The Breakdown of the Spanish Two-Party System: The Upsurge of Podemos and Ciudadanos in the 2015 General Election

Abstract

The 2015 general election marked the end of the two-party system that had existed in Spain since the restoration of democracy. Two new parties, ‘Podemos’ and ‘Ciudadanos’, entered the national arena for the first time and together obtained 34.6 per cent of the vote. This paper describes this election’s context and electoral results by analysing the individual determinants behind the change to the Spanish party system. The results indicate that economic factors predominantly explain the votes for the traditional parties, the PP and PSOE. On the other hand, political factors help distinguish why some voters remained ‘loyal’ to the traditional parties and others switched to the new formations. While Podemos switchers were mainly politically disaffected left-wing voters, electoral support for Ciudadanos came from younger and ideologically moderate voters who had lower levels of political trust.

Keywords:

• 2015 general election
• voting behaviour
• Podemos
• Ciudadanos
• electoral change
• PP
• PSOE

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the two reviewers of this article, José Ramón Montero, Pablo Simón, and the editors of South European Society and Politics for their useful comments. We would also like to acknowledge the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for its financial support through the project CSO2013-47071-R (PI: Mariano Torcal) and those behind the panel survey CIUPANEL (Torcal, Martini & Serani 2016), used in this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Except Andalusia, governed by the PSOE; Asturias, governed by the FAC (Foro Asturias ‒ Asturias Forum) and the Basque Country, Catalonia and Navarre, governed by the nationalist parties PNV (Partido Nacionalista Vasco ‒ Nationalist Basque Party), CiU (Convergència i Unió – Convergence and Union) and UPN (Unión del Pueblo Navarro ‒ Navarrese People’s Union).

2. The Effective Number of Electoral Parties (ENEP) was 4.1 in 1989, 3.5 in 1993, 3.3 in 1996, 3.0 in 2000, 2.9 in 2004, 2.8 in 2008, 3.3 in 2011, and 5 in 2015.

3. In fact, Ciudadanos took part in the 2008 general elections (and Albert Rivera headed the list for Barcelona), although it obtained only very modest coverage and a poor electoral result (0.18 per cent of the votes). Also DiL (Democràcia i Llibertat ‒ Democracy and Freedom) and the regional coalitions of Podemos were contesting for the first time.

4. In the provincial districts of Catalonia, Galicia and Valencia, Podemos formed electoral coalitions with regional movements. In Catalonia, the coalition ‘En Comú’ (In Common) obtained 12 seats, and became the most voted for party in the region. In the four Galician districts, Podemos formed a coalition with the ‘En Marea’ (In Tide) movement, obtaining six seats and becoming the second party, below the PP. Finally, the ‘Compromís ‒ Podemos ‒ És el moment’ (Commitment ‒ We Can ‒ It is Time) coalition in Valencia ended up as the second party in the region with nine seats, also below the PP. These confluences combined Podemos’ left-wing and democratic regeneration with a more pro-devolution and plurinational agenda.

5. The first 2015 election debate was organised by Demos, a student organisation at the University Carlos III of Madrid on 27 November. Only Pablo Iglesias (Podemos) and Albert Rivera (Ciudadanos) accepted the invitation. It was the first time that an election debate had taken place in a university. The second debate was organised by El País on 30 November. The newspaper invited the candidates from the four main parties but the incumbent Mariano Rajoy again declined the invitation.

6. See Marí-Klose (2015) and Rodríguez-Teruel and Barrio (2015) for a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of the electoral results of Ciudadanos before the general election.

7. DiL was the electoral brand of CDC (Democratic Convergence of Catalonia- Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya), the principal member of the CiU (Convergence and Union ‒ Convergència i Unió) federation. CiU was dissolved a few months before the election due to discrepancies between the members of the federation.

8. The survey was part of a research project financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (CS02013-47071-R), and was directed by Mariano Torcal, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. The survey is also part of the European Election Study, directed by Hermann Schmitt, from the Universities of Mannheim and Manchester.

9. The index is constructed using three items based on trust in parliament, in politicians and in political parties (all using a 0–10 scale). A principal component analysis reveals that there is only one factor with an eigenvalue greater than 1.0 (Kaiser criterion).

10. For reasons of space we do not report the AMEs of the remaining variables of the model, but those interested can find them in Figure A1 in the Appendix.

11. In this alternative model, left-wing voters (values zero, one and two on the ideological scale) were more likely to vote for Podemos than those of the centre-left (values three and four). Results available upon request.

12. The first wave, with a sample of 3,916 respondents, was implemented during the weeks before the EP elections. The final wave was carried out a few weeks after the 2015 general election, with 2,639 respondents.