First Madrid, then Spain THEY were hailed as heirs to those who fought Napoleon’s troops with knives and stones in Madrid’s streets in 1808 or who brought down Spain’s monarchy in the 1930s. But the 150,000 people who gathered on January 31st in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol for a rally by Podemos (“We Can”), Spain’s answer to Greece’s Syriza party, were not street-fighters. Most were middle-aged and middle-class. Podemos may ramp up the emotions, but this battle will be fought at the ballot box.It was an impressive turnout for a one-year-old party, although Podemos’s claim to a “social majority” remains unconvincing. A recent poll put it on just 24%. Yet that is more than the main opposition Socialist party, PSOE; and it sets up a three-cornered race against Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party (PP) in a general election that is expected in November.Podemos’s leader, Pablo Iglesias, talks of a country on its knees, humiliated by Germany and looted by corrupt politicians and neoliberal capitalists. Statistics give a rosier picture. Some 400,000 jobs were created in the year to January. Salaries are rising in real terms. Ana Botín, head of...
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