(23 Apr 2019) Voters in Barcelona say they were not impressed after watching the first live televised debate between the four main candidates seeking to become Spain's next prime minister that aired Monday evening. The candidates exchanged heated attacks while slipping in campaign pledges during the first of two televised live debates ahead of Sunday's general election.
"The politicians are making fun of us, they don't want to debate they just want to have a political rally which they already planned for," said 58-year-old Juli Capella on Tuesday morning.
Capella said the debate seemed like a comedy show for him rather than a serious political discussion.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is leading voting predictions in his bid to stay in office but short of a majority to form a government alone.
But the incumbent Socialist refused to clarify which party or parties was he considering for possible coalitions after Sunday's election.
The question was repeatedly raised by the leader of the far-left Unidas Podemos party, Pablo Iglesias, who 10 months ago backed the Socialists' minority government in a motion of no-confidence against the conservative administration of the Popular Party.
Instead, Sanchez said that he would prefer an "ample majority" for the Socialists with independent "prestigious" ministers in his cabinet.
He also criticized the Citizens' party's strategy of advocating for a "sanitary cordon" to isolate the Socialist party, and for repeatedly aiming for a right-wing government, even if that requires the backing of the far-right Vox party.
Catalonia's attempt to secede from Spain also yielded some of the night's most heated back-and-forth.
Nationalists in the northeastern region held a banned independence referendum in 2017 and opened the gravest political crisis in decades.
For 64-year-old Maria Dolores Garcia the debate centred too much on the political crisis in Catalonia and too little on other issues, like health and education.
Monday night's debate on Spanish public television and the second on Tuesday on a private broadcaster are seen as key in mobilizing nearly one-third of voters who polls say remain undecided.
But many voters did not watch the debate.
One of them was Ricard Verdaguer, who felt it wouldn't bring anything new to the table.
Nearly 37 million Spaniards are called to vote on the April 28 election, the third in less than four years as a result of the recent fragmentation and polarization of politics in the country.
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