Podemos and Ciudadanos Shake up the Spanish Party System: The 2015 Local and Regional Elections

Abstract

With a very high unemployment rate but at the first stage of a timid economic recovery, Spain held regional and local elections in May 2015. The election results showed the fall of traditional parties and the emergence of new forces and citizens? platforms, which increased the fragmentation of the party system. The PP (Partido Popular ? Popular Party) continued to be the most voted-for party but post-election agreements brought the left to power in eight of the 14 regions that held elections, ending four years of conservative general dominance. After commenting on the context, the campaign and the results of the elections, this article explores the main characteristics of the new party competition and examines the profile of those voting for new political alternatives

The Populist Political Communication Style in Action: Podemos’s Issues and Functions on Twitter During the 2016 Spanish General Election

“…The eruption of Podemos has significantly changed the Spanish political landscape (Orriols and Cordero, 2016;Rodon and Hierro, 2016). This new populist party has contributed to the breakdown of the Spanish two--party system, which was constituted by antagonistic bipolarization (Sampedro and Seoane, 2008) (Gainous and Wagner, 2014) and try to set the agenda for and influence public debate and opinion.…”

Mediating the contributions of Facebook to political participation in Italy and the UK: the role of media and political landscapes

“…Campante et al (2013) confirm that the influence of the Internet on citizens' political participation can change because of the activity of an online grassroots protest movement, as the M5S was in its early form, which takes advantage of digital technologies to engage disenchanted and demobilized citizens-a similar process was observed in Spain with Podemos which capitalized on the electorate's dissatisfaction with Spanish politics (Rodon and Hierro, 2016) and adopted digital media and networks, integrating them with local offline activism and television (Chadwick and Stromer-Galley, 2016), to engage and mobilize supporters. The Internet is the M5S's major organizational and communication tool (Bordignon and Ceccarini, 2013), with the blog beppegrillo.it operating as their main house organ (Tipaldo and Pisciotta, 2014).…”

The 2015 Catalan Election: The Independence Bid at the Polls

“…The parties Downloaded by [University of Lethbridge] at 03:16 23 June 2016 ICV-EUiA, Podemos and Equo (a small state-wide green party) created the pre-electoral coalition CSQP. This movement was inspired by the Barcelona en Comú (Barcelona in Common -BC) coalition created before the 2015 local elections (Rodon & Hierro 2016). BC, led by a well-known activist from the movement against housing evictions, Ada Colau, won the election in Barcelona with a leftist political platform and arguing for the referendum option, but only after both the Catalan and the Spanish institutions agreed to organise it.…”