ISSUE NO. 1590
EWN
24 - 30 December 2015
COSTA BLANCA SOUTH
YOUR PAPER, YOUR VOICE, YOUR OPINION
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A political revolution with no change? NO overall majority demands new alliances By Linda Hall Alicante Province expatriates were only onlookers in the weekend’s general elections. Even those living here for decades had no say in choosing the politicians who will represent them in the national parliament in Madrid until the next elections come round. Some of those politicians are old hands, like Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo (pictured centre), Foreign Minister in Rajoy’s previous government and who headed the list of candidates for the Partido Popular (PP) in Alicante. His party was the most-voted-for in the province and will send 11 MPs to Madrid after bringing in 71,000 more votes than last May’s municipal and regional elections. But the outlook is less than rosy for Margallo and his fellow MPs from the PP party. Nationwide the party has lost almost half of its seats, the majority of them to brand-new parties Podemos
and Ciudadanos, who have never been present in the national parliament. No party has an overall majority and without inter-party alliances, the PP cannot form a government. In Alicante Province the PodemosCompromis alliance is hot on the PP’s heels with three MPs in the national parliament. The PSOE socialists have another
thre e w hile C iuda da nos ha ve tw o. Practically the same story played out in e ve ry Spa nis h re gion e xc e pt Cataluña and the Basque Region where Podemos was the most-voted-for party. Negotiation and dialogue were noticeably absent during the last legislature but these are now the only option to calling another election early next year.
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