"I'm going to try to form a government," said Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as the results of the national election came in last Sunday night, "but it won't be easy." His right-wing People's Party (PP) still won the most seats in parliament — 129 — but that was far down from the 176 seats it would need for an absolute majority, let alone the 186 it had before the election.
Pablo Iglesias, the man who founded the Podemos (We Can) party only two years ago, agreed with Rajoy on this, if on little else. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking in the name of Podemos," he told a rally during the campaign. "We thank you for choosing the path of change. We're expecting a bumpy ride with political turbulence."
Podemos ended up with 69 seats, not bad for a 2-year-old party in its first national election — but it doesn't seem interested in cooperating with the other left-wing party. "Hopefully Podemos would be willing to work with us," said Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), which got 90 seats, "but so far I perceive a threatening mixture of arrogance, self-infatuation and condescension."