{"id":10222,"date":"2016-10-26T11:23:44","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T15:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/?p=10222"},"modified":"2016-11-01T05:00:20","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T09:00:20","slug":"spanish-elections-there-will-be-no-third-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/spanish-elections-there-will-be-no-third-round\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish elections: There will be no third round"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have been following the news on politics<\/a>,\u00a0you’ll know that in addition to the US Elections scheduled for November 8th, and to the referendum in Colombia<\/a>, in Spain we have had to repeat elections in July 2016 due to the impossibility to agree on a coalition\u00a0government [gobierno de coalici\u00f3n<\/strong>] by all the minority forces [fuerzas minoritarias<\/strong>]. Let’s take advantage of this situation to learn more vocabulary related to politics and elections.<\/p>\n

The form of government in Spain is a parliamentary monarchy [monarqu\u00eda parlamentaria<\/strong>],\u00a0that is, a representative, democratic,constitutional monarchy\u00a0[una monarqu\u00eds representativa, democr\u00e1tica y constitucional<\/strong>] in which the monarch\u00a0[el rey<\/strong>] is the head of state [el\u00a0<\/strong>jefe\u00a0de Estado<\/strong>], while the prime minister\u00a0[el primer ministro<\/strong>]\u2014 whose official title [t\u00edtulo oficial<\/strong>] is “president of the Government” [Presidente del Gobierno<\/strong>] \u2014 is the head of government [el jefe de gobierno<\/strong>].<\/p>\n

Spain’s political system [sistema pol\u00edtico espa\u00f1ol<\/strong>] is a multi-party system [sistema multipartidista<\/strong>], but since the 1990s, two parties have been predominant in politics, the\u00a0Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) [Partido Socialista Obrero Espa\u00f1ol<\/strong>] and the People’s Party (PP) [Partido Popular<\/strong>]. In\u00a0both rounds of elections for this period, the PP got the largest number of votes, but not the majority of representatives. The second force was the PSOE, in December 2015, and in July 2016, the newly formed party Podemos <\/strong>[We can].<\/p>\n

To cut the long story short, the only possibility now to avoid having to vote for the third time in a year was that the PSOE would not vote against the PP, but force\u00a0the abstention [la abstenci\u00f3n<\/strong>] of their representatives in the Parliamentary election of a President. After a month of internal party divisions\u00a0and (some argue) even a coup [un golpe de estado<\/strong>], the PSOE has finally agreed to facilitate the investiture of Mariano Rajoy as President of the Government for another four-year period.<\/p>\n

We have a video\u00a0reporting this for the Spanish news agency EuroNews<\/a>.<\/p>\n