Spanish election 2015: a guide on substate political parties

Spain's Congress of Deputies.
Spain's Congress of Deputies. Autor/a: SubtlePanda
Spain is holding a legislative election on December 20th which will mark a historic change as Spain's mostly two-party system (PP and PSOE get over 75% of the seats) will likely give way to a mostly four-party system (centre-right Citizens and leftist Podemos are expected to secure at least 50 seats each in the 350-strong Congress of Deputies).

This change may downplay the importance of substate parties, which had sometimes been able to tip the balance in favour of either PP or PSOE in previous elections. From now onwards, Spanish-level parties will have more options to form different coalitions between them, excluding parties from, say, Catalonia or the Basque Country.

However, ideological differences between those Spain-wide parties -such as Podemos being firmly opposed to PP- and an expected tight result could still give substate parties some margin to influence the formation of the next Spanish government.

Nationalia is releasing this three-article guide on substate parties and on their options to capture seats in the Congress: