1. Electoral Law: In Spain votes are counted according to D'Hondt method in regional demarcations. It favours big parties while penalizing small parties. It makes votes in less densely populated regions more valuable. Both things are perceived as very unfair by many Spaniards. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method)

2. Separation of Power: In Spain, Congress is very powerful while Senate is mostly decorative. People vote once every four years for Congress, then they elect the President. There is no separation between Executive and Legislative. In the U.S. or France you can have a Democrat President and a Republican Congress. That is not possible in Spain, Executive and Legislative are always in the hands of the same party by design. Judicial power is not independent as judges are appointed by the party in power. Older judges (some people may remember Garzon, the guy who tried to incarcerate Pinochet) are independent but younger ones ALWAYS vote whatever is decided by the party that granted them the seat.

3. Political regeneration: In Spain you cannot vote for a person for Congress, you can only vote for a party list. The party will put whoever they want in the list in whatever the order they want. This system has led to a progressive degeneration where only friends and family of powerful party members are listed. Many of the candidates in the upcoming elections (22nd of May) have been found guilty of corruption. Many more are awaiting trial. Almost all of them have no leadership qualities at all. Their only quality is to be a disciplined party member with connections. Parties in Spain are not democratic themselves. Primary elections within a party are almost unheard of. Candidates for any election are decided by the senior management. In Spain, when a candidate loses, they just wait for the next election, or the next, or the next... until they finally grab power. It is a case of "waiting your turn".

In Spain we frequently use "partitocracy" (rule of parties) and "fingercracy" (rule of those who have been chosen by a powerful party member by pointing at them with his finger) to describe our political system.

Say, for example, you have a traditional British parliamentary system (that's in use in many countries around the world). This imaginary country has 50 seats in government spread around geographically... there are some obvious issues that may arise here:

- Distribution of seats: should be it population-proportionate? Or should it account for land mass? Or economic output? There is already a huge point of contention here.

- Determination of seat: if Party A wins 51% of the popular vote in every single district, then will claim 100% governance of the entire country, despite the fact that 49% of the population voted for someone else. This problem is exacerbated in countries that have more than two major political parties, where the ruling party can be given the mandate despite having what would appear to be a shockingly small portion of the popular vote.

- Appointed vs. elected positions: many countries do not have elected posts throughout the government. Which roles should be appointed instead of elected, and if so by whom?

There are many legitimate claims that you don't have "real democracy" - i.e., the government does not accurately represent the will of the people, before you get into claims of illegitimate and rigged elections.

It's a problem that's widespread in the US, too. We just don't have the same level of rage about it because our political parties are good at using issues like abortion to differentiate themselves and distract from their shared support for things like reducing civil liberties and protecting corporate interests.

No one should be in power if the majority of the public doesn't approve of them. If they are, then the elections were rigged.