Manuela Carmena, mayor of Madrid? |
Could what? Well, not seize the Moncloa (Spain's nearest equivalent to the Winter Palace) in a neo-Bolshevik-Bolivarian revolution, as some hysterical right-wing politicians claimed to fear. Nor even to out-poll the two biggest and most established parties.
But Podemos was either the instigator or a major contributor in the electoral coalitions that will be decisive in forming governments of towns and cities across the country. Most stunningly, especially to the stunned Partido Popular, that party's the two most strongholds, Madrid and Barcelona. In Madrid, the highly respected judge Manuela Carmena, backed by an ad-hoc coalition of progressive groups initiated by Podemos, won enough seats to seize the mayoralty from the PP — assuming, as we expect, that the third-place Socialist Party gives her its support.
Ada Colau, in her anti-eviction T-shirt |
So, se pudo. Now let's see where we go from here.