The electoral outlook for Spain's governing PP is bad. The party, deeply affected by the Cristina Cifuentes crisis, the president of Madrid who resigned facing two separate scandals, fall to 24% of the predicted vote share. Ciudadanos manage to grow to become the second-largest party with 22.4% of the vote, overtaking PSOE for the first time, who get only 22%. The data comes from the latest report from CIS (Centre for Sociological Research).
Ciudadanos had only risen to third place in the last report in January, overtaking Unidos Podemos for the first time, coming closer to PP and PSOE than ever before. Now, Albert Rivera's party climbs to second in an unprecedented surge, ending up only 1.6 points behind PP.
According to CIS, if an election were to be held today, PP would win 24% of the vote, Ciudadanos would get 22.5%, PSOE, 22% and Unidos Podemos, 19.6%.
PP's worst result ever
The CIS poll, which only estimates vote share, not the number of seats the parties would win in the Congress, shows the continuing upwards trend of Ciudadanos in the fight for the centre-right vote. PP, despite coming first, would have to accept the worst result in their history. The last time they got such a low vote share was their first general election in 1989, when they got 25.79%.
Compared to the last general election, in 2016, PP would drop up to 9 points, losing a quarter of its vote.
The survey was carried out in the first days of April, coinciding with the scandal over Cristina Cifuentes's master's. She eventually resigned on 25th April, after the spread of a video in which she was seen after being caught stealing two pots of anti-aging cream from a supermarket.
Two-party system in crisis
Ciudadanos's growth means the traditionally largest parties, PP and PSOE, would be left with only 46% of the vote, having won 55.6% in 2016. This would be the first time the two-party system ended up with less than half the vote..
As for the ideological breakdown, 46.4% would opt for the centre-right (PPs and Cs), whilst the centre-left would get 41.6%.