciudadanos was formed as an anti-corruption party and wants nothing to do with Mariano Rajoy and his totally corrupt PPOE Popular Party either.
Clash of Ideas
