Rajoy's Andalucian Hangover

They say the champagne was ready to be opened in celebration on Sunday at the headquarters of the Partido Popular. Such was the confidence that they would win Andalucia's regional government with an overall majority. That's what the opinion polls prior to the final week of the campaign had all indicated, and it is said that the private polls in the last few days before voting also carried the same message. This was going to be the jewel in the crown following the conquering of power at national level, Spain's biggest regional government and the last remaining bastion under majority PSOE control. Not only that, but the popular mandate to be gained in Andalucia was going to be used as vindication for the agressive policies of the government - proof that the Spanish understood the need for tough measures.

But it didn't work out. Sure, the PP emerged as the largest party in terms of votes, something they had never achieved before in Andalucia. Barring dramatic events, it's not enough. They are 5 seats short of a governing majority and the PSOE can govern again if they obtain the blessing of Izquierda Unida (IU), who doubled their representation in the Andalucian parliament. When a similar situation occurred in Madrid in 2003, 2 of the PSOE deputies were 'persuaded' not to support their party in the crucial vote but in this case such a solution would be a bit more challenging. Despite the attempts by the PP to spin the result as victory their faces betrayed them and the party at their headquarters never got going. They entered the week of a general strike and what promises to be an extremely tough budget without the trophy they had hoped for.

For once the abstention didn't come from the voters on the left. At least not all of it. The PP lost around 400,000 votes in Andalucia compared to the general election, whilst the PSOE made a timid recovery from November's disaster and some of their former disillusioned supporters turned further to the left and opted for Izquierda Unida. The regional president, José Antonio Griñan, has seen his decision to give Andalucian voters a taste of the PP in office vindicated. Had the election coincided with the general election Griñan would almost certainly have been booted out. Now the question is what sort of agreement Griñan can make with Izquierda Unida. 

IU have already made it clear that they favour keeping the PP out of power. It's very unlikely that there will be a repeat of the situation that occurred in Extremadura last year where relations between the PSOE and the local IU leadership were so bad that the latter permitted the PP to take office. Such a situation is unthinkable now, with a PP national government implementing aggressive right-wing policies. Even so, IU should play hardball over their support, it can't be a case of business as usual. Andalucia has some possibility of demonstrating that alternatives exist to destructive slash and burn economics, and IU should not sell their support cheaply. The option of letting the PSOE govern in minority seeking approval for their measures shouldn't be discarded. 

The Andalucian result has had an important psychological impact. The PP had behaved in recent weeks with incredible arrogance, very much as if they were the "dueños del cortijo". Even though their victory in November was as much a result of rejection of the previous government rather than support for full blooded right-wing policies, the government has behaved as if they have popular support for everything they want to do. Just as they did when Aznar got his majority in 2000. Now things don't look quite so simple, and the honeymoon is over for Rajoy. With Andalucia, and possibly Asturias, in opposition the political panorama changes. 

The result in Asturias has been overshadowed by that of Andalucia, but it is also interesting. The PSOE emerged as the largest party, with the right-wing vote split between the PP and FAC, the formation of the renegade Cascos. The PP came third in the region whilst the decision by Cascos to call another election has not done him much good. Today's count of the emigrant vote has also changed the outcome with the PSOE gaining an extra seat at the expense of FAC. This leaves the PSOE combined with IU on level terms with FAC and the PP. The casting vote could lie with the solitary representative of UPyD who have previously stated they would support the party with the most votes in such a situation. Their principles, such as they are, may yet be put to the test in Asturias.

Regional Election Results For Andalucia And Asturias 2012

I haven't found much time for blogging recently, but at least I can maintain this blog's tradition of posting election results from Spain via the handy widget from El País. Both Asturias and Andalucia are voting today for their regional governments, although the early indications on participation suggest that many people in both regions are not that enthusiastic about casting their vote. The participation figures released earlier today showed Andalucia 10 points down on the previous elections, and Asturias 8. The received wisdom is that low participation favours the right, as their voters are usually less likely to abstain. 

Most of the attention will focus on the Andalucian vote, where the governing PSOE face a serious possibility of losing power after 30 years of uninterrupted control. Affected by the reaction against Zapatero's government, by weariness after so long in power, and by a serious corruption scandal, the PSOE will regard just a failure by the Partido Popular to obtain an overall majority as a major success. The Andalucian vote would have coincided with the national elections if Zapatero hadn't decided to go for an earlier election. 

The PP will obtain a huge boost if they win Andalucia, their candidate Javier Arenas has been a serial loser of elections in this region. It will give them unprecedented power in the country, as they already control a clear majority of the other regions and form part of a governing alliance in others. Apart from anything else the Andalucian election has been the primary reason why we still don't know what cuts the national government intends to implement in order to attempt to meet the crazy deficit reduction target for this year. With the elections out of the way then reality will come rushing up fast behind. 

Asturias is holding elections just 10 months after the previous ones. This is a result of the failure by the former PP secretary general, Francisco Álvarez Cascos, to form a stable government there following his victory in May last year with his breakaway party. Cascos represents everything that is bad about Spanish politics, although it's very unlikely that he will do as well today as he did last year. The region could still be left without a stable government as it is not likely that any single party will win a majority. No further elections are allowed for at least a year if deadlock is the result, and as Asturias is one of those regions that doesn't set its own election date any government that results will have no more than three years in power.

Pedro J. Ramírez, Ralph Lauren And Wikipedia

It's not all about elections, especially when the campaign is as boring as this one. I was in Sevilla last weekend and although the excuse for going was to attend Evento Blog España 2011 (EBE), I took advantage of the trip to enjoy the fantastic weather and some excellent tapas recommendations from SevillaTapas. On Friday evening though, I stayed relatively late at the conference to listen to the final presentation of the day by El Mundo's editor, Pedro J. Ramírez. Those who have read anything on my other blog will be aware that Ramírez is not exactly high on my list of admired journalists, but I still couldn't resist the temptation to hear what he had to say.

On the face of it, Pedro Jota wouldn't seem like a natural speaker for an event like EBE but he was scheduled to talk about his experience with using Twitter. Despite only having been a user for a few months, his prodigious output on Twitter may well be responsible for many of those error messages with the whale that the rest of us get when we try to catch up with what has been happening. It's a mixture of promotion for El Mundo and their paywall Orbyt, together with more typical autobombo from Ramírez as well as a hefty percentage of plugs for his latest book. It has to be said, though, that Ramírez has adopted a slightly less lofty stance than many other newspaper editors who don't really believe in direct online dialogue with their readers.

Pedro Jota also knows how to spin a good tale and to work an audience, so his reception at EBE was generally enthusiastic. One entertaining anecdote he told in response to a question about Google got a good laugh from the audience. He claimed that whilst taking his daughter around universities in the US he was presented with a copy of the page about him from Wikipedia and that this page claimed that "he is divorced and lives with Ralph Lauren". All seemingly quite possible, but Ramírez embellished his story by claiming that Larry Page of Google personally apologised to him for this entry and offered to track down the culprit.

This latter claim caught my attention, "why would Google apologise for something that appears in Wikipedia?" was my immediate thought. They have nothing to with the online encyclopaedia. So yesterday, just to demonstrate that I have little idea of what to do with my time and being fully aware of how Ramírez can play fast and loose with the facts, I decided to do a bit of investigation. The great thing about Wikipedia is that every single edit made to a page is still available, and I went through the edit history for his Wikipedia page. It didn't take long, Pedro Jota's pretensions to be the Spanish Bob Woodward haven't yet made him an international celebrity. The famous Ralph Lauren claim doesn't appear anywhere. For good measure I went through the significantly larger, and occasionally quite entertaining, edit history for the Spanish article on the man. Plenty of vandalism and the occasional insult, but no mention of Ralph either.

So what, you might say. A bit of journalistic licence to get a laugh out of an audience doesn't do much harm. But the really striking thing about going through a Wikipedia edit history is the way in which almost all vandalism or inaccuracies get systematically corrected or removed by the editing community. People put silly things in all the time, but they don't usually last long because of a general seriousness about the project. Contrast this with the repugnant, manipulative, hugely inaccurate pile of steaming horseshit that Pedro J. Ramírez and friends have published about the Madrid bombings and which has not been subjected to a single correction or rectification. You see, Pedro Jota was using the Ralph Lauren tale in an attempt to justify the need for "professional" journalists as opposed to the efforts of the amateur crowd in internet.

Modern Day Slavery In Almería

This depressing report from the Guardian on conditions in the greenhouses of Almería appeared a couple of weeks ago. Much of the report doesn't come as a great surprise to anyone a little bit familiar with the way in which a good proportion of Europe's vegetables are produced using immigrant labour working and living in often appalling conditions. Much of this came to light several years ago following the racist pogrom in the town of El Ejido. Whether you are aware of the issue or not, the accompanying video is well worth watching.

What I didn't know about until today was the dreadful response of the local media to the Guardian's report. Via David Jackson's blog I came across the articles which the local Voz de Almería has run on the issue. Unable to acknowledge in any way that much of the wealth of the region has been built on the exploitation of immigrant labour, they attempt to characterise the report as sensationalist journalism and portray the exploiters as if they were the victims. This, together with the typical and pathetic "there are problems everywhere" attempt to minimize the importance of what happens in the region.

Apart from the portrayal of the conditions which immigrant workers have to put up with, one of the most interesting aspects of the video is the effective confirmation that there has been a deliberate policy in Spain of directing illegal immigrants to areas like Almería where the government knows they will be working. Obviously for very low wages and without any rights. When you hear politicians who complain about the regularisation process that was carried out a few years ago for paperless immigrants, you have to remember that what those politicians seek is a situation just like that which exists in the greenhouses.

Mediterranean Walks....The Axarquía

The second post in my mini series of Mediterranean walks is about a trip we made at Easter to the Axarquía in Malaga. Conditions were perfect for walking in early April, the weather was good but the rain that had fallen during the winter meant that the countryside was at its best. We did this trip as part of an organised walking group, and our base was the coastal resort of Nerja.

On the first day, following the journey down from Madrid, we just did a short afternoon walk around the protected coastal zone of Cerro Gordo. This is an excellent viewpoint for the coast in both directions, and also inland towards the Sierra Nevada.

View in a larger map

On day 2 we got down to the serious stuff. The routes we were to do were divided into two different levels, one for those who like to run up mountains, and another for those who like to be able to stop occasionally and admire the scenery. Normally I go with the latter group, I'm not in a hurry, but on this day the higher level group were doing the ascent of La Maroma and I decided to join them. Partly this was due to a (mistaken) feeling that I would get more spectacular views by going higher up.

The route begins from the village of Canillas de Aceituno and in total the ascent is around 1400 metres. For the first half of the walk I more or less held my own, although I couldn't help feeling a bit guilty each time I stopped to take a photo. Later on things got tougher, and as we got nearer the peak I started to fall a bit behind. The upper part of the walk is through a fairly barren and rocky landscape.

I set my own pace, and wasn't too worried as long as I could see those who were a short distance ahead of me. At one point this became difficult as we ascended up a rocky gully and for about 10 minutes or so I couldn't see anyone in front. It didn't help that clouds started moving in from the coast making visibility a bit poorer. The path is marked by cairns, but when all you see is rocks around you it becomes difficult to spot them. Also, as you get nearer the top you get multiple possible paths.

Eventually I made it, after one of those disappointing and deceptive moments where you think the ridge above you must be the summit, only to find that it's just a stepping stone on the way to the top. Although the coastal side was mostly obscured by cloud, there was still a fine view from the top over to the snows of the sierra Nevada. I had the feeling that the walk had still been done in two separate groups, me and the rest. I'd already decided that for the rest of the trip I would return to a more relaxing level.

The route returns the same way back to the village, making for a total distance of around 18 kilometres. I think I earned the cold beer in the village square at the bottom.

View in a larger map

For the following two days we did routes beginning in the attractive village of Frigiliana. The first of these took us to the Fuente del Esparto. The route crosses a couple of rivers, and with the amount of rain that had fallen in previous months the vegetation was lush and a contrast to the dryer landscape we had seen the day before. It was a beautiful walk, and as I'd been reminded on La Maroma the best views are often had further down.

The intended route was to take us a bit beyond the fuente. However, a characteristic feature of going walking with a group is that you almost always have one person who doesn't like to walk with the rest. So it was that we lost a member of the group and our route came to a halt in a nearby picnic area as the guide had to go and look for him, eventually calling in the Guardia Civil to join the hunt. In the end it turned out that he had walked down to the nearest village. From the picnic area it's an easy walk down a dirt road to Cuevas de Nerja. Despite the interruption, it was still a great route to do.

On the last day we set out from Frigiliana in a different direction, climbing up to a hill known as El Fuerte. This is a relatively short route, we had a long trip ahead to return to Madrid, but it still involves ascending a few hundred metres from the village. The views were stunning, this was probably the clearest day we had on the trip. As well as the surrounding hills, we also could see La Maroma very well and the coastline stretching down towards Algeciras.

We had time in the village to have lunch and walk around a little. In the old part of Frigiliana there is a route to follow of ceramic plaques depicting the events of the rebellion of the moriscos in 1569 and its subsequent suppression.

View in a larger map

I was very impressed by an area which I didn't know at all before this trip. There's an impressive variety of landscapes and scope for days of walking. Nerja made a good base too, I have no idea what it's like in peak season but at Easter it was an agreeable place to be. It makes a difference after a day's walking to finish the day relaxing by the sea.

Corruption Keeps The Judges Busy

It's disgraceful. Nothing more than a brutal persecution of some decent politicians by a politically motivated judge acting on the orders of the government. Who will put an end to this shameful witch hunt carried out by Baltasar Garzón against our democratically elected representatives? Oh sorry....it's not the PP involved in this one is it? That's ok then, justice must be allowed to take its course and the judges decisions must always be respected.

At least in Cataluña they can argue that they don't let ideology and petty party differences get in the way when it comes to municipal corruption. Those arrested a few days ago on Garzon's orders include prominent figures from the PSC, Catalan wing of the PSOE, and from the nationalists of Convergencia i Unio. Like many other corruption cases in Spain, the main source of income has been the commissions that get paid when almost worthless land suddenly, and mysteriously, gets reclassified as suitable for building. Following the logic of the early days of Gürtel there should now be demands that somebody not connected to the case resigns. How about Mariano Rajoy? That proposal would even attract support from within his own party.

The case in Cataluña comes hot on the heels of another one in the Almerian town of El Ejido. At the heart of that case is the mayor of the town, Juan Enciso, who had already earned himself a reputation as a nasty piece of work following the anti-immigrant riots there a few years ago. His attitude towards the immigrant labour force whose work made the town wealthy was summarised in a phrase along the lines of "there are never enough of them at 8 in the morning, and always too many by 8 in the evening". Not a person to shed any tears for, Enciso seems to have managed to turn El Ejido into his own personal property.

El País told us yesterday morning that there is "desolación" in the Spanish parliament in the face of the growing number of corruption cases coming to the surface following the property boom. Clearly this feeling is still not so strong that either of the two major parties feel the need to legislate against corruption. In fact I suspect they will probably feel better after a good lunch or two and their sense of desolación certainly wasn't enough to stop them from voting down a motion that would oblige them to declare their assets. It's hard not to avoid the impression that what really causes the most pain is that there are some judges prepared to investigate these cases.

Rosa Catches The Last Train From Cordoba

I'm trying to blog, but this thing called work constantly gets in the way. Then when I'm not working it's a puente. Not to mention the Champions League; well done Barça! It's now a couple of weeks since we saw the carefully programmed succession in Andalucia's regional government, following the departure of Manuel Chaves to work for a Mr Zapatero in Madrid. His (interim?) successor, José Antonio Griñan, managed to liven up an otherwise grey takeover of power with something of a political coup by convincing Rosa Aguilar to join his administration. Aguilar was mayor of Cordoba, but not in the name of Griñan's party, the PSOE. Cordoba was the last provincial capital in Spain still being run (albeit in coalition) by Izquierda Unida, and Aguilar's abrupt departure went down very badly in that party. In many ways it was no surprise, she hadn't hidden her discontent with the way things had gone in IU in recent years and had even acknowledged voting for a PSOE candidate to the Senate in last year's general election.

She asked for her decision to be respected by her former colleagues, and was roundly abused for it. No surprise in that either, if you want to be respected for acting on your principles it doesn't help when you hold on to the job you have until something better comes along. If Aguilar no longer felt any sympathy for the party in whose name she occupied her post, then she could have gained more respect by simply standing down. It reminded me of the case of another Rosa on the Spanish political scene. Rosa Diez held on to a seat in the European Parliament which she won as a member of the PSOE just long enough to give herself time to set up her new party, UPyD, without having to suffer the indignity of losing that sweet salary from Brussels. Now it seems that Aguilar proposes to apologise to Felipe Gonzalez for linking him to the GAL group that murdered or kidnapped several innocent people in the name of "anti-terrorism". Nobody seriously doubts any more the links between that group and the administration led by Gonzalez, I suppose it forms part of the price for being in charge of Public Works for Andalucia.

El Atún Encebollao Y El Toro Embolao

The, always well deserved, South of Watford Easter break this year was spent in Cadiz, exploring a part of Spain’s southern coastline that has so far escaped the worst ravages of the construction boom. We stayed just by the beach of Bolonia, a long, beautiful stretch of sand with barely enough construction to even qualify it as a village.


Despite the low population, people have lived in this part of the world for a long time. Bolonia has its own Roman ruins just beside the beach, the site of Baelo Claudia; still presided over by this statue of the “Spanish” emperor Trajan.



At one end of the beach there is a vast, and seemingly unstoppable, sand dune.


Walking over the other side of the dune in search of a way through to the next beach we came across another reason why this area is still relatively undeveloped; much of the land belongs to the military. Eventually we found our way around the signs prohibiting entry to get to the lighthouse of Punta Camarinal, the gully of a dried up stream bed connects through to there from Bolonia.

One of the other reasons why development has not overwhelmed this area is that this is still the Atlantic, the sea is colder and rougher here than on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar. On day 2 we took what turned out in retrospect out to be a rash decision; to walk from Bolonia to Spain’s most southerly point at Tarifa. The first few kilometres were fine, walking mostly on the wild beach and occasionally just above it we got round to the next beach and Tarifa came into sight in the distance. Tarifa is a paradise for kite and wind surfers, and we were obviously there on a good day for it.



Walking down Tarifa’s beach was like walking through a vast encampment of kite surfers, I felt completely out of place because I wasn’t dragging a huge kite against the wind. Half way down the beach the town still didn’t seem to be getting any closer and we decided at the 15 km mark that perhaps we could leave seeing Tarifa for another day. The walk back was more difficult, we were walking into the wind and the tide was in, meaning that the beach in some areas had almost disappeared. The decision had been made, and we had to deal with the consequences; but I couldn’t help feeling envious of all those who had just found a quiet spot on the beach hidden from the wind. Anyway, we earned our pre-dinner beer in the chiringuito back at Bolonia. Later for dinner we tried the local speciality in this part of the world (at least while stocks last), atún encebollao. As we found out in the resturant, not only can the tuna be "encebollao", but also "entomatao"!

Day 3 saw us leave the coast to go to another protected area, the Parque Natural Los Alcornocales. This is an impressive cork tree forest that extends far inland from the coast near to Tarifa.


In theory you need to have a permit to enter the park, we’d applied for one but got no response and the people in the information office more or less acknowledged that the system doesn’t seem to be working. We opted for a 500 metre ascent up to the peak of El Picacho. This is not a long route, it can be done quite easily in a couple of hours. The area is beautiful at this time of year before the heat of summer dries out much of the vegetation, and the views from the top are worth it.


Leaving the hills behind we went down to Tarifa the easy way, by road. Frankly, I don’t know why we bothered, the town itself is a bit of a neglected dump and we were very glad we had taken the decision to stay in Bolonia rather than here. On the other hand, you get very fine views of Africa from Tarifa.


For our last day before heading back home we went to visit the village of Vejer de la Frontera. We imagined a quiet Sunday morning stroll around a peaceful Andalucian village, what we got was a bit different. It seems that Easter Sunday in Vejer is celebrated with the “toro embolao”, a bull run through the narrow streets of the centre. Half of the villagers were already a little unsteady on their feet due to the bars doing such good business on a festive day, and to get anywhere we had to squeeze through the bars of the gates that had been set up at intervals to close off the running space. A quick walk around the old part and we decided to leave before the action began, I don’t think this is one of those events where they set the bull’s horns on fire but I didn’t really feel like staying to find out. It's a nice village, but this wasn't the day.

Let’s get together and have a battle….the Cabo de Trafalgar.


Our trip ended down by the sea in Conil de la Frontera, which was another pleasant surprise. Although the village has obviously expanded in size in recent years it’s still quite small and has a huge beach stretching all the way back up to Trafalgar. We’ve been told by people who know that in summer it’s almost insufferably crowded, not a problem at Easter. Even though the weather wasn’t as good as it could have been we didn’t do too badly compared to other parts of the country, and life felt good as we ate our lunch in the warm spring sunshine before returning to colder realities.

Un Ajuste De Cuentas

The Spanish police didn't take long to reach conclusions about the murder of a Senegalese immigrant in the Almerian town of Roquetas de Mar on Saturday night. An “ajuste de cuentas” (a settling of accounts) we were told, probably involving drugs. I've often heard this given as the motive for a crime here. At first I marvelled at the rapidity of the police investigations, the bodies would barely be cold following a shooting and already the police had come up with the motive for the crime. Then with the passage of time I realised that this conclusion was hardly ever the result of any investigation at all, and seemed to simply be a way of explaining away crimes that might otherwise be difficult to solve; usually involving foreigners killing other foreigners. I even found that I could more or less guess when it would be used, with practice I have a fairly good success rate.

Those who know the victim of the weekend's events claim that he had no involvement of any kind in criminal activities, he had a job and was close to securing legal status in the country; the dream of all of those who continue to undertake the tremendously dangerous journey by boat from Africa to the Canary islands or the southern coast of Spain. Some press coverage has also focused on the miserable conditions in which many of these immigrants live as they collect the fruit and vegetables produced under plastic in Almeria and other areas on the Mediterranean coast. At the same time the native population does very well from the steady stream of cheap labour. One of the best columnists in the Spanish press, Javier Ortiz, writes eloquently on the subject today. The police crackdown in the town contrasts sharply with the events of El Ejido a few years ago, then the police watched with folded arms as the locals burnt and chased hundreds of immigrants out of their homes.

Etnosur

Whilst the big hitters of the summer music festivals were engaging in their pointless audience war over the weekend, I was down at Etnosur in the Andalusian village of Alcalá La Real. Free at the point of delivery, this festival was a much smaller affair. In some ways it was like a hippy version of a village fiesta, with the concert sites located in the village itself. Normally I don’t like restrictions on taking your own drinks into these events, but in this case the intention was more to stop the event becoming a huge botellón rather than to guarantee the profits of those who buy the drinks franchise. Being a free festival there were no big names here, but there was still some good music to be heard. The main problem for those who don’t like camping is the shortage of accommodation, we rented an apartment for the weekend but unless you have a group this can work out expensive. Those who don’t mind sleeping rough had no problems.

La Virgen De La Cabeza

As I'm going to be away In Jaén for the weekend I leave you with some images from my last trip to that province. Firstly, a lesson on the dangers of meddling with the colour of the local religious symbols.


Not far from the place where I took the above picture (Cazorla), there was one of these information boards that describes what you are seeing from the viewpoint; which in this case was thousands and thousands of olive trees. In what has to be one of the most superfluous bits of public information ever, an arrow on the board pointed helpfully towards "El olivar".

From Marbella To Estepona

The Andalucian town of Estepona is the latest location where a major municipal corruption scandal seems to be emerging; the mayor of the town is amongst those arrested. The roots of the problems in Estepona probably begin with Marbella, and it’s not just a question of geographical proximity. Marbella’s slide into becoming Spain’s municipal corruption capital began with the reign as mayor of Jesus Gil; also well known for being the owner of Atletico Madrid. Gil presided over much of the ransacking of Marbella’s coffers and the massive illegal construction that has taken place there. Somehow, despite the fact that everyone seemed to know what was going on, he avoided prosecution for most of what he did and died a free man. Estepona was for a while run by his party and the mayor was his son, until the whole operation started to come unstuck.

The seed that Gil planted seems to have affected those who came after him in both Marbella and Estepona, and it is his successors in both towns who are now facing charges. Those who were previously in opposition to him have continued the culture of corruption. The PSOE have moved rapidly to expel their mayor in Estepona from the party, but this is really something they do just to mark a bit of difference from the PP who are reluctant to take measures against their members in similar situations. Both parties tolerate municipal corruption, and the lack of seriousness in fighting it is illustrated by the latest case. A law passed last year should oblige all elected members in local government to do a declaration of their assets, a welcome measure encouraging a bit of transparency. However, no one is obeying this law because it depends on the existence of a municipal statute. Unfortunately the law creating the legal basis for this municipal statute is a separate one and it fell by the wayside in the last legislature. So until that situation is rectified the only declarations made will be voluntary ones, and those who use municipal power as a means of personal enrichment continue to keep the spirit of Jesus Gil alive.

The Glowing Sands Of Plutonium Beach

Which Western European country once had four nuclear bombs dropped on its territory? The answer is Spain. The locality of Palomares, in Almeria, was the site of a collision in January 1966 involving a B-52 bomber and the plane that was supposed to be refuelling it. The bomber was carrying four nuclear bombs, three of which fell onto land. Of these latter bombs, the conventional explosives in two of them detonated with the result that the surrounding land was severely contaminated with uranium and plutonium. The fourth bomb fell into the sea and was the object of a lengthy search until it was recovered.

Manuel Fraga, who was Franco’s Minister of Tourism at the time of the accident, decided to bathe in the sea off Palomares together with the American ambassador to show that there was nothing to worry about. He’s still alive, and he certainly doesn’t glow in the dark. It would also probably be unfair to attribute his daft political views solely to the effects of radioactivity. The Americans gave an undertaking to remove all of the contaminated soil, and did indeed remove a substantial quantity of earth. Spain doesn’t have the resources to deal with plutonium, that tends to be a prerogative of those nations that possess nuclear weapons.

Come on in, the water's really hot!

Time passed and the incident was more or less forgotten. Then, with pressure from (what else would it be?) the construction industry to build on the affected area it was decided to carry out some rigorous tests in the area to check whether it was suitable for residential use 40 years after the accident. The result of these tests showed that the US had, er, “forgotten” something as they shipped out following the cleanup operation. Two sizeable trenches containing contaminated materials were left behind without any protection or warning to the local inhabitants. Perhaps the construction plans for Palomares will be put on hold as a result of the building industry crisis, in any case it looks like it’s still a bit early to be buying a dream home in the Plutonium Beach Resort.

Andalucia....Autonomy Doesn't Excite

In another referendum yesterday to approve a reformed autonomy statute, Andalucia voted overwhelmingly in favour, almost 90% of those who voted were in favour. The downside is that the real winners of the popular vote were those who abstained, with participation in the vote reaching only 36.28%.

The outcome of the vote was hardly in doubt, which did little to lift the turnout; all of the major political parties supported the reform with the exception of the regionalist Partido Andalucista. Supporters of the reform even included the Partido Popular (PP), who have been so vocal in their opposition to the reform in Cataluña. The Andalucian PP, perhaps conditioned by years of electoral defeats in the region, decided to support a reformed statute that contains clauses which the national leadership have challenged as unconstitutional in the case of Cataluña.

With such a low turnout there are inevitable voices talking about the need to engage the electorate more in the political process. The lack of real enthusiasm is hardly surprising; the devolution of power to the regions normally causes much more excitement in the political class than it does in the population as a whole; who find little change in their lives as a result. A similar thing happens with elections to the European Parliament, whose activities seem so remote from the concerns of most people. After each successive election, there is a week in which the politicians talk about the need to involve people more in the European project; then everything returns to normal again.