ANTONIO ESTELLA - Spain: A political tsunami called ‘Podemos’
“They do not represent us”. This was Podemos’ rallying cry during the last European Parliament election campaign of May 2014. “They” are the “cast”, a word that is now part and parcel of the Spanish political vernacular. “Us” is the people.
The cast is the Spanish establishment: that group of politicians and top businessmen which, according to Podemos, have ruled the country for the last 25 years. One of the main unintended consequences of the Spanish transition to democracy, as it were. Its main paradigmatic illustration is revolving doors: a systematic mechanism where politicians that occupied key positions in past governments came to take up important posts in the boards of the Spanish so-called “Ibex 35” (the crème de la crème of Spanish international business corporations, formed above all by financial entities and housing and real estate companies).
The examples abound: both former PMs Felipe Gonzalez and José María Aznar are members of the boards of two important Spanish companies. There are also exceptions: the only living Spanish former PM who is not a member of any big company´s board is Zapatero. But the list is not confined to almost all former PMs: it would also extend to former ministries, secretaries of state, directors general, and so on and so forth. This is information that everyone--the people--knows in Spain. And this is one of the main reasons why Podemos´ impact has been so powerful. The problem was how to bell the cat. Podemosdid.
In the last European Parliamentary election, Podemos obtained 5 seats. This outcome was completely unexpected. No opinion poll had foreseen such good results. Since then, an element of the Spanish political and economic elite, aided in this by a non-negligible portion of the country´s intelligentsia, has declared war on this emerging political movement. Podemos has been accused, one after the other, of populism, warlordism (“caudillismo”), messianism, and of being Marxists, Leninists and anarchists at the same time. Even Felipe González has joined in the fracas, stating that the movement is formed by a bunch of “regressive utopians”.. read more:
