💰 Spain's glorious multicolour political pluralism
The country is as politically diverse in 2021 as it was during the Transition after Franco. No politician or party owns "Spain" or "Spaniards".
"Spaniards are fed up with the lies", Vox wrote in a tweet recently; "our next mission: to get Spain back". "Sánchez has abandoned Spaniards", announced the Popular Party spokeswoman. "Pablo Casado and the Popular Party are the first choice for Spaniards", the party tweeted. "The desire of Spanish men and Spanish women is to overcome this situation as soon as possible", said the Prime Minister in parliament. "There can be no democratic normality while the majority of Spanish men and Spanish women are not satisfied with the current democratic system", Podemos wrote. "We are patriotism without nuances", said Ciudadanos, "which does not divide Spaniards, but unites them."
All of them aspire to or are have already awarded themselves the voice, the wishes and the preferences of Spaniards. Every tweet, every press release, every gotcha answer in a television interview, every monologue broadcast live from parliament seeks to convince those Spaniards who are paying any attention that their vision of Spain is the one that fits best with the personal situation of that voter. They want your votes, even when there are no elections, and in 2021 they would also like citizens to become enthusiastic repeaters of party political slogans on social media and in local bars.
Depending on which political snakeoil salesman we are listening to at any particular moment, it can almost seem as if his vision of the country, the flag or political identity is the fairest; the problem he is urging us loudly to solve, the most important; or the enemy he is pointing at furiously as the evil being responsible for the nation's terrible situation, the culprit of everything. The reality, if we look at election results since the Transition, over the entire modern democratic period, is that in Spain there is more ideological diversity than ever, more options to vote for and more competition between parties for our attention and votes at the polls.
It is a glorious affirmation of the first point of the first article of the 1978 Constitution, which even comes before national sovereignty and before the monarchy: "Spain is constituted in a social and democratic State of Law, which advocates as the superior values of its legal system freedom, justice, equality and political pluralism".
💰 Subscribe now:
🔥 Understand the stories changing Spain better
📝 Access all the articles & 💬 Substack chat with Matthew
💪 Guarantee this independent reporting & analysis