Spain appears to be headed for another general election – its third in five years.

New polls are expected after the Sanchez government failed to pass its budget in parliament earlier this week. The prime minister’s final decision is expected to come by Friday.

Should a snap poll be called, issues of anti-austerity, Catalonia independence, and the rise of the far-right Vox party can be expected to loom large during the campaign.

Impact

The ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) has found itself in a compromised political position since Mariano Rajoy resigned as prime minister in 2018 amid the sprawling Gurtel corruption scandal. Although the party subsequently formed the current government under Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, the PSOE only holds 84 out of the parliament’s 350 seats, making it wholly dependent on a coalition of smaller parties for support. This coalition includes two Catalonian parties that support greater self-determination if not independence for the region – the Catalan European Democratic Party (6 seats), the Republican Left of Catalonia (12 seats) – and the Basque Nationalist Party (6 seats) as well.

The Catalonia bloc was supporting Prime Minister Sanchez’s platform in exchange for the promise of substantive official talks on regional self-determination in the future. When it became apparent that the government was not going to follow through on this promise, they yanked their support and joined with the People’s Party to sink the 2019 budget.

So why was PSOE unwilling to play ball with the Catalonians?

It comes down to electoral math: there’s not much to be gained for the PSOE in Catalonia in a general election, regardless of whether it’s held two months from now or on-schedule in 2020. Most parliamentary seats there go to regional, pro-independence parties. And on the other hand, the PSOE has a lot to lose elsewhere from the optics of going along with the self-determination agenda. This hard turn against Catalonia has been evident since last year when the PSOE unveiled a new platform calling for a redefinition of anti-rebellion laws and the swearing of a constitutional oath by civil servants.