Comment: the Podemos-Sumar implosion

I remember seeing the excitment on young Spaniards faces back on the first Monday in June in 2014, after years of mass unemployment following the global financial crisis. It was my birthday and I was travelling to Madrid on the train to report on an Economist or Bloomberg investor conference at the Casino in Madrid, where Rajoy and Guindos were trying to sell hundreds of billions in Spain bonds to global investors. Rajoy had that very morning announced the abdication of King Juan Carlos, just a week after Podemos had burst into Spanish politics with five seats at the European elections.

The Spanish establishment was properly shocked by the implications of those five far-left MPs in that political and economic context, hence the rush to abdicate and proclaim Felipe VI. In the evening, the Puerta del Sol filled to the brim with republican supporters clamouring for an end to the monarchy. Over the next few months, the anger and energy was channelled into an ever-larger Podemos snowball that threatened to overturn the dominance of the Socialist Party on the left and revolutionise Spanish politics, with Pablo Iglesias railing against the elites and promising to attack heaven itself if necessary, and surround Congress in the meantime.