Amid the searing heat of this European summer, Spain’s citizens go to the polls today to elect a new parliament.  Spain (unlike Portugal, Italy or Greece) still has a monarch.  And this ‘constitutional’ monarch appoints a government that can command a majority in parliament.

The current government is a minority of Spanish socialists led by Pedro Sanchez and backed by the leftist grouping now renamed Suma and by sundry small nationalist parties from the Basque and Catalan regions. Sanchez has called a snap election, unprecedented in the middle of summer and just before the August holiday break. Why? Because support for his government is crumbling at the seams and he fears that the economic situation could deteriorate further if he leaves an election to later on. Moreover, he aims to gain votes at the expense of the weakening leftist parties within Suma.

However, the latest opinion polls show that the…