Will Spain’s election finally end the country’s power vacuum?

The only surprise result in Spain’s repeat general election on Sunday – rendered necessary by the impasse produced by December’s – was the failure of the new Spanish left to nudge the Socialists out of second place. The radical-left coalition Unidos Podemos (‘United We can’), a combination of Podemos (We Can) and Izquierda Unida (United Left), was expected to increase its joint share of the votes and take second-place behind the Conservative Popular Party (PP), replacing Pedro Sanchez’s PSOE as the dominant force of the Spanish left. Instead it came in third place, taking 21.11 per cent of the vote and 71 seats. Everything else was almost an exact re-run of December’s inconclusive vote, prompting renewed fears of yet more self-centred and futile negotiations between the four main parties. The PP once again came out on top, marginally increasing its share of the vote to 33 per cent, up from 28.7 per cent in December, and its number of seats to 137 in the 350-seat parliament, up from 123.