ONCE a stronghold of the conservative Popular Party (PP), led by the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, Valencia fell to a broad coalition of anti-austerity left-wingers in regional elections in May. Some now see that as a potential model for a national coalition government—a goal that has eluded Spain’s politicians since the general election in December.
Spain’s voters created the three-month impasse by scattering their votes among four large parties and a smattering of small ones. The PP, which struggled with sky-high unemployment and corruption scandals, lost a third of its support. It can govern only in unlikely alliance with its arch-rival, the Socialist party. Likelier would be a broad left coalition headed by the Socialist leader, Pedro Sánchez, and backed by some of the parties—like the left-wing populist insurgents, Podemos—who prop up Valencia’s current government.
In Valencia, that coalition is governing with a programme in which pragmatism trumps radicalism. “We run things better, and don’t steal,” says the region’s deputy president, Mónica Oltra. She helps lead Compromís, a local leftist party that allied with the…
