Spain begins to vote as Rajoy confronts Podemos in ballot

Spain’s acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy votes in Spain’s general election

Spaniards began voting yesterday in the second election in six months as the U.K. decision to leave the European Union adds to the uncertainty as the nation seeks to break a political deadlock.
About 37 million voters are eligible to cast ballots with polls open until 3 a.m. [Macau time].
Polls are signaling no single party will win a majority. Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose party is on track to win the most seats, is seeking a showing strong enough to persuade rivals to offer the support he needs to stay in office.
As European leaders try to come to come to grips with an unprecedented crisis – anger over immigration and economic malaise rattled EU governments before helping to trigger Brexit – Spain has its own problems. The country’s next premier will have to rein in the euro region’s second-biggest budget deficit while dealing with a 20 percent unemployment rate that’s four times that of the U.K.
“Brexit is far from a one-off: it’s part of a wider European scenario in which populism is on the rise,” said Jose M. Areilza, a professor at Esade business school in Madrid and a former government adviser on European affairs. The next prime minister will need to push to make the EU appear more caring, “especially for those who feel they’ve been left behind,” he said.
Rajoy’s People’s Party is on track to win as many as 120 seats in the 350-member parliament, according to a Gesop survey published by El Periodic d’Andorra on Saturday. That’s down from 123 in December and would be the party’s worst result since 1989, according to the survey, which was conducted from June 22 to June 25.
Podemos is running neck-and-neck with the Socialists, the PP’s traditional rivals, for second place. Podemos, formed in 2014, could win as many as 87 seats, as many as the 137-year-old Socialist party, according to Gesop. In December, the Socialists had 90, compared with Podemos’s 71. Ciudadanos, the pro-market party that emerged alongside Podemos in December, is seen maintaining its 40 seats.
On Friday, all four main candidates ended their campaigns with a final plea to voters after a roller-coaster week dominated by the Brexit decision and leaked recordings that appeared to show a minister asking an official to help him dig up dirt on political rivals.
Rajoy said his party was the only force that could guarantee a stable, moderate government and urged voters to put aside their ideological differences. Pablo Iglesias of the anti-establishment party Podemos told Spaniards they have an historic chance to replace the old, failed politics of the past.
The prime minister set out his commitment to reviving the economy, keeping the Catalan independence movement in check, promoting EU integration and defeating terrorism.
“Vote for the PP because we’re the only ones that can win the election and continue this path,” he said.
Amid a global Brexit selloff on Friday, Spanish assets took a beating. The extra yield investors demand to hold Spanish 10-year bonds instead of safe-haven German securities jumped 31 basis points to 168 points, the highest in two years, while Spanish stocks slumped 12 percent.
The prime minister has struggled to get his message across in the final days of campaigning as the media focused on the  leaked recordings of acting Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz discussing potential evidence against Catalan separatists. That story reminded voters of the long list of scandals involving the government.
“This is historic, but a little shameful at the same time because of the ineffectiveness of our politicians,” Pablo Frias, a 39-year-old Madrid resident, said minutes after voting.
Spain has been without a proper government since December’s election, when the collapse of support for traditional parties and an established policy consensus produced political deadlock in parliament. A new generation of leaders is demanding sweeping reforms to address the flaws in Spain’s labor market, its education system and, perhaps most importantly, the checks and balances on its politicians. Esteban Duarte and Maria Tadeo, Bloomberg