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Spain: Forward Andalusia relaunched as home of Andalucist left

Dick Nichols — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 15:00:00 +1000

Following betrayal and expulsion, Forward Andalusia has regrouped and relaunched, reports Dick Nichols.

In Spain, the far-right enters Andalusian parliament as left voters abstain

Julian Coppens — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 14:00:00 +1100

In regional elections in Andalusia on December 2, the outgoing government of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) was defeated after 40 years in power. Defeat came at the hands of a fractured yet radicalising right and high levels of abstention on the left.

Catalan referendum: resisting the Spanish government siege

Dick Nichols — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 10:00:00 +1000

In 1713-14, it took the troops of Spain’s Borbon monarchy 14 months to take Barcelona and end Catalan self-rule. Three centuries later, Catalonia is again under siege, this time from the central Spanish People’s Party (PP) government.

Under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish state is concentrating all its firepower on stopping the Catalan government’s October 1 independence referendum, where Catalan citizens will be asked to vote on whether “Catalonia should become an independent state in the form of a republic”.

Spain: Debate erupts in Podemos after first deal to join a PSOE government

Dick Nichols — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 10:00:00 +1000

On September 26 last year, Podemos’s Castilla-La Mancha secretary-general Jose Garcia Molina said that his party’s agreement keeping the regional Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) government in office in the autonomous community had “died of depression and shame”.

Spain: Socialist Party leader’s shock rebirth unnerves establishment

Dick Nichols — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 10:00:00 +1000

The plan had seemed so well organised.

Its first stage was executed on October 1 last year when the ruling elite of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) got the party’s Federal Political Committee (FPC) to force the resignation of general secretary Pedro Sanchez.

Podemos MEP Miguel Urban: 'We need an alternative project of disobedience to austerity'

Stuart Munckton — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 10:00:00 +1000

Two major anniversaries recently marked the significant change that has taken place on the Spanish left in the last several years.

May 15 was the sixth anniversary of the Indignados mass mobilisations and protests against the brutal austerity unleashed by Spanish government in the wake of the economic crisis. Meanwhile, May 25 marked the third anniversary since the emergence of Podemos as the political voice of the anti-austerity movement with the election of the five Podemos candidates (including key leader Pablo Iglesias) into the European Parliament.

New Catalan left force represents a hurdle cleared on the road to unity

Dick Nichols — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 10:00:00 +1000

The struggle to build a united left force with enough support to implement real social and environmental change took a crucial step forward in Barcelona on April 8.

On a bright spring day, the new Catalan “political subject” provisionally called Un Pais En Comu (“A Country Together”) held its founding congress.

The group, whose definitive name will be decided by membership referendum, is the third Catalan left unity project with “en comu” (“together”) in its title.

After congress win, Podemos’s Iglesias promises ‘return to the streets’

Dick Nichols — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 11:00:00 +1100

In the end, the expected close result never happened. At the second congress (“citizens’ assembly”) of Spain’s radical anti-austerity party Podemos, the proposals and candidate list of outgoing general secretary Pablo Iglesias easily defeated those of his rival, outgoing political secretary Inigo Errejon.

In a December Podemos membership vote over the rules that were to govern the congress, Iglesias’s position had only won marginally (41.57% as against 39.12% for Errejon’s).

Spain: Podemos at the crossroads

Denis Rogatyuk — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 11:00:00 +1100

The left-wing anti-austerity party Podemos is planning to hold its second country-wide citizens’ assembly (Vistalegre II) on February 11th-12th to decide the political direction, organisational structure and its electoral strategy for the next regional and general elections.

Spain: Left strengthens in Podemos internal vote

Denis Rogatyuk — Sun, 20 Nov 2016 11:00:00 +1100

Spanish anti-austerity party Podemos held a series of internal elections over November 7–9 throughout seven regions across Spain — Madrid, Andalusia, Extremadura, La Rioja, Castilla y Leon, Navarra y Aragón — and 12 different cities.

The elections were centred around the positions of the general secretaries in each region and territory, as well as the Autonomous Citizens’ Councils that form an integral part of the relatively new party’s political direction and organisation.

Installing a right-wing government, Spain's PSOE deepens its own crisis

Dick Nichols — Sat, 05 Nov 2016 11:00:00 +1100

In the end, on October 29, it all worked out rather well for Mariano Rajoy. After patiently implementing his motto that “all things come to he who waits”, the leader of the conservative People’s Party (PP) was that day confirmed as Spain’s prime minister for a second four-year term.

Normal operations were apparently resumed in the institutions of the Spanish state after 10 months of turmoil arising from the inconclusive general election results of December 20 and June 26.

Spain: Podemos and United Left launch alliance ahead of new vote

TeleSUR English — Tue, 10 May 2016 10:00:00 +1000

Spain's anti-austerity party Podemos and older left-wing party United Left announced on May 9 that they had reached a preliminary agreement to run on a joint platform before Spain's new general election on June 26.

Spain: Left falls short in poll amid new deadlock

Dick Nichols — Sun, 03 Jul 2016 10:00:00 +1000

The key question about the result of the June 26 Spanish general election is also the most difficult to answer: why did 1.09 million people — who in the December 20 elections voted for the anti-austerity party Podemos, the United Left (IU) and the three broader progressive tickets Together We Can (Catalonia), Podemos-Commitment (Valencian Country) and In Tide (Galicia) — not vote for the combined Podemos-IU ticket (United We Can) and these broader tickets at this poll?

Spain: With Podemos and United Left joining forces, is a left government in sight?

Dick Nichols — Fri, 27 May 2016 10:00:00 +1000

Five months after the December 20 election in Spain failed to produce a government, the country is returning to the polls in the most polarised contest since the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1977.

Spain: Left knocking at the door

Dick Nichols — Sun, 19 Jun 2016 10:00:00 +1000

The Spanish and European establishments have just days to stop the advance of the progressive electoral alliance United We Can in the June 26 general elections in the Spanish state. How are they doing? As matters stand, not well. United We Can, formed in early May, brings together new anti-austerity party Podemos and the longer-standing United Left (IU), as well as broader coalitions in Catalonia (Together We Can), Galicia (In Tide) and Valencia (A La Valenciana).

Basque leader banned from elections

Kerry Smith — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:00:00 +1000

Basque independence activist Arnaldo Otegi has been banned from running as a candidate in an upcoming regional election in the Spanish-controlled Basque Country. An electoral authority ruled on August 24 that Otegi, who was released from jail in March, could not run as a candidate for left-wing Basque party EH Bildu due to a conviction of alleged links to terrorism.

Spain: Podemos lawmakers hold hunger strike for refugees

Stuart Munckton — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 10:00:00 +1000

Four lawmakers from Spain's far-left Podemos party and its allies are participating in a week-long hunger strike to try to rally public support for refugees. The lawmakers began their hunger strike on April 16 and called on people to occupy public squares for 24 hours on April 22, the day their actions end. The hunger strike is a gesture of support for those people at the center of Europe's biggest migrant crisis since World War II. Twenty-four hour assemblies were planned for a dozens cities on April 22.

A tale of two days in the Spanish state -- Podemos-PSOE war intensifies as Basque leader freed

Dick Nichols — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 11:00:00 +1100

All media outlets in the Spanish state were dominated by the images of two men on March 1: one was leaving jail near the northern city of Logrono to the cheers of inmates he was leaving behind; the other was trying to convince the Spanish parliament in Madrid to vote him in as prime minister.

Spain: Amid tangle over new government, Podemos 'threat' sends establishment into frenzy

Dick Nichols — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 11:00:00 +1100

Since Spain's December 20 elections produced no clear majority, debate has raged over what sort of government should be formed. The governing conservative People's Party (PP) won 123 seats in the 250-seat Congress and the right-populist Citizens won 40. On the left, the main opposition Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) won 90 seats, while radical anti-austerity party Podemos and the three alliances in which it took part together with nationalist forces won 69.

Spanish state: December elections challenging left and right

Dick Nichols — Sun, 25 Oct 2015 11:00:00 +1100

Podemos activists The December 20 elections in the Spanish state will attract the usual large field of runners. Challengers will represent every imaginable position along the Spanish state's two main political dimensions — the left-to-right social axis and the axis of national rights. This second dimension reaches from the centralism of the ruling People's Party (PP) to the pro-independence stance of various Catalan, Basque and Galician parties.

Podemos surge shakes Spanish political system

Dick Nichols — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 11:00:00 +1100

What was the central message of the December 20 Spanish general elections, which was “won” by the governing conservative People's Party (PP) of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy with only 28.72% of the vote, 3.6 million votes less than the last national poll in 2011? Why did the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) greet its worst ever result —22.01%, 1.4 million votes less than 2011 — with a sigh of relief?

Spain: Can left's economic plan reverse austerity?

Dick Nichols — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 10:00:00 +1000

United We Can. United We Can — the united ticket made up of Podemos, the United Left, the green party Equo and three broader alliances in Catalonia, Galicia and the Valencian Country — is campaigning in the June 26 Spanish general elections on a plan to reverse economic austerity.

Spain:‭ ‬Left breakthroughs sends elites into shock

Dick Nichols — Fri, 29 May 2015 10:00:00 +1000

It was clear early on that something special was happening in the May‭ ‬24‭ ‬local government and regional elections across the Spanish state.‭ In Spanish elections,‭ ‬the voter participation rate gets announced at‭ ‬1pm and‭ ‬6pm‭ — ‬while voting is still taking place.‭ ‬Well before the polling stations closed,‭ ‬the news was that participation was up about‭ ‬5%‭ ‬in Catalonia and about‭ ‬8%‭ ‬in the working-class districts of Barcelona.‭

Spain: Congress backs monarchy, exposes crisis of legitimacy

Dick Nichols — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 10:00:00 +1000

An old truism says that in periods of crisis, politics speeds up. That is being strikingly confirmed in the Spanish state after the June 2 abdication of King Juan Carlos. So too is its corollary ― that institutions that seemed solid and long-lasting suddenly look out-of-date and fragile.

SYRIZA win provokes new confrontations

Dick Nichols — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 11:00:00 +1100

What does the victory of radical left party SYRIZA in Greece's January 25 elections mean for politics in Europe, at Europe-wide and national levels? Both levels are closely intertwined, and since SYRIZA’s win have been having rapid feedback effects on each another. Across Europe, the reverberations of SYRIZA’s win are being felt with rising force, both in “peripheral” Europe, but also in the German-led European Union “core”.

Rise of left gov'ts pose need for popular power

Eric Toussaint — Sat, 14 Mar 2015 11:00:00 +1100

Experience proves that left-wing movements can win government, but nevertheless not hold power. Democracy, in other words the exercise of power by the people and for the people, requires much more. The problem is now being faced in Greece with with radical left party SYRIZA, which won elections in January. It will have to be faced in Spain if the new anti-austerity party Podemos wins November elections.

Alexis Tsipras slams austerity in EU speech

Stuart Munckton — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:00:00 +1000

Members of the European Parliament show support for Greece against its creditors. "This debate is not exclusively about one country," said the Greece's left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in a speech to the European Parliament on July 8. "It is about the future of our common construction."

Left activist Ada Colau wins Barcelona mayor, traditional parties lose support across Spain

Peter Boyle — Sun, 24 May 2015 10:00:00 +1000

Popular left-wing activist activist Ada Colau has won Barcelona's May 24 mayoral elections. Running on the ticket of Barcelona Together, which united several left groups and grassroots activists, Colau came first with 25% of the vote.

Spanish elections: History made as pro-Basque coalition formed in Navarre

Duroyan Fertl — Fri, 26 Jun 2015 10:00:00 +1000

Regional elections held in Spain on May 24 installed an historic pro-Basque state government in the Basque autonomous community of Navarre for the first time. It ended 16 years of rule by the pro-Spanish, centre-right Navarrese People's Union (UPN). The UPN won only 15 seats, down four from 2011. Its ally, the right-wing Spanish People’s Party (of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy), won two, half of its quota in 2011.

Spain:‭ '‬Popular unity‭' ‬councils sworn in amid huge enthusiasm‭

Dick Nichols — Fri, 19 Jun 2015 10:00:00 +1000

The squares in front of scores of town halls across the Spanish state were jam-packed with enthusiastic crowds on June 13. Tens of thousands had gathered to celebrate the inauguration of progressive administrations elected in a leftward swing in the May 24 local government elections for Spain’s 8144 councils.