KING Felipe will sign the decree today to officially dissolve Spanish Parliament after more than four months of failed negotiations between the parties.
The next two months will bring more electoral campaigning before the country goes back to the polls on June 26.
Only Spanish nationals aged 18 and over are allowed to vote in general – or regional – elections, since expatriates, even those born in Spain if they have a foreign passport, are unable to do so as is the case worldwide at present.
In December, fewer than three-quarters of eligible voters cast their ballot, and most politicians fear the turn-out will be even lower next month.
They are concerned that the public is becoming 'fed up' with political wrangling and no positive action or change.
This is especially likely, given that the polls predict a near-identical result to the fragmented December elections, where no single party held a majority nor had enough support to either form a coalition or for their leaders to be invested as president in order to govern in minority.
Until now, democracy in Spain has always seen a direct split between the 'big two', or 'the Caste' as left-wing independents Podemos calls them – the socialists, or PSOE and the right-wing PP have taken it in turns to govern.
But Spain has had enough of the bipartite system, as shown by the meteoric rise through the ranks of Podemos, the third-largest political power with 69 seats compared with the PSOE's 90 and the PP's 123, and of centre-right Ciudadanos – originally a Catalunya regional party formed a decade ago, it ran for local and regional elections in May across the country for the first time ever and, in December, became the fourth-largest party with 40 seats.
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