Fifteen percent more.
Parliamentary elections were held in Spain at the end of April 2019. Early. And for the umpteenth time. Thus, the difficulties in forming a functional and stable government are not only in our country, but also in other countries of the European Union. The general problem is the considerable fragmentation of the European political scene and the visibly successful emergence of various extremist groups and populist movements with conjunctural themes and purely marketing argumentative potential. If we look for parallels between the situation here and in Spain, we will find partial and somewhat imperfect ones. In May 2018, a corruption scandal culminated in a court case that literally brought the Spanish ruling establishment to its knees. The sentences imposed on a number of high-ranking officials of the ruling Popular Party (Partido Popular, PP) amount to many decades and are the result of several years of investigation. The Gürtel affair (German for belt, after the translation of the name of the main accused, Francisco Correa), and other cases along with it, show the systematic abuse of political influence to create sophisticated centres of power. The logical tool to achieve this is money, in this case hundreds of millions of euros. In the Czech Republic, we have seen efforts to abuse power at the high levels of politics on several occasions, but the campaign against specific individuals has never been brought to a complete conclusion. There are no signs that this is about to change, quite the opposite. Politicians' reactions to blatant and proven disregard for applicable laws or moral principles vary, depending on whether their story is set in a country with an advanced democratic regime or just a regime. However, awakening the civil public from its apparent lethargy must only be addressed at the point of existing difficulties. It is not a good idea to wait for a journalist to be murdered to elect a spry young lady (or gentleman) to lead our country as well. The 60.8% voter turnout in the Czech parliamentary elections (in 2017) is not indicative of a general interest in public affairs or an effort to exert pressure. Spaniards have already registered the problem and are trying to solve it. Among other things, 75.8% of eligible voters turned out to vote there.