Who’s Who in the Spanish General Elections

On April 28, Spain will go to the polls to elect the thirteenth Cortes Gen­erales (Spanish Parliament) to decide who will become the next leader of the Kingdom of Spain. It will be the third general election in four years. Anticipation is running high in the run-up to the election, as there are new politicians and political alliances that could change the face of the European panorama. What’s more, everyone wants to know who the new leaders of this beautiful Mediterranean country will be. If you’re new to Spanish politics, here’s a brief breakdown of the main players going up for election.

Santiago Abascal, Vox

Let’s begin with the youngest and most mysterious of Spain’s political parties: Vox. You’ve probably heard much speculation about this Andalusian party, that took everyone by surprise when it won 12 seats in the regional elections in December 2018. Vox is an ultra-conservative party being advised by Steve Bannon—Trump’s former chief strategist and advisor to many other successful right wing populists across the globe, including Jair Bolsonaro, Matteo Salvini and Marine Le Pen. If it wins seats in the Spanish Parliament, it will be the first time that a far-right party has done so in the short history of Spain's young democracy.

Vox’s president, Santiago Abascal, was previously part of the Partido Popular (more on it later) in the Basque Country, where he and his family grew up besieged by the environment of terror created by the Basque separatist group ETA. Abascal’s new party seems to be tightening its grip on the right of Spanish politics, and it’s an indication that the rising tide of right-wing populists across Europe has made its way onto the Iberian Peninsula.

Pablo Iglesias, Unidas Podemos

On the other side of the political spectrum, an option for voters on the left in Spain is Pablo Iglesais and his party Unidas Podemos (United We Can, under its new pro-feminist rebranding). Podemos, as it is generally known, was once the darling of the European left, winning international recognition for its incredibly positive and successful campaign in Spain’s 2015 general election. However, things have rather gone downhill since then. Iglesias and his party are not in the best of health at the moment; various struggles have arisen for control of Podemos, resulting in major splits and an internal crisis. Iglesias has been absent from the beginning of the electoral campaign on paternal leave, and with his leadership of Podemos being widely questioned by critics, he will have to quickly demonstrate his political skill and stature in order to overcome the bad forecast that the polls predict.

Albert Rivera, Ciudadanos

Of all the current leaders of Spain’s political parties, Albert Rivera has been around the longest. His party, Ciudadans (Citizens or Ciutadans in Catalan) was born in Catalunya with the objective of fighting against Catalan nationalism. However, it has since risen to national prominence and Rivera is now one of the great political forces in Spain’s Congress of Deputies. The so-called “Orange Formation” will try to find votes in the ideological center of Spanish politics—a space which has become a void in so many places across Europe— by incorporating politicians and policies from both the left and the right.

Pablo Casado, Partido Popular

Another candidate vying to become the next president of Spain is the Leader of the Opposition, Pablo Casado. With a promise to push a conservative social agenda and hold a hard line against Catalan independence, the young politician became president of the Partido Popular (the Popular Party often referred to simply as PP) following its primary elections in July 2018. In recent years the party has been gripped by a series of grave crises. Following former President Mariano Rajoy’s mismanagement of Catalan nationalism and the exposure of a string of corruption scandals which go to the heart of his party, there was a vote of no confidence called in May 2018 and Rajoy was relieved of office. The party is still tainted by the spectre of these mistakes, and they are burdens which Casado will have to face head on if he wants to get a good result in the forthcoming election.

Pedro Sánchez, Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE)

Finally, we come to Spain’s current president, Pedro Sánchez, leader of PSOE (the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party). Sánchez has an unconventional political history; he was at one point considered politically defunct after an unceremonious defenestration from the leadership of the PSOE in 2016. However, he made a remarkable comeback the following year to become leader of his party once more, gaining more than 50% of the vote in the party’s 2017 primaries. In a bold and unanticipated political move, it was Sánchez who filed the motion of no confidence against Rajoy’s government in May 2018. He won the support of Basque nationalist and Catalan independence parties to ensure the coup was successful, and has been President of Spain since. Well, for the moment at least...

After the defeat of his budget plan in Congress (the PSOE is actually a minority government with only 84 of the 350 seats), Sánchez was forced to call a snap election. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing for Sánchez and the PSOE; he currently looks like the election’s favorite candidate and most polls predict it will be Sánchez who remains the leader of Spain after the coming election.

What About Catalunya?

What influence will Catalan politics play in Spain’s general election in 2019? In years past, no Catalan politician has headed any of the major parties vying for the top position. While no President of modern Spain has ever been born in Catalunya, this region has previously wielded significant enough clout to serve as a king-maker (or President-Maker). Skilled Catalan negotiators have been known to extract favorable agreements during back-room dealings, whilst major political parties coldly calculated bitter-sweet political alliances.

Can voters and politicians from Catalunya influence Ciudadanos or PSOE? Well, as the saying goes, “Politics makes strange bed-fellows.” Or, have the deep divisions across the Catalan political spectrum over the independence movement left Catalan political parties far too impotent to exercise their coalition building cards in Madrid? We shall have to wait and see. Whatever happens, Spain’s 2019 general election is sure to be a fascinating political event for all those living here, whether you can vote in it or not.

Live Debate

All five candidates will participate in a debate on April 23 moderated by the journalists Ana Pastor and Vicente Vallés. Atresmedia will broadcast the debate through their principal medial channels on television, on the radio via Onda Cero and online through Atresplayer.