Tag Archive for: Spain

In 2024, a global anti-incumbent election wave

In a year in which political incumbents around the world were either voted out of office or forcibly removed from power, one statement, repeated in various forms by Mohammad Al Gergawi, the United Arab Emirates’ minister of cabinet affairs, stands out: ‘The role of government is to design a future which gives citizens hope.’ Looking ahead to 2025, political leaders should take this message to heart and shift their focus from constant crisis management to crafting a bold, hopeful agenda.

The global anti-incumbent wave has been breathtaking. In March, Senegalese President Macky Sall was decisively defeated after trying and failing to postpone the presidential election. In June, the African National Congress, which had ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid, lost its majority for the first time in three decades, forcing the party to form a coalition government. The same month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party also lost its parliamentary majority.

This trend continued through the summer and fall. In July, the Labour Party won Britain’s general election in a landslide, ending the Conservative Party’s 14-year rule. In October, Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority for the first time since 2009. Then, earlier this month, Michel Barnier became the first French prime minister to be ousted by a no-confidence vote since 1962. A few days later, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a vote of confidence, paving the way for an early election, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fired his finance minister, plunging his country into political uncertainty.

Other established leaders were ousted by popular uprisings. In August, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country aboard a military helicopter as protesters stormed her official residence. And Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was forced to flee to Russia after his regime collapsed in December.

Why are incumbents losing? One possible explanation is social media. Studies have shown that increased internet access often erodes trust in government and deepens political polarisation. In the United States, for example, Democratic and Republican-leaning voters have become increasingly polarised, with each side becoming more deeply entrenched in its partisanship.

Social media fosters connection between people who consume similar content, reinforcing their worldviews and amplifying the psychological effect known as ‘conformity’. Social media algorithms act as powerful megaphones for simple, emotionally charged messages, making these platforms fertile ground for conspiracy theories and fearmongering.

But while early evidence suggests that social media bolsters support for far-right populists, recent election results show that this is not always enough to gain power. In Mexico, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Britain, Japan and South Africa, incumbents or other mainstream parties won, albeit significantly weakened.

Consequently, one clear takeaway from this historic election year is that governments must learn to use social media more effectively. A good place to start is to engage directly with voters’ concerns. Earlier this year, two advisers to Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer visited the town of Grimsby in northeastern England and asked residents to describe the government in one word. The responses they received mirror what I have heard in many other countries: ‘irrelevant’, ‘authoritarian’, ‘distant’, ‘elitist’, ‘inaccessible’, ‘self-serving’, ‘unambitious’, ‘untrustworthy’, a ‘joke’.

Another major takeaway is that to restore trust, leaders should focus on economic growth and citizens’ empowerment. A comprehensive 2022 study of the political economy of populism highlights strong evidence that economic conditions, such as rising unemployment and cuts to social spending, have a profound impact on people’s views of government.

This helps explain why voters in Spain and Greece in 2023 and in Ireland this year chose to re-elect incumbent leaders, while French voters rejected the ruling party. In 2022, Spain’s economy grew by 5.7 percent and Greece’s by 6.2 percent. By contrast, in Germany, which will hold an early election after the government lost a parliamentary no-confidence vote, the economy shrank by 0.3 percent in 2023 and is expected to contract by 0.1 percent in 2024. France fared slightly better, with GDP projected to grow by 1.1 percent this year, after growing by 0.9 percent in 2023.

Beyond boosting short-term economic growth, political leaders must consider the future they are offering their citizens. Too many politicians’ and policymakers’ plans are limited to annual budget cycles and focused largely on cuts. Meanwhile, voters—grappling with rising living costs, post-pandemic austerity and a pervasive sense that they have lost control over their lives—need leaders who give them reasons for hope.

Budgetary constraints should not be an excuse for failing to envision a better future. Some of the boldest government initiatives have been conceived during times of economic hardship. Notable examples include US President Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, Britain’s postwar welfare state, Dubai’s post-1958 infrastructure boom and Singapore’s rapid development after 1959.

Political leaders must draw inspiration from these bold programs and be more ambitious in addressing the root causes of their citizens’ frustrations. The good news is that every country and community has creative individuals, in both the private and public sectors, whose work requires them to think ahead and plan for the future. Leaders must identify and reach out to such visionaries, who are rarely included in policy discussions, and leverage their expertise.

A politics of hope is essential to restoring faith in democratic institutions. In Grimsby, local residents said they longed for a politics that is ‘realistic’, ‘meaningful’, ‘passionate’, ‘hopeful’, and ‘empowering’. A government that can fulfill these aspirations will prove itself worthy of its citizens’ trust.

Spain dodges a far-right bullet

‘Spain is different’ is a phrase that has often been used as a substitute for nuanced analysis of developments in the country. But Spain truly was different in its peaceful transition to democracy after the end of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship—which coined the cliché—and the sweeping modernisation that followed. It was also different for not having a far-right party contending for political power—a status it seemed to be losing but has now managed to reclaim.

While many European countries—including Austria, France, Germany and most of Scandinavia—have long struggled to contain their respective proto-fascist parties, Spain’s centre-right People’s Party (PP) succeeded in integrating remaining Francoist forces, thereby diluting their influence. That changed in 2014, when Santiago Abascal founded the Vox party, whose neo-Francoist agenda quickly drew significant support: five years later, Vox won 52 seats in Spain’s parliament.

A few days ago, Vox appeared to be on the cusp of another milestone: becoming the first far-right party in Spain’s government since the end of Franco’s regime. Polls suggested that, in last Sunday’s snap election, voters would reject Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s fractious left-wing coalition in favour of the PP—Spain’s main conservative opposition party—which would surely need Vox’s support to take office.

Instead, the PP gained fewer seats than expected, leaving it with 136 total, and Vox lost 19 seats. Together, the two parties didn’t secure the 176 seats needed to form a majority, and the PP has no natural allies beyond Vox to augment a potential coalition.

To be sure, Sánchez’s Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and its coalition partner Sumar also fell short—the current governing alliance, which also includes Podemos, now holds only 153 seats—leaving Spain with a hung parliament. But the PSOE may well be able to regain power by securing the support of the regional nationalist parties of the Basque country and Catalonia. In other words, the PP appears to be out of options, and the PSOE does not.

How did Sánchez manage to eke out another chance at leading Spain? For starters, he has a relatively strong economic record. Despite its lavish social policies, the outgoing government managed to tame inflation, bring down endemically high unemployment and foster steady growth. GDP expanded by 5.5% in both 2021 and 2022, making Spain one of the eurozone’s best-performing economies. While lower growth can be expected this year, due largely to the effects of the Ukraine war, Spain still appears to be on track to outperform most of its European counterparts, with the Bank of Spain predicting 2.3% growth.

Of course, Spain’s economic situation is not all rosy. Unemployment remains at 12.7%—one of the highest rates in the European Union—though real unemployment is probably lower, since many workers may be making a living in the undeclared economy. Moreover, like in the rest of Europe, homebuyers and owners with mortgages are under severe pressure, owing to high interest rates.

The second reason why Sánchez is in a stronger position than his opponents is more fundamental. The snap election was framed as a kind of Kulturkampf, a war of values between Catholic conservatism and progressive laicism.

The right mobilised support by accusing Sánchez of attacking the traditions and values they hold dear, such as by expanding abortion rights, introducing progressive laws upholding transgender rights and passing the ‘only yes means yes’ law on sexual consent. Vox, by contrast, denies the very existence of gender-based violence.

The right also condemned Sánchez’s efforts to purge Spain of the remnants of Franco’s legacy. Sánchez’s government ordered the transfer of Franco’s remains from the Valley of the Fallen mausoleum to a humbler location, and enacted a law to deliver ‘justice, reparation and dignity’ to Franco’s victims.

Sánchez’s camp, for its part, warned that a PP–Vox coalition would lead Spain into a new era of darkness and division reminiscent of 1936–1939, when the country was torn apart by a civil war triggered by Catalan and Basque separatism. It is telling that the party that has built a better relationship with separatist forces now has a better chance of governing.

In fact, Sánchez’s government actively sought to restore the central government’s relationship with Catalonia’s separatists, which had been severely damaged during the PP-led government in 2011–2018. To this end, Sánchez pardoned Catalan independence leaders who had been jailed for conducting an illegal referendum on independence in 2014 and downgraded the crime of secession of which they had been accused.

Sánchez also worked with Catalan and Basque separatist parties to pass key reforms. Much to the conservatives’ anger, he even made deals with Bildu, whose leader Arnaldo Otegi was jailed in 2010 for complicity in the crimes of ETA, the now-dissolved Basque terrorist organization.

Nonetheless, these parties won’t back a new Sánchez government for free. Their demands—for example, a binding referendum on self-determination in Catalonia—might even turn out to be prohibitive. They would certainly infuriate Spain’s right. A new Sánchez-led government with the support of these parties would thus be highly controversial, and could open a new, volatile and dangerous chapter in Spanish politics.

Spain’s leaders should consider pursuing a grand coalition and a broad political agreement to update some of the constitutional premises upon which the country’s quasi-federal system was built. Rather than flirting with the division of the civil war period, such a coalition would embody the spirit of conciliation, consensus and statesmanship that characterised the early years of Spain’s transition to democracy.

Whatever happens next, Spain can be trusted to navigate it. The philosopher José Ortega y Gasset once wrote, ‘Spain is the problem; Europe is the solution.’ The Spanish have taken that to heart, acting as some of the most ardent defenders of the European project since joining the then European Communities in 1986. A deeply held belief in European values continues to unite Spaniards of most political persuasions. The illiberal model that has taken root in Hungary and Poland has few buyers in Spain.

The resilience of Spanish democracy

The idea that ‘Spain is different’ drove generations of romantic travelers across the Pyrenees to see for themselves, their imaginations stirred by visions of vibrant women and charming bandits. But Spain is no longer just the defiant fist on the hip of Bizet’s cigar-making Carmen. Despite the attention now focused on the Catalonia region’s secession bid, Spain now stands out among Western democracies in a few critical—and positive—ways.

Spain’s unique character can be seen in its response to terrorist attacks. In the United Kingdom, the 2005 London bombings resulted in additional legal curbs on individual and group liberties. Likewise, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States drove a series of changes to surveillance laws that made it easier for the government to spy on ordinary Americans, not to mention the Global War on Terror, which continues to wreak havoc in the Middle East.

By contrast, after the March 11, 2004, bombings of Madrid’s train system, which left nearly 200 dead, an ‘alliance of civilisations’ arose in Spain to disarm extremism by building bridges with Islam. This tolerant attitude towards the country’s Muslim minority endures to this day, despite another attack in August, on La Rambla, in the heart of Barcelona.

It also seems to be reflected in Spanish politics. While recent elections in virtually all other European countries have featured strong showings by far-right populists—Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) being the latest to make major gains—Spain (and neighbouring Portugal) have remained seemingly immune.

Today, Spain enjoys considerable economic dynamism, with one of the highest growth rates in Europe. But, in recent years, it has suffered economic pain and skyrocketing unemployment, which reached 27% in 2013. According to conventional wisdom, the combination of economic hardship and immigration is a recipe for Euroskepticism and xenophobia.

Yet neither of the two major political forces that have emerged in Spain in recent years, Ciudadanos and Podemos, has so much as a whiff of right-wing authoritarian tendencies, or anti-European bombast. Indeed, Ciudadanos is a centrist, business-friendly party; Podemos represents discontented urban middle-class youth with a left-leaning ideological profile. Both are vocally anti-racist and pro-immigrant.

Spain’s resilience to far-right populism probably has deep historical roots. The country took shape during the Middle Ages in a dialectical process of interfaith relations, and its integration into the European Union stemmed from an overwhelming consensus on the need to suppress the ghosts of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, following his death in 1975.

Of course, the memory of dictatorship does not always suppress nostalgia for quasi-fascist experiments. Recollections of military rule in the 1970s haven’t curbed the rise of the far-right Golden Dawn in Greece; nor has the memory of Admiral Miklos Horthy’s quasi-fascist regime in interwar and World War II-era Hungary impeded support for Viktor Orbán’s illiberal, xenophobic regime. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Front is the child of the Vichy experiment, and in Germany, the AfD has overcome the legacy of Hitler.

The absence of such political nostalgia in Spain may be explained partly by the fact that a brutal three-year civil war preceded the establishment of Franco’s dictatorship in 1939. That experience nurtured a strong pacifist sentiment among the Spanish public, which endures to this day. Some 90% of Spaniards—more than any other Western population—opposed the Iraq War, which their government supported.

Spain’s unique resistance to right-wing populist forces may also reflect the nature of Spain’s transition to democracy after Franco’s death. Conservative groupings, whose origins lay in Francoism, actually served as vital building blocks of Spain’s democracy. Some, like the now-ruling People’s Party (PP), have over time shifted towards the center to become more typical conservative European parties, much like the UK’s Conservatives or Germany’s Christian Democratic Union.

Crucially, the PP has made this move without losing voters who lean further to the right—the kind of voters who presumably would lead a backlash of right-wing populism. This differs sharply from the experience of the 1930s, when moderates’ failure to attract a large enough share of the Spanish right fueled deepening polarisation and, ultimately, civil war.

This is not to say that Spain is a utopia of social unity. On the contrary, the country is now confronted with a major challenge, as domestic forces—in particular, the would-be separatists of Catalonia’s autonomous regional government—attempt to dismember the country. Yet the PP has staunchly defended Spanish unity, dismissing Catalonia’s independence referendum as unconstitutional and deploying police to stop the vote from taking place (at times in lamentably brutal ways).

The message is clear: the conflict in Spain is among natives, not against non-natives. And, indeed, though immigrants represent about 10% of Spain’s population, immigration is simply not a contentious issue anywhere in the country—perhaps partly because a large share come from Latin America, and thus share cultural and linguistic traits with indigenous Spaniards. The absence of any backlash against the one-third of Spain’s immigrants who are Romanians and Moroccans probably reflects their low visibility in society.

Even as other European conservatives have flirted with anti-immigrant posturing in an attempt to stave off populist threats, Spain’s PP has done no such thing. Meanwhile, its European credentials are strong. In a country where, according to an Elcano/Demos study, only 10% of the population would want to leave the EU—compared with 22% in France and 45% in the UK—this is unlikely to change.

For Europeans, Spain now represents a different kind of fantasy than in days past. It demonstrates that, even as a country’s ethnic composition changes, as it faces terrorist attacks and a deep recession, it can resist the siren song of extremism.