2015-05-21

Social Mood and the Fourth Turning

Generation X is rising in Spain and negative social mood is accelerating the political shift to younger politicians.

Spanish political renegade poses threat to dominant parties
Painful austerity has dented Spanish living standards, generating disillusionment with both Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party and its rival Socialists, which have alternated power since the fall of the Franco dictatorship in the 1970s. Voters are gravitating to renegades such as Rivera's business-friendly Ciudadanos, or Citizens, as well as the hard-left Podemos (We Can) Party, putting them virtually level in opinion polls with the traditional political heavyweights.

Rivera's party entered the national political race only five months ago — having until then been a key voice of Spanish unity in the independence-minded Catalonia region. But in this short time it has captured Spain's imagination with its brash talk that the political elite are a dinosaur-like class ripe for an electoral thrashing. By the end of the year, Rivera looks set to take on the role of political kingmaker.

"It's a new political era in Spain," Rivera told The Associated Press in an interview at the Catalan Parliament in Barcelona, where he serves as a lawmaker in between campaigning around Spain. "The latest opinion polls are giving a technical tie to the four parties and we'll see whether that's true or not. But at the very least, the political map is going to change substantially."

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