Parliamentary Elections in Spain The Weakening of Two Party System

Abstract

On 28th April 2019 parliamentary elections were held in Spain, which won the left-wing Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party. As a result of the elections the party system, which was characterised by the dominance of two main political forces (the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party and the People’s Party) continued to transform significantly. The People’s Party suffered one of the worst election results during the three decades of its history, which could be explained by the strengthening of Ciudadanos and the emergence of the radical political force, Vox.
It must be noted that neither the left-wing, nor the right-wing political parties succeeded gaining absolute majority (176 mandates) in the Congress of Deputies. Taking into account of the division of political sphere and the ideological differences among the parties, it will probably take a long time until the main political forces can strike a compromise to form a coalition government in the Iberian country. This requires mutual concessions by the Spanish political elite.
Besides the evaluation of the antecedents of parliamentary elections the objective my paper is to analyse the peculiarities of election campaign, but I will also highlight which factors played crucial role in the transformation of the party system in Spain. In my essay emphasis will be given to the different scenarios as regards negotiations for constructing a stable government. Because of length constraints, I will not deal with the foreign affairs- and economic policy of the socialist government.