Jorge Tamames is an editor at Política Exterior and a PhD candidate at University College Dublin. He lives between Madrid and Dublin.
From Podemos in Spain to Bernie Sanders’s bid for the nomination, recent left-populist campaigns inspired widespread hopes only to fall short. But overwhelming the fortresses of neoliberalism demands a long-term strategy — and mass mobilizations that last beyond the excitement of an election campaign.
The defeats for Barcelona mayor Ada Colau and Manuela Carmena in Madrid compound recent woes for Podemos. As popular movements decline, the Spanish left’s onetime promise has given way to the stabilization of the center.
On the 40th anniversary of Spain’s post-dictatorship constitution, the center is wracked by crisis, the far right is on the rise, and tensions over Catalonia continue to rise.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, when Cubans joined Angolans to defeat the South African apartheid regime.
A year of perplexing U-turns has left the Podemos project muddled — and the party falling in the polls.
As Spain prepares to mark the anniversary of Franco’s death, what is behind its latest upsurge in nationalism?