The Spanish election this Sunday is too close to call. What is certain, however, is that the winner will spend the next four years cleaning up an economic mess of a scale not witnessed in Spain in modern times.

The twin engines of the coming Spanish economic crisis are a collapsing housing market and a current account deficit, now at 10 per cent of gross domestic product. The two are related, of course, as the property bubble has been a driving force behind a credit-financed spending boom.