On April 29, as Spaniards woke up the day after the general election, it was the Right that was left wondering what might have been. The right-wing Partido Popular (PP) had achieved its worst ever score, and the far-right Vox’s breakthrough was less than expected. For the conservative FAES — the country’s most influential think tank — the blame for the right-wing parties’ poor results lay with the division of their forces combined with voters’ “reckless ignorance.” Federico Jiménez Losantos, a hard-right radio host, declared Spain “lost, stupefied, and idiotic.”

Fast-forward four weeks, and the situation has changed dramatically. After Sunday’s local, regional, and European elections, it is instead Podemos, and its past and present allies on the Left, who are soul-searching. Seen from today, April’s relatively stronger results for the Left could even be termed something of a “mirage.” This weekend’s contest has placed the center-left Socialists (PSOE) well ahead of their rivals, while also allowing the Right to save face with its victory in Madrid.

We should not underestimate the scale of this defeat. Five years after its triumphal breakthrough in the 2014 EU elections, Podemos has suffered a resounding defeat, losing almost all of the key municipalities it won with grassroots coalitions in 2015. The exceptions are Cádiz — whose anticapitalist mayor, Kichi, won an impressive absolute majority — and Valencia, still governed by a leftist coalition, but where Podemos has failed to secure a municipal foothold.