Leftist newcomer Podemos made spectacular inroads in elections in the Spanish region of Andalusia on Sunday, with the vote splitting over the political spectrum in a foretaste of the upheaval likely in national elections later in the year.
The vote showed the anti-austerity sentiment that brought Syriza to power in Greece has now taken root in Spain, where 1 in 4 workers is unemployed, and also ended the two-party system built when the Franco dictatorship ended in the 1970s.
While Spain is emerging from the eurozone debt crisis as one of Europe's fastest growing economies, a campaign by the ruling People's Party (PP), and to a lesser extent the Socialists, to show that newly minted political alternatives are dangerous for the recovery did little to limit their magnetism.