New parties shake Spain’s political system in local vote

Voters punished Spain’s mainstream political parties in local elections Sunday as many people switched their allegiance to new parties that campaigned on a promise of change amid chafing austerity policies, high unemployment and political corruption scandals.The governing conservative Popular Party and the main opposition Socialist Party — which have alternated in government for nearly four decades — surrendered control of some city halls and regional governments.

We would have liked the decline of the old parties to have been quicker. But circumstances compel us to keep working on it.

Pablo Iglesias, the leader of We Can.

Meanwhile, the radical leftist We Can group and business-friendly Citizens party, grass-root organizations which began operating on a national level just a year ago, were the third and fourth most popular parties in a landmark result. That could leave them holding the balance of power in local governments. The elections, for seats in more than 8,100 Spanish town halls and 13 of 17 regional parliaments, were seen as a barometer for scheduled national elections in the European Union’s fifth-largest economy at the end of the year.

Spain isn’t the first southern European country to witness a shift in the political center of gravity since Europe’s debt crisis prompted governments to slash spending on such cherished budget items as public health and education.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy

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