Spain election: leaders clash on Catalonia during TV debate

On Monday night the leaders of Spain’s four main political parties went head to head in a 90-minute televised debate in which they hoped to sway the 30% of the electorate who remain undecided as the nation faces an extended period of weak coalition government and instability. The far-right Vox party was excluded on the grounds that it is not as yet represented in parliament.

Aside from two women spotted mopping the studio floor in a cutaway shot prior to the debate, it was an all-male affair that produced neither much heat nor light. It was divided into four segments – taxation and employment, education, pensions and health, territorial issues and possible coalitions.

While the conservative People’s party leader Pablo Casado and Albert Rivera of the centre-right Citizens party promised tax cuts and an end to inheritance tax, Socialist party (PSOE) leader Pedro Sánchez said that while there was an €18bn (£15.5bn) social security deficit tax cuts would be irresponsible.

The Catalan independence issue produced the more heated exchanges, with Casado and Rivera accusing Sánchez of being in hock to the secessionists. Sánchez reiterated his opposition to a referendum on independence while Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias said Spain needed to recognise it was made up of several nations.

In his summing up, Sánchez said: “we have to choose what kind of country we want to be, if we want to move forwards or backwards” while Casado said his party was “the alternative to a government of secessionists”.

Rivera spoke of how “our blood froze when the Catalan secessionists carried out their coup d’état” while Iglesias said he hoped the socialists wouldn’t form a coalition with the Citizens party because “that would be a rightwing government”. Nevertheless, despite his efforts, Rivera failed to take the Catalan issue centre stage.

Iglesias said he was disappointed Sánchez hadn’t made it clear if he was willing to go into a coalition with Citizens and also that he hadn’t asked Casado to say whether he would form a government with the far-right Vox party, who were very much the elephant in the room.

The right-wingers Casado and Rivera concentrated their fire on Sánchez but in so doing they failed to differentiate themselves, while early polls suggest the Socialist party leader emerged victorious from the debate.

Polls, which have barely changed over the past two weeks, show the socialists in the lead with 129 seats but well short of the 176 needed for an overall majority. Podemos, their natural coalition partners, are tipped to win 33 seats, leaving Sánchez needing the support of Basque and perhaps Catalan nationalists to get a majority.

If the polls are to be believed, the conservative Popular party (PP), which has ruled for most of the past seven years, are the big losers, with the far-right Vox party picking up many of their votes.

Rivera’s strategy of moving his party to the right to compete with PP and Vox may have backfired, although his party is on course to improve on its 2016 result.

Other polls show that 65% of voters are opposed to a rightwing pact between PP, Citizens and Vox, while 70% oppose a collation of PSOE and Catalan secessionists.