LESS than a minute into his speech and Albert Rivera, the leader of Ciudadanos, a centrist party that has stormed the barricades of Spanish politics, is already speaking of reformas estructurales. Mr Rivera wants to liberalise Spain’s labour market, clean out the public administration and overhaul the tax system. These tough prescriptions do not look like vote-winners in a country that has been through the economic wringer. Yet Ciudadanos has risen from single digits in the polls a year ago to around 20% today, and is set to act as kingmaker after Spain’s unpredictable general election on December 20th (see article).

Like bronzed pensioners on the Costa Blanca, several political ideas are seeing out their last days in Spain. One of them is that liberals of Mr Rivera’s sort cannot thrive in southern Europe. Another is the prediction, often heard during the darkest days of the euro crisis, that the cuts countries like Spain had to endure would generate a devastating political blowback. Yet Spain’s ruling People’s Party (PP), helped by buoyant growth and jobs numbers, remains on top of the polls, albeit much weakened.

It is a similar story elsewhere in the euro-zone periphery. Ireland’s ruling Fine Gael hopes to win another term next spring on the back of a zippy recovery. Portugal’s centre-right government came first in October’s election, only to see a leftist alliance assemble a jerry-built coalition that will struggle to last a full term. In Greece Syriza’s anti-austerity resolve crumbled on its first encounter with the German-led imperium. Even in Italy, which has failed to grow since joining the euro, Matteo Renzi, the centre-left prime minister, is just about keeping a ragtag of populists at bay.

But it was in Spain, the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy, where the backlash was most feared. Unlike Greece, Ireland and Portugal, Spain (just) avoided a full bail-out. But its calamitous crash left over half of young workers unemployed. In January Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos, another political newcomer, addressed vast crowds in Madrid on the iniquities of austerity while his brother-in-arms, Alexis Tsipras, led Syriza to victory in Greece. Europe’s panjandrums feared the spread of political “contagion” from Greece across the periphery, starting in Spain.

What happened? A year later Mr Tsipras is dutifully executing the terms of Greece’s third bail-out, Podemos’s support has plummeted and Ciudadanos has waltzed through the door that Mr Iglesias prised open. In Ireland Sinn Fein, a party rooted in terrorism that has tried to reposition itself as the voice of anti-austerity, is slipping in the polls after once leading them. Today the populist momentum in Europe is with right-wingers, who have exploited the refugee crisis to tap into cultural as well as economic fears.

A number of factors explain the left’s struggle. In part, it is the difficulty of turning insurrections into political parties. Coalitions must be built and maintained, outrage transmuted into a policy platform. Podemos began life as a fusion of grassroots indignados and a cabal of hard-left political-science professors, and the fissures sometimes show: this year a gentle tack towards the centre has seen some senior figures quit in disgust. Sinn Fein’s dark history renders it toxic for many Irish voters. In August an anti-euro faction split off from Syriza.

Europe’s anti-austerians have also learned that their crusades are hard to conduct inside the euro zone, with Brussels supervising their every fiscal move. Grounded in internationalism, none of the new left populists wants to leave the single currency. Pablo Bustinduy, a Podemos candidate, says his party’s attacks on austerity go “hand-in-hand” with a pro-European message. But he is scathing about the austerian turn the euro zone has taken. The Europe that the new left professes to love often seems to be just an artefact of its imagination.

Despite this, the right is in no position to crow. European politics has not yet returned to its pre-crisis routines. Although Podemos’s standing in the polls has faded, Spain’s politics has fractured and Mr Iglesias’s support may turn out to be vital in forming a government (he has had a good campaign). In Ireland, Spain and Greece once-stable systems have become primaeval political soups from which all manner of governments may emerge. The left’s cause retains vitality: Podemos’s dedication, grounded in the suffering of the indignados, could yet prove more enduring than Ciudadanos’s clever but bloodless proposals.

Not barking, but growling

More to the point, Podemos’s anger could prove useful, even if its reheated socialism is no cure for Spain’s economic ills. The country’s corrupt politics were crying out for the disruption that both Podemos and Ciudadanos have brought. Young Spaniards were walloped by the crash, but the PP has pandered to the old: last week Mariano Rajoy, the unpopular prime minister, pledged to slash income tax for Spain’s pensioners. Little wonder, notes Jorge Galindo of Politikon, a Spanish website: the PP is polling first among voters over 65, and fourth among everyone else. This is not a strategy for the long term. Nor do the tired Socialists appeal to Spain’s disaffected young.

Despite the strong recovery, only 12% of Spaniards say they trust their country’s institutions—the lowest figure in the EU—and over one-fifth of the labour force remains jobless. Even those in work often struggle to pay the bills. The PP’s reforms have helped, but Spain is still a country stratified by age and status in which protected insiders enjoy secure employment and pension rights while young outsiders struggle to gain a foothold.

These conditions are ripe for any party that can credibly promise rupture and regeneration. Whoever takes office after Sunday’s election will face difficulties, starting with yet more austerity: Spain’s deficit remains the euro zone’s highest. Podemos will still have lots to talk about. But in debt-ridden, over-regulated, high-unemployment Spain the real challenges lie elsewhere. Time to get moving on those reformas estructurales.