IN MOST places, when 3,030 people take an up-or-down vote, some sort of decision will probably emerge. But one should never underestimate the contentiousness of the Catalans. On December 27th an assembly of the far-left Popular Unity Candidacies (CUP) party deciding whether to back Catalonia’s acting president, Artur Mas, split the vote evenly—1,515 on each side. The deadlock means that, three months after elections, Mr Mas still cannot form a government to carry out his programme of moving steadily towards secession from Spain.
The Catalan impasse is part of a wider Spanish gridlock. Elections on December 20th splintered the political landscape. The duopoly of the conservative People’s Party (PP) of the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, and the opposition Socialists (PSOE), who have traded turns in power for the past 33 years, has been upended. The insurgent left-wing Podemos and liberal Ciudadanos parties grabbed a third of the parliamentary seats between them, making a coalition or minority government a necessity. But Spain has little culture of coalition-building, and forming a government is a tall order. Fresh elections are also possible….
