Sunday’s election is expected to put an end to the dominance of two parties and see big gains for Podemos and Ciudadanos – here’s all you need to know

Spain heads to the polls on Sunday to elect all 350 members of its lower house, the Congress of Deputies, and most of the Senate (208 of 266 seats). The vote is expected to put an end to more than three decades of political duopoly.

Background

Since Spain’s transition to democracy at the end of the 1970s, general elections have been dominated by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) or the centre-right People’s party (PP) and its earlier incarnations.

The only exceptions were the first two votes held after Francisco Franco’s death, in 1977 and 1979. Both saw the now-defunct Union of the Democratic Centre win minority administrations. At the last election, in 2011, the PP won 44.6% of the vote and an outright majority of 186 seats. The PSOE suffered the worst defeat for a sitting government in 30 years, losing nearly 4.5 million voters.





How Spain’s political landscape has changed dramatically

The country’s economy, the fourth largest in the eurozone, was in a deep recession until 2013, with the unemployment rate peaking at 27% and exceeding 50% among young people. The financial crisis went hand in hand with a property crash that saw hundreds of thousands of homes repossessed.

The recovery has until recently been lacklustre. Unemployment remains above 20% and is forecast by the IMF to still be at 16% in 2020, well above the pre-crisis rate of 8.5%. Moreover, there are 2.5 million unemployed workers who have been out of a job for so long that they are no longer entitled to any form of state support.

This explains why, despite a recent drop in support, the anti-austerity party Podemos continues to poll well into double figures. The leftwing party, led by Pablo Iglesias, was only founded in January 2014 with the goal of translating Spain’s indignados protest movement into a more structured citizen-led political formation.

Just five months later it won 8% of the vote and five MEPs in the European parliament elections. Podemos now holds more than 100 seats in regional parliaments, while candidates associated with the movement won mayorships in Madrid and Barcelona this year.

A second party to have followed a similarly spectacular trajectory is Ciudadanos. It is led by Albert Rivera, Spain’s most popular political leader and, at 36, its youngest. Ciudadanos is not a new party; it was founded in 2006 in Catalonia with the primary purpose of opposing Catalan nationalism. But since announcing that it would field candidates nationwide, support for it has rocketed.

The rise of Ciudadanos and Podemos The rise of Ciudadanos and Podemos

The liberal pro-EU movement has been particularly apt at winning support from voters disillusioned with the PP and a string of corruption scandals that have engulfed Spain’s two main parties through the years. Although many shared Podemos’s diagnosis they didn’t share its solutions, and in Rivera’s party they have found an alternative.

Centre party Ciudadanos throws Spanish election results into question Read more

Of further interest on Sunday will be the support for regional parties, especially in Catalonia where separatist parties won a majority of seats this spring.

What do the polls say?

The two main parties, PP and PSOE, which traditionally win a combined 75-80% of the vote, are polling below 50%.

Although support for prime minister, Mariano Rajoy’s, PP has increased in recent weeks on the back of improved economic figures (GDP is now growing by more than 3%), the party is expected to fall well short of the 176 seats needed to win a majority.

Kiko Llaneras (@kikollan) Mi estimación de escaños a partir de encuestas y 15.000 simulaciones (12/12/15) https://t.co/EG2vDupmiv pic.twitter.com/6L2VC5gukD

If these numbers were replicated on Sunday, the most likely outcome would be a government supported by deputies from PP and Ciudadanos.

However, publishing new polls is banned in Spain during the final week of the campaign so any late shifts in mood will be missed. The final set of figures before the ban came into place showed support for Podemos trending upwards, while Ciudadanos’s momentum appeared to be slowing.

Kiko Llaneras (@kikollan) Así queda el promedio de todos los sondeos públicos antes del 20D. pic.twitter.com/KKKaHP2f4n

PP is expected to emerge as the largest party, but the order in which PSOE, Ciudadanos and Podemos stack up behind the Rajoy’s party - and how their votes are distributed geographically – will matter greatly.

In May’s regional elections for example, the PP was the largest party nationally but it lost control of half its regional administrations to left-leaning alliances.

Spain's indignados could rule Barcelona and Madrid after local election success Read more

How does the election work?

Members are elected to the congress in 50 multi-member districts using proportional representation. Each district is home to at least two members, while 248 seats are allocated among the 50 provinces in proportion to their respective populations.

Lists that win less than 3% of the ballots cast are excluded from the distribution of seats in the region where they fail to meet the threshold.

Ceuta and Melilla elect one member each using plurality voting. As a whole, Spain’s electoral system tends to disproportionately favour larger parties in each province.

Voter turnout in 2011 was 68.94%, lower than in the two previous elections (2008 and 2004) when it exceeded 75%, but not too far off the historical trend.



How to follow developments on election day

The Guardian will be liveblogging the election, detailing the results as they come in on Sunday evening; all related coverage will be here. Our Spain correspondent, Ashifa Kassam, tweets at @ashifa_k.

Polls open at 9am and close at 8pm. Exit polls are expected once polls close, while official results are published by the ministry of interior here.

