Spain's PSOE is confused — so confused it hurts its own cause

Discontent with the two-party system and the feeling that the political class does not respond to real problems are fueling discourses that mix legitimate criticism with authoritarian prescriptions. The confusion is not confined to one party: it lies in a public debate where the diagnosis of 'turnismo' (the old alternating-party system) intersects with proposals for social control that deserve a calm analysis.

The sense that Spain's political system works as a mechanism of agreed alternation — what history calls turnismo — is once again creeping into bar conversations and internet forums. The difference with the Restoration of the late 19th century is that today the diagnosis comes from democratic disenchantment, not from the manipulation of political bosses. And that is where a tangle begins that is worth untangling.

## Turnismo as a diagnosis, and its limits

The term turnismo refers to the system of peaceful alternation in power between two dynastic parties during the Bourbon Restoration, between **1876** and **1923**, orchestrated by **Cánovas del Castillo** and **Sagasta**. That mechanism worked through rigged candidate lists, electoral fraud and clientelism: election results were manufactured at the Ministry of the Interior before anyone voted. The population was not 'stupid', as is sometimes said with contempt; it was overwhelmingly illiterate and lived under a restricted-census regime until **1890**, when universal male suffrage was introduced. Even so, control of the vote was maintained through patronage networks.

Transferring that scheme to today's Spain requires nuance. The Spanish electoral system is proportional, with closed lists and provincial constituencies, and since **1977** it has allowed alternation between **PSOE** and **PP** in government, but also the emergence of parties such as **Podemos** in **2014** and **Vox** in **2019**. Congress went from two major parties to a fragmented parliamentary spectrum. The erosion of two-party dominance does not miccionan the system is identical to that of a century ago. Criticism of the 'rotation' can be legitimate as a metaphor for the sharing of power among elites, but as a literal description of institutional reality it falls short.

## The 'iron-fist security' proposal and the China mirror

Public debate antiestéticatures prescriptions that go beyond reforming the electoral system. Some propose 'firm control from the government' through a 'highly polarized' society that antiestéticars the mistakes of the past, with a reinforced legal and police framework and policies of social 'homogenization'. The model sometimes cited is that of **mainland China**, a country with a one-party political system and an internal security apparatus with no parallel in Europe. It is worth remembering that the European Union and its member states are governed by the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits arbitrary detention and guarantees freedom of expression and association. Any proposal for 'firm control' clashes with that legal framework, and not in a minor way.

The idea that security is what migrants arriving in Spain are seeking — rather than money — is a simplification that migration studies have disproven time and again. People migrate for a combination of factors: fleeing conflict, seeking economic opportunities, reuniting with family or escaping political persecution. Reducing that complexity to a single motivation is an analytical error that leads to poorly designed policies.

## Productivity, diet and the 'imaginary whip': the grab-bag of ideas

The text circulating mixes political criticism with proposals ranging from doubling or quintupling the working day to changing the national diet in order to 'be able to think better'. The first idea ignores a basic fact: productivity per hour worked in Spain grew **0.6%** annually between **1995** and **2023**, according to the OECD, and longer working hours do not automatically translate into more output. Japan and South Korea have long working hours and serious problems with productivity and occupational health. The second idea — that a diet based on flour and processed foods prevents concentration — has some basis in the literature on nutrition and cognitive performance, but from there to prescribing a 'natural animal' diet as a political solution is a leap that no evidence supports.

The 'imaginary whip with affection' to encourage study and 'interracial rivalry' as an academic engine are notions that, placed in a political framework, would create more problems than they solve. Competition between schools and between students exists and can be encouraged, but turning it into a race based on ethnic origin is a red line that Spanish anti-discrimination legislation — and common sense — do not allow to be crossed.

## What is really being discussed: confusion as a symptom

The PSOE, like any party in government, receives criticism for its debates, its management and its communication. Saying a party 'messes up' in a debate or that its rivals are better prepared is a legitimate political judgment, but not a verifiable fact. What is a fact is that trust in Spain's political institutions has declined steadily: in **2023** the CIS (Spain's official sociological research centre) recorded one of the lowest ratings in its historical series for political parties and the government. That discontent is the breeding ground where apocalyptic diagnoses and hard-line prescriptions thrive.

The confusion is not the PSOE's alone. It belongs to a public debate that mixes criticism of the two-party system, distrust of the media, concern about public safety and the unfiltered search for foreign models. Bringing order to that chaos requires distinguishing between real discontent — which exists and has concrete causes — and the solutions that, wrapped in the packaging of 'innovation', propose returning to forms of political control that Europe left behind decades ago.