At the time of writing, Podemos is making an inspiring late comeback in the Spanish general-election campaign, but few expect that 2015 will be the “year of change” that Pablo Iglesias promised when Podemos was leading in the polls last year. Mass participation in the new party and a lightning rise in popular support in its first year gave way to limited grassroots activity and an electoral slide until this October.

Although Iglesias has impressed in recent campaign debates with his opponents, and key competitors — the social-democratic Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and the new-right Ciudadanos — have fallen in the polls, Podemos probably will fail to meet its goal of winning the elections on December 20, and will have to settle with being a main opposition party.

Whatever the result, the steady decline of the corrupt establishment parties — the right-wing People’s Party (PP) along with the PSOE — has slowed or reversed and it will be a neoliberal party, Ciudadanos, that will have made the biggest gains over the year. According to several polls, Podemos entered the election campaign in fourth place. At that time there was disarray among a previously energized grassroots. As Emmanuel Rodríguez wrote in October, “among activists the dominant description is ‘a big downer’  . . .  referring to that state . . . that follows long nights of chemical euphoria.”