The portal bez.es recently published an article from Yolanda Román titled “Everyone wants to be a social democrat”, which we share with you below:
“The emergence of Podemos in the political panorama comes accompanied by the new divide in Spain, new against the old, masterfully synchronized in the concept of “caste” in reference to what was previously known in the Spanish economy: bipartisianship of the PSOE and PP. In the collapse of the traditional right-left wing, it was suitably diluted thanks to the gradual depoliticizing of programs, message standardization and the growing personalization of campaigns. Podemos thought they found the winning formula to seize the disputing vote in this country.
The elections on the 20th of December were due to the apparent de-ideology – neither from the right or left wing-, to what also Ciudadanos counts, functioned to channel the votes from people who are angered, discontent or simply tired of traditional parties, but it was not sufficient to provoke a radical change in the Spanish political panorama. Six months later, the new electoral battle is present that is more polarized and was again raised in fair terms like a dispute between the left and right wing.
A country of ideologies
It is not that ideology has reappeared in Spanish politics like a ghost from the past; it is that it has always been there. For technical and electoral calculations from political marketing, the ideology has long been blurred in electoral campaigns. In Spain, the PP was the dominant right wing party, so that it was not needed to explicitly define its ideological space. To the left wing, the PSOE and Izquierda Unida have coexisted peacefully, gladly granting the latter the label “moderate” to the socialist left”.
[Continue reading here]
