IT ISN’T just in Britain that the balance of power hangs precariously between left and right.

Spain’s Communist Party is — as part of the Unidas Podemos (UP) alliance — entering coalition government with the Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Though the coalition — the exact make-up of which is still under discussion — would be the first left-wing coalition to rule Spain since the 1930s, last month’s election was hardly a triumph for the left. Both the PSOE and UP lost seats, while the right-wing People’s Party (PP) and fascistic Vox made gains.

Even together PSOE and UP lack a parliamentary majority. And Communist Party of Spain (PCE) leader Enrique Santiago says PSOE’s failure to abide by previous agreements is part of the reason.

“The November election was unnecessary. It came out of an obsession of the PSOE that it could try to monopolise the left vote, which is still larger than the right-wing vote — it isn’t reflected in a parliamentary majority because of the nationalist parties in Catalonia, the Basque region and Galicia.

“In the end these nationalist blocs can determine who wields a parliamentary majority, and they have an interest in a left majority because of the crisis in the current territorial set-up as outlined in the constitution.”

But a PSOE Prime Minister has not stopped Spanish riot police wreaking havoc when Catalonia’s regional government held an unconstitutional referendum on independence or Spanish judges jailing elected Catalan politicians for terms of up to 13 years.

“All political forces except UP see only authoritarian solutions to the Catalan crisis,” Santiago says. “And it doesn’t do the PSOE any good — its authoritarianism on the question simply encourages more and more draconian policies from the right.

“The division in Catalonia is catastrophic now. Fifty per cent want independence. Fifty per cent are unionists. Police violence and jail sentences deployed against separatists have entrenched that division where a more flexible approach would have allowed dialogue and mutual respect.

“We are in favour of converting Spain into a federal state, like Germany or the United States, but it’s difficult to see how progress can be made at the moment. A big obstacle is the monarchy. Even the National Day of Catalonia, September 11, commemorates the crushing of Catalan political institutions by the Bourbon monarchy when Barcelona fell to the French in the War of the Spanish Succession. And matters have not been helped by the public interventions of the current king against independence.”

The monarchy is part of a political set-up bequeathed to Spain by fascism, the legacy of which still casts a shadow over Spanish politics.

“In Germany, nazism was crushed by the Red Army. In Italy, Mussolini was caught by the communist Partisans and hung from a meat hook. In Greece, the colonels were overthrown by the people.

“In Spain the dictator died in his bed and the oligarchs around him arranged a transition. Lots of Francoists were embedded in the state that emerged from that period in a process piloted by the king — a king chosen by [Francisco] Franco.

“The Socialists have often been in power — they ruled from 1982-96 — but they have never dared to confront Franco’s legacy. They have failed to guarantee rights to reparations for the regime’s victims, for truth and reconciliation.

In the Spanish parliament it was never possible to pass a resolution condemning Franco, though over 20 such resolutions had been tabled, until the Historical Memory Law of 2007; and that has never been implemented. If it had, the Valley of the Fallen (a grandiose mausoleum to Franco and fascist fighters of the civil war) would have been closed, not just had the dictator’s remains removed” (as they were this autumn).

Nonetheless, Santiago thinks that the popular left-wing upsurge that began with huge demonstrations on May 15 2011 against the EU’s exploitation of the bankers’ crash to impose harsh spending cuts and sweeping deregulation on southern European countries is still ongoing — and is likely to change Spanish politics permanently.

“That nepotistic system, where the judiciary, Guardia Civil and state institutions are stocked with the sons of the judges and police chiefs of the Franco years, does not make sense to younger Spaniards. There’s a new generation who are indignant about corruption” (Spain’s anti-austerity movement in fact rapidly became known as “Los Indignados”) “and they also don’t understand why we have to have a king. There’s a push to be rid of all the Francoists. And this new movement is what has created UP. It is the biggest electoral force to the left of the Socialists to emerge in Spain since the end of the dictatorship.”

But doesn’t the rapid growth of Vox, a far-right xenophobic outfit promoting racism and misogyny, indicate that Spain faces a renewed fascist threat?

“The rise of the far right in Spain is not that similar to the role of Marine Le Pen in France or Matteo Salvini in Italy,” Santiago argues.

“It has not really embedded itself in working-class communities. What we are seeing is a realignment of the right. The membership and voter base of Vox are people who have moved from the PP.

“The total number of right-wing seats in parliament don’t add up to more than PP got on its own in 2000. And the left still has more seats.

“That’s why we’re prepared to go into government with PSOE. We go in for two reasons — one, the urgent need to start addressing the social consequences of neoliberalism, the loss of collective rights and attacks on people’s living standards. And two, because there is a democratic imperative to stop the far right.”

But it won’t be easy without a majority?

“If the nationalists abstain we have the simple majority needed for legislation. Of course, we will require absolute majorities for any constitutional reform. But the nationalists are likely to abstain or back us, because the right would not only not grant them independence but would strip their regions of what autonomy they have.

“The way to make this government work is not to think of it as a parliamentary alliance of UP and PSOE, but a nationwide alliance that includes the trade union movement and the social movements that have erupted against austerity.

“We are very clear that we will not resolve the social problems in Spain unless the anti-evictions movement, the campaigns against energy price hikes, are effectively in government with us.

“We’ve been in dialogue with activists leading these movements since the April election and really it’s at their urging that we are going into government with the PSOE.

“Currently negotiations are over the division of government competencies. We are likely to be given responsibility for labour and social policy.”

Would a Communist presence in government also affect Spain’s foreign policy, I ask, with the current government having taken reactionary positions on events in Latin America and expressed support for Turkey’s brutal invasion of northern Syria?
“It is already doing that — note that the Spanish government was the only one in the EU that described the overthrow of Evo Morales in Bolivia as a ‘military intervention.’ That wasn’t out of the blue — it was a result of our pressure on the Foreign Ministry, though they still refused to call it what it was, a coup.

“That said, UP being given some government departments is not going to mean Spain suddenly has a progressive foreign policy. We are entering government for a purpose, to heal the wounds of neoliberalism and to democratise politics. We aren’t going to walk out because the government continues to take a number of reactionary positions.”

Enrique Santiago is general secretary of the Communist Party of Spain. Ben Chacko is editor of the Morning Star.