You have to dream, but we dream by taking our dreams very seriously.” It was January 2015 and Pablo Iglesias was heading to a crowded Puerta del Sol in Madrid. An electoral year began where at the end of December two very different forces burst into Congress but representatives of the so-called new politics. Podemos achieved 69 deputies together with the tides. And Ciudadanos, with Albert Rivera at the helm, had 40 seats. This 23-J, with different nuances, are no longer on stage.
The 2015 call broke the imperfect bipartisanship of Spanish politics, and gave entry to a new generation and new formations. The “new politics” emerged as opposed to the “old politics” after a few years marked by the economic crisis and the austerity policies of the EU.
This new policy had the propulsion of the 15-M of 2011, whose impact reached far beyond the left. A message was sent before what was considered a general exhaustion of the “system”, what Iglesias called “the caste”. “The clearest signal that 15-M sent is that the traditional parties were no longer capable of satisfying the needs of a large part of the population,” says political scientist Cristina Monge in the book El 15-M. Views from the present That “does not represent us” of the outraged from which Podemos and Ciudadanos emerged.
But what has happened to that new policy? “I have never believed too much in this label,” says Quim Brugué, professor of Political Science (UdG). After the mobilization stage, these politicians become “normal actors”, says the professor. But this is not where he wants to focus, since basically it is not a discussion between the “new” and the “old” politics, but rather on the trajectory of recent years. “We must talk about the impotence of the political system, and not about the incompetence of which it is accused when analyzing both the birth of the new politics and the disappearance today from the scene of its promoters”, he points out.
Since the crisis of social democracy in the 1970s and 1980s, and for three decades, the idea that they were “clients” of the Public Administration was transferred to citizens, explains Brugué. A scenario that has fostered an imaginary in which individual demands must have a response from politics, forgetting the importance of the collective. This attitude, according to Brugué’s analysis, can lead to the collapse of democracy, a crisis of confidence that gives rise to populist messages and authoritarian alternatives that have taken hold in recent years. This vindication of the individual and the obligation of governments to say yes to what is demanded generates ungovernable societies, he points out. Given this, a critical reflection on the role of citizenship is required.
The new policy charged against the system, but its entry into the arena has not generated the desired or promised responses either. In reality, they were impossible given the complexity of politics in this 21st century. And the lack of answers breeds frustration. The “new politics” and its attempt to challenge everything has generated, indicates the UdG professor, parliaments with low-quality deputies, turning “politics” into a “punching bag” and generating a democratic crisis.
Jesús Palomar, professor of Political Science (UB), makes a distinction between politicians who have a built institutional trajectory, whether in town halls, public bodies, or in political parties. This provides an institutional culture that has hardened them, that makes it easier to reach agreements, that allows them to understand that not everything is always achieved, and that provides a long-term strategic vision.
On the other, and it refers to the leadership of the new politics, “emerging figures who, without going through the grassroots, have positioned themselves as elites without their own trajectory” were created. To which is added the difficulty of building a solid party, a group that, as indicated, does not respect the tempos and costs little to “break the bank.”
The socioeconomic context of Spain in recent years clearly frames both the birth and the evolution of the new policy. The citizens who suffered the 2007 crisis have not recovered, points out the UB professor, there is no stable middle class, a dissatisfaction has been generated that gives rise to populism. “You say what you want to hear, there is no room for complex ideas.
Despite the disappearance of Ciudadanos, the integration of Podemos in Sumar in these elections, and the difficulty of the new policy to achieve its objectives, it is evident that it has left its mark. Cristina Monge, in reference to the impulse that 15-M meant, indicates that it has meant the renewal of the elites not only in the political parties, but also among the social and economic actors. There are more mechanisms for participation and accountability, as well as transparency in public institutions. The mobilizations outside the parties have followed one another, with 8-M and the procés in Catalonia as symbols of massive movements.
The dialectic between the new and the old politics in the last decade has therefore left a trace in the current scenario with which 23-J is concurred. For better and for worse. What was denounced requires a reflection on democracy, points out Brugué, where institutions must be improved but also citizens understand what a collective project is. The complexity of the 21st century requires a meeting space between different people.
