MADRID (Sputnik) — According to the poll, published by El Pais in March, the left-wing anti-austerity Podemos party came first with 22.5 percent of those questioned who were going to vote at December's parliamentary elections in Spain, ahead of its two main Spanish political parties, the ruling conservative People’s Party and the Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party (PSOE).
Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, director of the Madrid’s office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said:
"Until those left behind do not overcome the crisis, Podemos and the left in general will continue to have success."
The expert explained the success of Podemos by pointing to 20 percent of the Spanish population affected by the 2008 economic crisis in Spain, and with millions of households still struggling to make ends meet.
According to Torreblanca, Podemos intends to evolve into a broader political movement, since the party, led by Pablo Iglesias, understands politics "as a competition between those at the bottom and those […] above, rather than a competition of the left and the right," the expert said.
Podemos is a left-wing Spanish political party founded in 2014. Part of its platform calls for renegotiating unpopular austerity measures mandated to pay back EU debts.
From 2008 through 2012 Spain experienced a deep recession and the worst unemployment rate in the eurozone.
The European Union's fiscal rules forced the Spanish government in 2012 to adopt an austerity program aimed at slashing the level of its state deficit to 3 percent by 2016. As a result, the government has reduced public services and social expenditures.
Although Spain's economy began to recover in late 2013, the economic situation in the country is still grave. Spain's unemployment rate rose to 23.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014, up from 23.67 percent in the third quarter, according to the National Statistics Institute.
