Spain’s local elections underlined the profound changes taking place in the Spanish party system

Spain held regional and local elections on 24 May. Anwen Elias assesses what the results of the elections mean for Spain ahead of the upcoming general election, and for Catalonia in the lead up to regional elections in September that have been billed by some parties as a de facto vote on independence. She writes that the capacity of new and old parties to respond to the changing circumstances in Spanish politics will determine whether the country’s traditional two-party system can definitively be said to be over.