Spain gripped in deadlock to form govt.: Academic

Press TV has interviewed Jaume Castan, an assistant professor at the University of Southern Denmark from Odense, on the failure of Spanish Socialist party’s bid to form a coalition government.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: This political gridlock or deadlock is continuing. How do the things stand now? Where does Spain go from here?

Castan: My initial remark is that this is an unprecedented crisis in Spain. Ever since the so-called restoration in democracy in 1977-1978, Spain has been characterized by bipartisan politics, characterized by absolute majorities by ...

And what we have now is a different situation, a situation where the parliament is much more plural with the arrival of new parties such as Podemos and such as Ciudadanos.

Now, at the moment we are in a situation, it can be qualified as a guardian not because it seems that Spanish policy-makers cannot escape this deadlock, as you very well mentioned earlier on.

I’ve remembered last week when I was speaking for Top 5, I anticipated that despite its pomposity this agreement between the Socialist and Ciudadanos was bound to fail.

I also predicted that it was going to antagonize the former allies of the Socialist, the left-leaning Podemos Party and indeed it has antagonized this party and this coalition has also antagonized the Catalans, because let’s remember that even though with the centrist party Ciudadanos is a diehard anti-Catalan nationalist party.

So, now a couple of factual remarks where are we at the moment. Today this coalition will fail to reach 176 Members of Parliament and on Friday they will fail to reach a simple majority.

As a result of that it is very likely that on the 2nd of May we will not have an alternative candidate. And as a result of that we will end up on the 26 of June having new elections.

What is the fascinating fact about these new elections on June the 26th that’s those apparent new elections on June 26 is that the results, surveys tell us they will be very similar to what we have at the moment and that means that Spanish policy-makers will waste the next few months to get to a point, which is very similar to the point, where we are today.

And in the meantime, let’s not remember the Spanish crisis continues and so there’s the Catalan challenge. Let’s remember that the Catalan government is following with its secessionist roadmap in order to disconnect themselves from Spanish institutions.

So, let’s say that the Spanish government cannot afford, let’s say, the luxury of having a deadlock government, of not having a government.