Everyone a loser

Everyone lost and everyone won but there was no overall winner and everyone ended up a loser. That is the result of the Spanish election in a nutshell. The poll ended in a stalemate, leading me to believe that a new election will be held in the new year. The polls had forecast a win for the Partido Popular and they were right but they failed to predict a drop in support for the new centre-right party, Cuidadanos. They would have been an ideal bedmate for the Partido Popular. A Ciudadanos/Partido Popular coalition was muted as the probable outcome of the election. But the combined strengths of the two parties is not enough to give them a working majority in parliament. So it is back to the drawing board. Now, there is talk of a grand coalition between the Spanish Socialist Party, who came second but whose share of the vote was down, Podemos, the far-left wing party which makes Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn look like a Conservative, and probably Cuidadanos and some of the nationalist parties. But the chances of this grand coalition coming together are minimal. Podemos was the big winner on the night, polling millions of votes across the country. Not bad for a party formed a few years ago out of the anti-eviction movement. They have become the third or even second power in Spanish politics. The only choice I believe is to hold another election in the new year. Spain is split in four. And the four don´t really like each other.