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ELECTION

ANALYSIS: Where did it all go wrong for Spain’s radical left party Podemos?

Far-left party Podemos, which just four years ago took over major city halls across Spain, suffered a humiliating defeat in Sunday's local, regional and European elections, a victim of internal disputes.

ANALYSIS: Where did it all go wrong for Spain's radical left party Podemos?
Pablo Iglesias has faced calls to resign after the hammering on Sunday. Photo: AFP

The party lost almost all of the mayorships it won in 2015 along with other far-left groups, and captured just 10 percent of the vote in the European elections, compared with 14.3 percent during an April 28th general election.    

At the same time the triple polls strengthened acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialists, which placed first in the European elections and won the most votes in 10 of the 12 regions that voted on Sunday.

The results undermined Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias's wish to form a coalition government with the Socialists, which won last month's general election while failing to reach a majority in parliament.

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“He is too weakened to demand Pedro Sanchez give him ministries,” Carmen Lumbierres, a political science professor at Spain's Open University UNED, told AFP.

Speaking Monday, Iglesias said “it is obvious that these results are not good”, though he still hoped to join a coalition.   

“We most be conscious of what we weigh and try to form a government,” he said.

Podemos has just 42 seats in Spain's 350-seat parliament, down from 71 before the April vote.

In the last municipal elections, Podemos – or parties under its umbrella – swept to power in the cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza, La Coruña and Cádiz.

But this time round the only mayorship left it the hands of a radical left party linked with Podemos is in Cadiz, José María González,  affectionately dubbed Kichi, will have a second term as mayor.

In the regional vote, Podemos made huge losses, dropping a total of 70 seats across all the regions that voted.

In the regional parliament of Madrid, Podemos lost a whopping 20 seats, winning just seven seats this time round compared to the 27 in 2015 – the blame for the losses can be firmly placed at the door of Iglesias's former deputy turned rival, Íñigo Errejón who stood as a candidate with the Mas Madrid party. 

European trend

Podemos's collapse mirrors a European trend of declining support for far-left parties.

The European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL), which goups leftist parties in the European parliment, won just 39 seats in this year's European elections, down from 52 previously.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras plans to call for early polls after his far-left Syriza party — a Podemos ally — was trounced in European and local elections on Sunday. 

In Madrid, incumbent mayor Manuela Carmena who was elected in 2015 on a citizen platform backed by Podemos, won the most votes on Sunday but still lacks a majority.

She will most likely be replaced by the conservative PP candidate, Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida if he is backed by the centre-right Ciudadanos and far-right party Vox parties.

In Barcelona, incumbent Mayor Ada Colau, a former housing activist backed by Podemos, lost to a Catalan separatist Ernest Maragall.   

Podemos-backed mayors also lost in Zaragoza, La Coruna and Santiago de Compostela.

Many were victims of divisions over strategy that have plagued the party for the past two years.   

In Madrid and Zaragoza, Podemos members presented competing lists.   

“Podemos was a victim of an overdose of Game of Thrones,” wrote Enric Juliana, deputy director of Barcelona-based daily La Vanguardia, in an analysis of the party's results.

Many Podemos voters have become disenchanted with the party because it has not remained faithful to the new style of participatory politics that it initially promised to implement, said Lumbierres.

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PROPERTY

Why Spain is unlikely to ever ban foreigners from buying property

After several regions around Spain have attempted to bring in limits on property purchases by foreigners, members of Spain's government coalition have even started floating the idea of an outright ban at a national level.

Why Spain is unlikely to ever ban foreigners from buying property

In recent years several regions around Spain have attempted to put limits on foreigners buying homes and clamped down on tourist rentals. These are mainly in areas traditionally popular with foreigners, and many have become places with highly inflationary property markets.

In 2022 Canary nationalist political party Nueva Canarias demanded the regional government address the large number of property purchases by non-residents in the archipelago, and even suggested a limit on the number of properties that can be bought by foreigners altogether in the popular holiday islands.

READ ALSO: Will Spain’s Canary Islands limit sale of properties to foreigners?

Property prices have surged across Spain in recent years, sparked in part by an influx of post-pandemic purchases by foreigners, as well as tourist accommodation geared towards wealthy remote workers and digital nomads pushing up rental prices and pricing out locals. Increasingly, landlords will buy properties with the aim of converting them into Airbnbs, thus removing them from the pool of available (and affordable) housing stock for locals.

This comes after Spain’s other archipelago, the Balearic Islands, also started this same debate in November 2022, with the regional Senate agreeing to discuss solutions.

In the two decades from 2000-2020, the islands’ population grew by 50 percent – rising from 823,000 to 1,223,000 inhabitants. Around a third (32.67 percent) of property purchases in the Balearics are made by foreigners, and of those 57.4 percent are residents, while the remaining 42.6 percent are non-residents.

National ban?

But it’s not just a regional issue. In 2024, the debate rumbles on in parts of Spain particularly affected by foreign home owners and members of the Spanish government are even proposing similar measures at a national level. Though, it should be said, no policy has been decided on yet, and any move such as a ban (in whatever form, on whatever type of property) or even a limit would likely face fierce opposition from the main opposition parties, notably the centre-right Partido Popular (PP).

Sumar, the far-left junior coalition partner in the Spanish government, has even gone as far as proposing a three year ban on the purchase of housing by investment funds and non-residents in Spain.

This was recently outlined in a (for now) non-legislative proposal that was presented to the Spanish Congress’ Housing Commission. It was roundly rejected with the vote of, among others, its coalition partner in government, the Socialists (PSOE). That’s not to say the PSOE is totally against the idea, however.

Socialist Minister for Housing Isabel María Pérez said of the plans: “We agree on the philosophy of the proposal, but with nuances,” she said. “We have submitted an amendment but we think it will not be accepted, so we will not be able to support this bill,” she added.

So, from that we can take that the junior partner in the Spanish government wants to ban non-residents and investment funds from buying property in Spain, and the senior partner (Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s party, no less) supports the principle but not the practicalities.

READ ALSO: Spain’s new housing minister vows to protect second homeowners

The argument against

Clearly, non-resident foreigners buying up property in Spain, particularly in its space starved archipelagos, contributes to price inflation, saturates the market, and plays a role in pricing locals out of their own neighbourhoods.

However, it’s not that simple. Clearly, there is a difference between a non-resident foreigner buying a holiday home (perhaps to rent out as tourist accommodation for half the year) and a resident foreigner buying property to live in.

READ ALSO: How important are foreign second homeowners to Spain?

This difference has, for now, been reflected in proposed limits at both the regional and national level, rather than outright bans.

However, foreign home owners in Spain also make a huge contribution to the Spanish economy. In 2022 foreigners with a second home in Spain contributed €6.35 billion to Spanish GDP and generated more than 105,000 jobs in the tourism sector, according to the study “The economic impact of residential tourism in Spain” done for the Spanish Association of Developers and Builders (APCE) by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

The financial contribution made by these second-home owners in Spain is clearly significant. In fact, experts point out that the money brought into the Spanish coffers by foreign homeowners even outstrips some major industries.

“The contribution of residential tourism to GDP is triple that of the textile industry, double that of the timber industry and the same as the manufacture of pharmaceutical products in Spain,” Anna Merino, director of the Economics team at PwC, said when presenting the study. Every euro spent by ‘residential tourists’ adds €2.34 to Spanish GDP. On top of this direct contribution to the Spanish economy, the surrounding economic activity associated with the spending generated 105,600 full-time jobs in 2022.

So, there’s clearly an economic argument against banning foreign property purchases completely.

In the case of the Balearic Islands specifically, the proposals have met some opposition. The Balearics, which generates 35 percent of its GDP from tourism, according to figures from Caixa Bank, has long been a holiday or second-home hub for wealthy foreigners.

On this point, right-wing Popular Party member Sebastià Sagreras suggested in the regional parliament back in 2022 that conflating the foreign-buyer property market with local shortages is unhelpful, adding that the properties bought by foreigners, often worth more than a million euros, “do not compete” with those that cost €200,000 or €250,000 and are largely bought or rented by national residents.

Is it even legally possible?

Denmark, Malta and the Aland Islands in Finland all have restrictions on how non-resident foreigners can buy properties in their territories. However, they introduced these before entering the EU and these limits were factored in and accepted by Brussels. For Spain to do this, it would be much more difficult.

For local authorities in both the Balearic and the Canary Islands it could prove difficult to go against the EU’s legal principles of the free movement of people and capital, experts say.

This means that other potential solutions may be needed. Though there doesn’t seem to be a national level ban on foreigners from buying properties in Spain anytime soon, several regions have been attempting to do it for a couple of years, at least for non-residents, and even the national government is beginning to try and do something about it.

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