The 2023 Elections in Greece and Spain: Evolving Party Systems in Post-Crisis Southern Europe

The 2023 elections in Greece and Spain showed that Southern Europe could still surprise. Greece experienced significant change, with the unexpected collapse of the official opposition presaging the emergence of a predominant party system. However, predictions that Spain would become the next European country with far-right government participation were not fulfilled. These elections took place a decade and a half the start of the European debt crisis which sorely tried these countries' political health. They signalled a new phase in the evolution of the post-crisis party systems.

Both countries transitioned to democracy in the mid-1970s and subsequently established patterns of two-party dominant party competition and single-party governments, though Spain's party system was more fragmented and its minority governments often relied on regionally based non-statewide parties (NSWPs) to govern. The post-2008 crisis era was marked by greater fragmentation, more complex governance and polarisation. In both cases, the political fallout from major economic recessions, European Union (EU)/International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailouts and harsh austerity triggered dramatic party system transformation.

This included a dive in popular support for the social democratic and conservative parties that had previously alternated in government: PASOK (Πανελληνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα, Panhellenic Socialist Movement) and New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία, ND) in Greece, and the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE) and Popular Party (PP) in Spain. The challenger parties that benefitted in Greece included the radical left SYRIZA (Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς, Coalition of the Radical Left), which replaced the socialists as the main force on the left and led two governments in 2015–2019. Greece also witnessed a rise of the far right, notably the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn (Χρυσή Αυγή), one of the most extreme parties in Europe. In Spain, the radical left Podemos (We Can) and centrist Ciudadanos (Citizens, Cs) surged first, then later, the radical right Vox (Voice) took off in 2019 in part as a response to the 2017 Catalan independence push and corruption scandals engulfing the PP. In Greece in 2012 and Spain in 2015–2016, repeat elections were required before a government could be formed.

The 2019 elections marked milestones in both countries. In Greece, four successive coalitions governed in 2011–2019, two of them including a (different) radical right party. In contrast, the 2019 election was hailed as a ‘return to normal’ (Rori, 2020), resulting in a single-party ND government and the disappearance from parliament of most of the crisis-era challenger parties, including Golden Dawn. However, it did not restore the pre-crisis status quo, as SYRIZA became the official opposition whilst PASOK's vote remained in single figures. Meanwhile, as in 2015–16, Spain once again needed two elections to form a government in 2019. This was its first governing coalition since its democratic transition, bringing a radical left alliance of United Left and Podemos (Unidas Podemos, United We Can) into partnership with the PSOE. Vox became the third-largest party.

This article shows what happened next, analysing the outcomes of the 2023 elections in Greece and Spain and highlighting key similarities and differences. The article explores the election campaigns, the results and their domestic and European implications before drawing its conclusions.

This time, in contrast to 2019, it was Greece which held repeat parliamentary polls, while Spain needed only one election.

While in Greece, the June election in particular was characterised by high abstention and protest voting, in Spain there was a significant return of voters to the two main parties.

The election outcomes in both cases brought continuity: Greece consolidated the return to single-party majority rule and Spain repeated its experiment with coalition government.

In both countries, the elections resulted in continuity of pro-EU governments, while the Eurosceptic radical right remained confined to the opposition.

The 2023 elections in Greece and Spain followed the world-shaking Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Neither issue was significant in the election campaigns. With their bailouts well in the past, European integration was no longer a key issue either. Instead, both elections focused on domestic governance. Whilst not the first national parliamentary polls after the end of the European debt crisis, they took place in an era of economic growth and declining unemployment. The elections produced government continuity in both countries. Thus, their EU partners continue to deal with the same interlocutors in the European Council, Mitsotakis and Sánchez.

Viewing the Greek and Spanish elections in the mirror has revealed important differences. To highlight a few, the elections were strongly competitive in Spain, with the PP and PSOE and the left and right blocs receiving similar support, whilst they were lopsided in Greece, with ND dominating the electoral landscape. The governments that emerged could not be more different, with ND in Greece having an absolute parliamentary majority, whilst Spain's minority coalition needs to negotiate with numerous and disparate parliamentary parties and faces an opposition that is mobilised, strong and angry. In Greece, the main challenge is a weak and divided opposition with limited possibilities of exercising a real check on the government.

Nonetheless, there are also similarities. The first concerns the diminished role of the main challenger parties that emerged as a result of the debt crisis. The primary beneficiaries in Spain – Podemos and Citizens – are fractions of their former selves. Citizens has completely disappeared from national politics, whilst Podemos has minimal relevance and has been replaced as PSOE's government partner by the newly formed Sumar. In Greece, SYRIZA's vote share was reduced to around half its 2015 highpoint, although it remains well above its pre-crisis peak of 5%. However, it has lost its central role in the party system and no longer appears to be an alternative government-in-waiting. Whilst the attempted comeback by a leading Golden Dawn cadre produced a startling electoral success, this is likely to prove short-lived if, as expected, the Spartans front party is expelled from parliament.

Another similarity concerns the electoral success of the conservatives, unusual in the European context (Bale and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2021), with the Greek ND and the Spanish PP amongst the strongest conservative parties in Europe. Meanwhile, Spain and Greece now resemble many other European countries in the electoral relevance of the radical right, chosen by around one in eight Greek and Spanish voters in 2023. Whilst in Greece, this area of the political spectrum is divided, in Spain, it has one strong representative. The electoral results this time prevented Vox from governing in Spain.

Regarding the future, in Greece, the biggest change is the apparent move towards a predominant party system with the democratic challenges this may entail, whilst Spain continues to confront extremely combative party relations and the current government faces the most difficult bargaining situation in parliament to date.