Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera speaking during a rally on April 7 in Madrid. With their proposals to shake up Spain’s moribund economy, Mr. Rivera and his political party have shaken up the country’s politics, which have been dominated by two establishment parties. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
BARCELONA—Albert Rivera launched his political party nine years ago by posing nude in a campaign poster, his hands carefully arrayed to avoid an obscenity charge. Now, in a highly volatile election year in Spain, polls show the political upstart is Spain’s most well-regarded politician.
His political party Ciudadanos, or Citizens, which favors free-market economics and liberal social policies, has soared in the polls by capitalizing on the disenchantment with Spain’s two establishment parties and fear of the new leftist party, Podemos.
In a survey released this week by the Metroscopia, a polling firm, Ciudadanos came in fourth place nationally but neck-and-neck with its competitors, trailing front-running Podemos by less than 3 points. Support for Ciudadanos, which has trumpeted its message of “sensible change” to distinguish itself from the more firebrand Podemos, has more than doubled since January, Metroscopia found.
Ciudadanos, which only recently began expanding beyond its base in Spain’s Catalonia region, suddenly finds itself attracting attention for its ideas instead of the 35-year-old Mr. Rivera’s marketing stunts.
Last week, Mr. Rivera and the high-powered economists advising him proposed to overhaul Spain’s moribund economy by making entrepreneurship and research and development, rather than large infrastructure projects, the country’s main economic engine.
The plan set Twitter abuzzing. “We made the economy a trending topic and in Spain no one wants to talk about the economy,” Mr. Rivera said in an interview. So far this year, he has been picking up Twitter followers at a rate of 7,500 a week.
Mr. Rivera has emerged as a key player in Spain’s political future as Spain’s political structures wobble amid corruption scandals and a persistent economic crisis, analysts said. Those structures have ensured the country’s stability since Francisco Franco’s long dictatorship ended in 1975.
Mr. Rivera, unlike many other political leaders in Spain, hasn’t been sullied by scandal. A youth swimming champion who hails from a middle-class family and was trained as a lawyer, he is also youthful enough to blunt the antiestablishment appeal of Podemos, analysts said.
His Catalan roots may put him in a better position to reach an accommodation with separatists in the region that accounts for one-quarter of Spain’s exports. Ciudadanos staunchly opposes the powerful independence movement in Catalonia.
“Voters want new faces and people not compromised by the traditional power structure,” said Emilio Sáenz-Francés, a professor of history and international relations at Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid.
He said Mr. Rivera shrewdly delayed the national launch of his party until Podemos took the plunge first. Under the glare of increasing public scrutiny, Podemos has lost momentum in the polls over concerns about its leaders’ financial and ideological ties to Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s late president.
Mr. Sáenz-Francés said establishment parties such as the Popular Party, which currently controls the national government, may be forced to enter into alliances with Ciudadanos to retain their sway in Spain’s key cities and perhaps even nationally.
Political columnist Javier Prats is less sanguine about Ciudadanos’ prospects. He recently likened efforts by Mr. Rivera’s party to compete with the long-established Popular Party and Socialist Party to those of a second division Spanish soccer club trying vainly to play in the big leagues.
“The game is on, but sooner or later Madrid and Barça always come back to win La Liga,” he wrote.
Mr. Rivera faces a huge struggle managing the growth of a party whose membership in March alone surged by 33% to 20,000. He has been working overtime to fill candidate lists so Ciudadanos can contest May municipal elections in 1,100 towns.
That rush has led to some embarrassment. Ciudadanos was forced to expel a youth coordinator in Madrid after was found to have a history of xenophobic and anti-Catalan tweets. Other new party activists have come under fire for indiscrete comments on social media. “You can’t just take cellphones away from party members,” Mr. Rivera sighs.
Opposing parties are convinced Mr. Rivera is a flash in the pan. Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s prime minister and member of the Popular Party, said voters opting for the untested Ciudadanos were “playing roulette.” He ridiculed Ciudadanos’ efforts to recruit candidates for the May vote. “We’re not one of those parties that is looking for candidates in cafeterias,” he said.
For his part, Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias said Ciudadanos doesn’t represent real change but is rather a mere “substitute” for the current discredited leadership class. Mr. Rivera fired back, calling Podemos “a new party with old ideas” about expanding the state’s role in the economy.
Mr. Rivera’s challenge to what he sees as stale thinking about Spain’s economy has been aided by some well-known university economists, including Luis Garicano of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
In decrying Spain’s penchant for white-elephant infrastructure projects, they took aim at a sacred cow: the country’s vast high-speed rail network. Ciudadanos proposes redirecting about a third of the more than €3 billion that is spent annually on high-speed rail to build a network of research centers that would work with Spanish entrepreneurs to develop marketable new technologies.
“We’ve been criticized for this by the Popular Party and the Socialists because they are the ones who made all these high-speed rail lines without passengers and all the empty airports,” Mr. Rivera said.
Entrepreneurs are warming to the challenge posed by Ciudadanos. Alicia Macías, who launched an online jewelry company, dWappo.com, after losing a consulting job atAccenture PLC in 2012, was impressed with Mr. Rivera’s proposal to lower taxes and cut bureaucracy for startup companies.
Ms. Macías cast her vote for Ciudadanos in a regional election in the Andalusia region in March in which the party outperformed expectations.
“I like their political program,” Ms. Macías said, adding that the party’s policies on entrepreneurship are “very coherent.”
Write to Matthew Moffett at matthew.moffett@wsj.com
