The resulting draw — with each party winning roughly one-third of the vote — reflects a broad mainstream consensus in a country whose economy, buttressed by tourism, has rebounded strongly from the pandemic. Unfortunately, it also yielded a stalemate in which nationalists of a different kind, who would break up Spain by pursuing regional independence, are playing the role of kingmakers. That’s bad news for Madrid and good news for Moscow, which is actively trying to sow discord in Western countries.
Few countries are immune from the pernicious effects of identity politics, often arising from race or religion. In Spain, the wellspring is mainly regional, especially in the prosperous area of Catalonia whose bustling hub, Barcelona, is the country’s most visited city. Even though Catalan separatist parties control just 14 of the Spanish parliament’s 350 seats, they wield disproportionate power. With their support, Mr. Sanchez, prime minister since 2018, might cobble together a new coalition government, albeit a wobbly one, and remain in power. Without it, Spain could face an election redo later this year.
In the multiparty parliamentary systems prevalent in European democracies, where it’s rare that a single party wins an outright election-day victory, rivals are often thrust into post-election negotiations to form coalition governments. Political polarization has made consensus-building more difficult and identity politics compounds the problem.
Spain’s main parties on the left and right have relied in the past on alliances with smaller parties including regional blocs — Basques, Canary Islanders and others — that push for increased autonomy. But local leaders in Catalonia upped the ante a decade ago by embracing outright separatism and then, in 2017, organizing an illegal referendum on Catalan independence.
Since then, the leader of that referendum — Carles Puigdemont — has lived in Belgium as a fugitive from Spanish justice; he would face arrest on charges stemming from his role in the referendum if he returned to Catalonia. Nonetheless, Mr. Puigdemont still leads the more uncompromising of the two small Catalan parties in parliament. It is his backing that Mr. Sanchez and an allied left-wing party need to form a new government.
For now, there is political paralysis in Spain, a poor state of affairs for the fourth-largest economy among the European Union’s 27 member states. Mr. Puigdemont’s demands are unreasonable — not only amnesty for hundreds of mayors and other officials in Catalonia who backed the referendum (as well as, presumedly, himself), but a second, blatantly unconstitutional shot at voting for Catalan independence. No Spanish head of government or court would support that.
King Felipe VI has formally invited the center-right People’s Party, the top vote-getter in the elections, to try to form a government. But the PP, as it is known, has virtually no chance of recruiting the support of separatists given its alliance with Vox, which vehemently opposes regional autonomy, let alone independence. And without Vox, even in its diminished form, the math does not work for the PP to assemble a majority in Spain’s 350-seat parliament.
The clamor of separatist regional nationalism in Spain is not just divisive; it’s also a distraction from larger problems. “Instead of discussing labor markets or how to fight climate change — a real threat to the tourism sector — or how to ensure good-quality lodging or affordable health care, we’ve had identity politics in the form of nationalist regional debates that have limited the ability to address important issues,” said Arancha Gonzàlez Laya, a former Spanish foreign minister who is dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po, a leading French university.
Spain is a broadly successful country that built a vibrant democracy to overcome the bitter legacy of fascism, tyranny and intolerance under…
Read More: Opinion | Spain is held hostage by a faction of breakaway regional extremists