Podemos: η ισπανική νέα αριστερά

Abstract

The unexpected appearance of Podemos in the Spanish political scene after the European Parliament elections in May 2014 was perceived as a clear signal about the consequences of the political management of the financial crisis. It has also been presented as a new chance for renewing the left‐wing proposals after the collapse experienced by the social‐democrats of PSOE after 2011 elections. Last but not least, this sudden irruption intensified the public debate about the continuities and disruptions with a somehow static political landscape between 1986 and 2012. The ideological connections of Podemos with grassroots movements as the ones fuelled during the 15 May social protests are evident; even they are still requiring a deeper analysis in order to find not only the connexions but also the discrepancies between processes that are not always following the same logics and principles: Podemos is not the 15 May, even they are trying to crystalize the social collective action into a classical political alternative available to the citizenship (Lobera, 2015). Consequently, this brief article aims to shed some light under a political party that can be seen, to some extent, as an innovative experiment in a rather institutionalised field of play. In order to do so, we will present evidences coming from the electoral behaviour of the Spanish citizenship in the very last years, discussing them with certain key points of the strategy displayed by Podemos in order to achieve their ambitious goals. To conclude, the imminent context of the 2015 general elections forces us to provide some reflections that can be useful to critically observe the campaign, the results and the upcoming political cycle in Spain.