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SEVILLE, Spain Spains Socialists have run Andalusia, the countrys largest
region, for 33 years, a bastion built on the partys role in transforming the
farming region by ushering Spain into the European Union in the 1980s.
But as Andalusia votes Sunday in a regional election that may serve as a
bellwether for national elections this year, the Socialists enter the balloting as
a party badly tarnished by corruption scandals and a regional unemployment
rate of 34 percent, 10 percentage points above the national average.
Though the Socialists are nonetheless expected to come out on top, the
vote on Sunday is being closely watched as a measure of just how fractured
Spains political landscape has become, as disillusionment with established
parties seeps into the electorate.
Its the first time in 35 years that nobody here knows what the outcome
of the vote will be and that in itself shows weve come to the end of a
political cycle, not only in Andalusia but in the whole of Spain, said Teresa
Rodrguez, 33, the lead candidate for Podemos, a left-wing party that is barely
a year old and is having its first test in a Spanish election on Sunday.
Asked whether the region would suffer if Sundays result was a highly
fragmented regional Parliament, she said, Weve had plenty of government
stability, but that hasnt yielded policies that have really helped citizens.
A survey by Metroscopia published in the newspaper El Pas last Saturday
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found the Socialists with 37 percent support, ahead of the countrys other main
party, the conservative Popular Party, which was backed by 25 percent of
voters.
Nevertheless, the same poll showed two insurgent parties, Podemos and
another newcomer, Ciudadanos, receiving a combined quarter of respondents
support, which would most likely make them kingmakers in the regional
Parliament.
The poll, conducted March 5-11, was based on 3,200 interviews and has a
margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
For Podemos, which was founded on a shoestring in early 2014, the
election is the first important test of whether its radical anti-austerity message
can allow it to mirror the success of Syriza, the left-wing party that swept to
power in Greece in January.
For Ciudadanos, Sundays vote should help establish whether the party
can transcend its Catalan roots and transform itself from a regional, antisecession party into a national and centrist political force.
Both Podemos and Ciudadanos are fielding candidates with limited
political experience who are urging voters to clean up Spanish politics by
turning their backs on Spains two traditional parties, the Socialists and the
Popular Party of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
What is clear is that we need to change the way politics is run, said
Carlos Castilla Alonso, a 28-year-old software developer who said he planned
to vote for Podemos on Sunday. Weve seen here just what happens when a
party stays in power for more than 30 years, which is corruption to the point of
stealing money from our unemployed.
Last month, the Spanish Supreme Court named two former Socialist
heads of Andalusias regional government as suspects, joining other Socialist
officials who were previously indicted on suspicion of having orchestrated a
widespread unemployment benefit fraud scheme.
Under that scheme, several politicians and labor union officials, as well as
their friends and relatives, are alleged to have falsely claimed payments from a
fund established by the Socialist regional government to pay compensation to
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