Spain's Hard Left Fails to Unite Before Snap Election
MADRID — Spain's hard-left parties on Saturday, October 17, presented separate candidate lists for a snap election after talks on a nationwide pact collapsed, reducing Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's chances of staying in power at the head of a leftist coalition. Spain's electoral system disadvantages smaller parties running separately, particularly in less populous provinces, where fewer seats are available.
The Broad Front, a platform comprising several parties represented in the minority government, and the other main hard-left party, Podemos ("We Can"), had been publicly arguing over the leading positions on joint candidate lists for the November 29 election in Madrid and Barcelona, the largest constituencies. Long-standing animosities between former comrades-turned-rivals did not help. "These past few days have been very difficult ... some people will be disappointed today, and for that I am sorry," Ada Colau, the former Barcelona mayor and leader of the Broad Front, said at her platform's launch event in Madrid.
Podemos, whose lead candidate is former equality minister Irene Montero, had proposed open primaries to determine candidates' positions on joint lists. The Broad Front refused, arguing there was too little time, and wanted its own preferred candidates to lead the lists in Madrid and Barcelona. Podemos then made a separate pact with the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), which favours Catalan independence. (GSM, based on Reuters reporting)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 马德里众议院。Congress of Deputies, Madrid. Photo by tawa, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
