The Socialist Party grabs another chance
Last March 9th 2008 elections in Spain ended with Zapatero´s triumph again. Never before have two candidates been so equalized in an election campaign according to opinion polls given by Spanish media. However, voters renewed their confidence in the PSOE and they kept their 16 seat cushion over their rivals. Little did PSOE politicians think that results would be so favourable for them.

The current Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero started in politics in 1986 as a Deputy. In 2000, he became the president of the party, succeeding to outgoing Joaquin Almunia, with the mission to improve the public image of the party which was really damaged after last episodes of corruption and the lack of leadership within the party. Rarely had a rather unknown politician had the responsibility to rebuild a party in such a critical moment.
Furthermore, not only did he have to fight against distinguished members of his party but also with his opponents to obtain the government. Between the most important are People´s Party led by Mariano Rajoy and United Left whose president, Gaspar Llamazares resigned on the same night of the elections after the failure suffered by this party.

In spite of his success, Zapatero did not win the absolute majority so desired, therefore he must now seek backing from nationalist parties if he is to govern. Convergencia i Unió, Basque Nationalist Party and Galician Nationalist Bloc may be their partners next four years in the government.
The predictions that were announcing a close gap between winner and defeated may have broken after television debates between both candidates. Many political analysts agreed in what was determinant has been the lack of the proposals in the People´s Party that supposed a real alternative to the current government.
This does not mean that they should be very far from winning in next elections since they are, by far, the most voted party after PSOE.

Overall, there has been an increase in the number of voters that PSOE and PP have received. In contrast, the number of voters drop sharply for the regional parties in 2008, so they are the big losers in the elections.
PSOE has changed very little from 43,3% in 2004 to 43,65% in 2008 and PP had increased slightly from 38,3% in 2004 to 40,13% in 2008.
By far, the worst results obtained by a party were United Left and Republican Left of Catalonia which lose 3 and 5 seats, respectively.
Other parties, which are generally nationalist, got a small percentage, the overwhelming majority are between 0,2% to 2%.

The most important conclusion that can be drawn is that such is the popularity of the two big parties that a two-party system has emerged which will control next elections as little possibilities are left for nationalist parties.