For Reme Castrejón, a teacher in Madrid, the fact that Spain’s political parties have still not reached an agreement after an inconclusive general election almost two months ago is little short of infuriating. “It’s worrying and pathetic that politicians are wasting a lot of time talking without reaching any sort of agreement, and worrying that no one seems willing to give ground on anything,” she says.

Over in Barcelona, Eva Mazo, an art director, is just as unforgiving. “I think Spanish politicians are showing a lack of political and democratic maturity in being unable to form a coalition,” she says. “Democracy arrived late in Spain.” Indeed it did, and it has been tested to its limits since the election on 20 December yielded a deadlocked parliament.

On Thursday, Spain will clock up 60 days without a government, and all eyes are now on the Socialist party (PSOE) leader, Pedro Sánchez, who on 2 March hopes to be sworn in as the nation’s seventh prime minister since democracy was restored in 1978. But if Sánchez fails to win the necessary support, fresh elections will be called on 26 June. By then, the country will have been rudderless for 189 days.

Sánchez, with 90 seats, needs the support of the anti-austerity Podemos party as well as the small United Left. This would give him 161 seats, still short of the 176 required for a majority, a gap that, in theory at least, could be bridged by Basque and Catalan MPs.



Podemos, though, has put a high price on its support, demanding a binding referendum on Catalan independence in an attempt to push Sánchez’s PSOE further towards the left. This is a big stumbling block. The Socialist leader is also negotiating a possible coalition with the centre-right Ciudadanos party, the preferred option of the PSOE party hierarchy, to whom power sharing with Podemos is anathema.

Pablo Iglesias, leader of Podemos. Photograph: Javier Lizon/EPA

Plucked from obscurity to become party leader in 2014 after PSOE’s poor showing in the European parliament elections, Sánchez, 43, has been dismissed as a lightweight with a pretty face but little political nous. Born into a middle-class, socialist family in Madrid, he has the smooth-shaven look of a rising young executive, a far cry from his elderly, bearded predecessor Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. His politics could be summed up by his recent comment: “We are the left that attracts the centre”.

It does not go down well with all voters. “I get the impression that a lot of work has been done on Sanchez’s image but when I listen to him he doesn’t seem to have any ideas,” says Mikel Mejir, a Basque researcher in Barcelona. Castrejón is also unimpressed. “Podemos have been quite puerile of late,” she says. “As for Sánchez, he seems weak to me. Looks good but not much substance.”

Despite the scepticism, the Socialist chief is proving more astute than many expected in the electoral gridlock, fending off both the backstabbers in his own ranks and the demands of possible coalition partners.

On the constitutional issue, he declared a few months ago that “Spain is a great nation, indivisible and plural”. Podemos does not want to break up Spain either but it has a strong base in the so-called “historic nationalities” of Galicia, the Basque Country and Catalonia, all of which want to see changes in their constitutional status.

In Catalonia, however, the call for a referendum may not prove the vote-winner it was only a short time ago. The region is split equally down the middle on the independence issue and a referendum is unlikely to be decisive.

The secessionists are aware of this and have stopped calling for one. Instead, they are using their slim parliamentary majority to create parallel institutions of an independent state. The plan is to declare independence within the next two years and, as they intend to bypass Madrid altogether, have no pressing need to prop up a PSOE-Podemos coalition, nor any other.

So just how long can Spain stumble on without a government? “Maybe we should learn from countries like Belgium, which functioned just fine without a government for two years,” says Mejir.

“If we have six months without a government the tourists will come anyway and exports won’t be harmed,” says Alfredo Pastor, an emeritus professor of economics at IESE Business School. “Clearly a lot of public investment is at a standstill and some external investment will be delayed, though not much. It also means we don’t have a voice in Europe at the moment but I don’t think six months without a government will cause that much damage.”