Head of Spain’s Far-Left Party Survives Leadership Challenge<br />12, 2017<br />MADRID — Pablo Iglesias, the head of Spain’s far-left Podemos Party, defeated a challenge in a leadership vote on Sunday, giving him a strong mandate to stick with the radical line<br />that has made Podemos one of Europe’s main anti-establishment parties.<br />The party was then plunged into an internal dispute, not only over the leadership of Mr. Iglesias,<br />but also over whether Podemos should adhere to his anti-institutional hard-line policies or instead steer more toward conciliatory and mainstream politics — as advocated by the party’s deputy leader, Iñigo Errejón.<br />Mr. Iglesias, 38, won an unexpectedly clear victory, receiving 89 percent of the votes as party<br />leader, while his main supporters won 60 percent of the seats on the party’s governing council.<br />Founded in 2014 during a period of extreme discontent<br />and record unemployment generated by the world financial crisis, Podemos made a meteoric rise that also uprooted Spain’s two-party system.<br />But after coming in third in its first general elections in late 2015, Podemos found it harder to switch from<br />anti-austerity street protests to parliamentary politics and lost votes in repeat elections six months later.<br />The Socialists have been functioning under a caretaker management since ousting their leader, Pedro Sánchez, last<br />October, which then helped clear the way for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, a conservative, to win re-election.
