The maverick challenging Spanish politics

Spain’s rising political star is a 61-year-old former Socialist whose message of changing the system from within is drawing voters in despair at economic ruin and official corruption in the euro zone’s fourth biggest economy.

Lacking the raucous anti-establishment appeal of Italy’s Beppe Grillo and Greek leftist hero Alexis Tsipras, Rosa Diez relies on sharp debate to deliver her reform message to a country pushed to the brink by the euro zone debt crisis.

Diez split from the Socialist party six years ago and formed the centrist Union for Democracy and Progress, or UPyD.

Polls show she is Spain’s most highly regarded politician at a time when a quarter of workers are out of a job and public disenchantment with the political class is rising, as is the caseload of judges investigating allegations of official graft.

Projections by Metroscopia polling firm show that if elections were held now, Diez’s party could take as many as 30 seats in the 350 seat parliament, up from five at present.

The former Communists, the United Left, could quadruple its presence to 48 seats, perhaps forcing one of Spain’s two main political forces, the socialists or the centre-right People’s Party, to form a coalition government for the first time.

Although the bigger parties will expect to win back support during campaigning for the 2015 vote, the growing impact of smaller parties is bringing about a dramatic and permanent change in the political landscape.