The most striking and perhaps also the most important thing about the results of this week’s Spanish general election was something that did not happen. In defiance of some predictions, there was no populist uprising in Sunday’s poll, whether from the right, the left or the regions. Instead, the clear winner in a complex multi-party and regionally diverse contest characteristic of modern Spain was one of the two parties which have dominated the country since the return to democracy in the 1970s: the centre-left PSOE socialists of Pedro Sánchez.
The socialist victory was not absolute, but by recent standards it was clearcut. It will be keenly watched around Europe. It is a reminder that, in some parts of Europe, the social democratic centre-left retains the capacity, as it also currently does in countries as diverse as Finland and Portugal, to win elections by offering socially inclusive improvements to the status quo.
Continue reading...from US news | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GRk6sT
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