Spain has a new name in the electoral race for 29 November: Miriam González Durántez announced on 10 October her candidacy for the general election at the head of Democracia21 (d21), a newly created party that will make its debut only in Madrid and Barcelona, with plans to expand across the country in future contests at the ballot box.
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3 Comments
This is a good move following the collapse of the Citizens Party as there is a sizeable chunk of the electorate that would wish to vote for a centrist party. If this new party can achieve just 3% in Madrid it will gain a member of parliament – should be quite straightforward as Citizens attracted into double figures before deciding not to stand in 2023.
I just hope this new party is not so hardline against allowing progress on the Catalan question – there must be a way of allowing a democratic route to achieve a political goal in any country that calls itself a democracy.
As Jana mentions, it wasn’t the Spanish electoral system that ultimately hobbled Ciudadanos, rather it was down to the strategic choices made by the leadership – in April 2019, the party effectively finished in a dead heat with the Partido Popular, and as the kingmaker in a hung parliament, it faced the choice of whether to cooperate with the Socialists or turn to the right. Ultimately, Albert Rivera gambled that he could wipe the PP off the table, doubled down on anti-autonomist rhetoric, and ended up only strengthening both his rivals and Vox, who could better utilise megaphone diplomacy. Any liberal party in Spain would have to take a plurinational approach, organised on a regional basis, and respectful of the Catalan, Basque and Galician cultures.
The liberal party seeming so similar to the larger right-wing parties that voters decided they might as well vote for the latter. Where have we seen that before?