Spanish elections and politics II: Catalan elections on February 14, 2021

[DavidB.]

Real problem is Spain is not used to minority governments so no incentive for anyone to cooperate whereas in other countries like Germany, Netherlands, and Nordic Countries, minorities are the norm so parties have more incentive to cooperate. 

LOLno

[DavidB.]

Occasional deadlocks can be expected in rapidly changing, often increasingly fragmented party systems - it's just that deadlocks in party systems that operate according to the bloc logic tend to cause snap elections sooner. Compare Yisrael Beiteinu's attitude in Israel to the attitude of Podemos in Spain: denying its supposed (unofficial)  bloc partner(s) access to government. With C's demands being incompatible with the demands of PSOE's separatist de-facto left bloc partners and YB's demands being incompatible with the demands of Likud's Haredi bloc partners. The difference is that C's were pretty transparent about being part of the opposite bloc of the election winner. Other examples of difficult situations in bloc politics can be found in Norway, where Venstre and KrF are clearly uneasy with their alliance with the right and the risk of them causing the collapse of the right-wing government remains real, and in Sweden, where C and L now sustain a left-wing government despite being part of the right-wing Alliance, all in order to deny SD power. What happens in Spain reflects a pattern that is prevalent all across Europe but manifests itself differently in different political systems. As older political divides lose relevance, new divides emerge, but the party system has trouble adapting to these new faultlines.

This is so sad, Alexa play Linkin Park's "New Divide"