Finally the PSOE have chosen their candidate to be mayor of Madrid, although in reality is it is Prime Minister Zapatero that has made the choice. Anyway, the candidate chosen is Miguel Sebastían, an economic advisor to Zapatero and hardly the political heavyweight that we had been promised. I am not even sure if he has ever stood as a candidate for the party in an election, and he is certainly not well known. It doesn’t inspire much optimism that Madrid mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardón is going to be defeated in the elections next May. The choice has been made after strong resistance was starting to grow against the suggestion that Vice-Premier María Teresa Fernández de la Vega might have been put forward, she is consistently rated as the most popular member of the government and a campaign based around SMS messaging was started to try and keep her in her current position.But fear not, we do have another candidate from the Spanish blogosphere who has thrown his hat into the ring! Bernardo Muñoz, owner of the blog El Siglo de las Luces, has selflessly offered himself as a candidate to fill the vacuum left by so many others rejecting the possibility. Don Bernardo does not feel that being a resident of Barcelona, and a supporter of the local football team, need necessarily affect his chances in Madrid. Nor will his lack of local knowledge be a disadvantage, indeed it offers Madrid the chance of a fresh start with some “blue skies” thinking. If we have to move the Plaza de España somewhere else, then let’s move it! Bernardo did after all do his military service in the capital, defending Madrid against the enemies of the nation! I should make it clear, of course, that the fact that I have been (more or less) guaranteed a choice position in the new administration has nothing at all to do with my support for his candidacy. Nothing.
6 comments:
Epi y Blas luchando por la alcaldía de Madrid. Interesante...
Congratulations for the migration to Blogger Beta.
Y gracias por enlazarme ;)
De nada. I don't know whether the election will be interesting or not - the two candidates are so close politically it's hard to tell them apart. It would make a difference some time if we could get candidates who don't have their eye on bigger prizes.
Saludos.
But do you think that Sebastian has his eye on something else? OK, he'd love to be the next Minister of Economy, but don't you think this is quite a strange step in that direction?
What I mean is that this is one of those moves that Zapatero makes that could make sense. Just could. Anyway, I didn't like Bono.
I am surprised that a foreigner gets interested with our internal politics. Don't get me wrong, it's great. But I live in The Netherlands and have no clue about their politicians. I also have the impresion that they are much more boring than ours ;)
Saludos...
Responding to this is almost worth a separate post. The problem is that what is good for Zapatero isn’t necessarily good for Madrid. We all know that Sebastián was not the preferred candidate, and if he has accepted the job it is out of loyalty to Zapatero and because he knows that his political future could depend on such things – not because he has any special desire to be mayor of Madrid. The big question is, what will he do if he loses the election? Somehow I doubt he is going to sit in Madrid’s ayuntamiento for 4 years as leader of the municipal opposition. Here we have the problem, Madrid is a badly run city (in my opinion) and parachuting a candidate in for the election and then lifting him out again if he loses is not the way to change that situation. 30% of the electorate here will vote for a donkey in a grass skirt if it wears a hat with “Kiss me quick, I’m from the PP” written on the front. So getting the PP out of power in Madrid means taking the task of opposition in the city a bit more seriously. It’s a shame we don’t have a Ken Livingstone type figure in Madrid who could attract votes across the political spectrum and be someone who actually wants to do the job.
On the question of why I write about Spanish politics the answer is simple, I have lived in Madrid for almost 10 years and this is my home now. I may see things through the eyes of a foreigner, but my life is here in Spain and I have no plans to change that. I haven’t lost interest in what happens in Britain, but it all seems much more remote to me than the politics here in Spain. When Gallardón decides to dig up half of Madrid (again!), it has a far greater impact on my life than anything that happens in London.
Graeme, it's amazing. Not just the fact that you know all this stuff, but how you talk about it. Wow. But yes, if you live there and if you are planning to stay, I fully understand your involvement. I am not planning to stay in Holland, and that's one of the reasons why I couldn't care less about their elections.
And I have to admit that you are basically right. BTW, the thing with the donkey is also true, it made me think of Rajoy...
I think that's the difference - I've worked in other countries without feeling very involved in what happens there, it's not the same as moving somewhere with the intention of staying.
Thanks for the link :) I am truly humbled by finding my useless, unworthy little blog below that of the "Great Cucumber" himself, 19-A stonished!
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