Someone was going to have to pay the price for being in power during this disastrous economic time and the Socialists were in power. The unemployment rate remains painfully high, with the youth unemployment near 50%. It won't be a surprise to see the elections swing back and forth in the coming years as there is so much blame to go around and things are not about to improve for years. Spain, like many countries, is also looking at the high likelihood of a lost generation who will never have acceptable levels of employment. The Guardian:
The conservative People's party (PP) of Mariano Rajoy has swept to a landslide victory in Spain's general election, inheriting sky-high unemployment and one of the shakiest economies in Europe.
Rajoy's PP gained an absolute parliamentary majority with a crushing 16 percentage point win over the Socialists of outgoing prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
The Socialists lost a third of their seats as voters dumped a government that presided over a dramatic economic slump which has left 23% of Spaniards out of work.
