Regional Election Results For Galicia And The Basque Country 2012

I did toy with the idea of continuing wordless blogging and just post the results widget from El País. The results will start coming in after 20:00 Spanish time.

Both of the regions voting today belong to that select group of comunidades autonomas in Spain (along with Cataluña and Andalucia) that set their own electoral timetable instead of having a common voting day. Neither Galicia nor The Basque Country have made it through the full four year term, although the reasons for early elections are different.

The outgoing Basque government had no choice but to call elections after the Partido Popular withdrew their support for the minority administration led by the socialist Patxi López. The expectation for today's election is that 'normal service' will be resumed and that the nationalists will sweep the board, probably taking the first two places. A return to nationalist rule would probably have been the case even without the fall in support for the two big national parties (PP and PSOE) provoked by their management of the crisis. The legalisation of parties linked to ETA's political wing means that the full nationalist vote will be reflected in the results, unlike the previous election.

This will leave Patxi López free to become the 'continuity' candidate for national leadership in the PSOE when current leader Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba finally gets the message that he is not the future of his party. López will be in an even stronger position if the Catalan socialists get a drubbing in the forthcoming elections there. Carme Chacón almost beat Rubalcaba to the leadership but she will be damaged by a bad result in Cataluña. The next time a leader is elected there will be other contenders. 

The effect of ETA's continuing truce and the legalisation of their political wing changes the balance of power in nationalist circles. The conservative PNV has always dominated the nationalist vote but now they are in competition with a strengthened rival. The margin between the PNV and Bildu will be important for the balance between those satisfied with regional autonomy inside Spain and those who favour a push for independence.

In Galicia the reason for early elections is simply political expediency on the part of the PP. The party has decided that with the economic situation continuing to deteriorate and the with the threat of imminent EU intervention to prop up Spain's finances, there is less political cost in bringing the elections forward. The PP may even conserve their majority in the Galician parliament, the PSOE shows little sign of electoral recovery and the Galician nationalists have been in disarray. If it comes off, the PP will feel fully vindicated in their consistent strategy of putting the party interest before anything else. 

Barring surprises, the distribution of the vote may not change very much. What will be important is turnout, a big decline will be seen as something of a vote of no confidence in the big two parties. Some recent national opinion polls show them with little more than 55% support combined, when in happier times for Spain it would have been more like 80%. Some disenchanted voters will vote for the smaller parties, but many may simply opt for abstention. 

Then, with the elections out of the way, perhaps Spain's government will come out of hiding although Rajoy's administration seems to have decided that is the best way to weather the storm. The decision on whether to ask for an EU rescue doesn't just depend on the electoral timetable, but as with the case of Andalucia earlier this year we have seen that the PP has no problem with concealing their intentions for electoral benefit. No-one in that party believes in falling on their sword for the greater good, power and the opportunities it presents are too tempting. As for those who suffer the consequences of this, ¡que se jodan!

Sortu....Testing The Law That Bans Political Parties

A few people went to Spain's interior ministry today to register their new political party. The new party is called Sortu, and the reason why it is creating headlines is because it is seen as being a successor platform to Batasuna, ETA's political wing. The new organisation is an attempt to recover the political space that was occupied by Batasuna until its illegalisation under the controversial Ley de Partidos.

There is a difference this time, one which has to be seen in the context of ETA's ceasefire announcement. The new party has copied much of its constitution from other legal political parties, like the PSOE or the Basque PNV. In addition, Sortu's representatives have also explicitly rejected the use of violence to achieve their political aims, and have included a specific reference to ETA as part of this rejection.

All of this creates an interesting situation. The Ley de Partidos allows parties to be banned if they support violence or terrorism. On the basis of the constitution presented by Sortu there is no justification for illegalisation of the new party. Despite this it seems fairly likely that state prosecutors will call for Sortu to be banned, and therefore prevented from participating in the municipal elections in May.

The Partido Popular is openly in favour of illegalising the new party, regardless of what the law says. As far as they are concerned any movement that may lead towards an end to ETA's activities is a trick and the looney right were marching on the streets of Madrid again last Saturday; notionally in opposition to ETA although there was far more chanting against Zapatero and Rubalcaba. Zapatero has already commented ironically on how different the reaction would have been had the PP been in power.

In the end, if Sortu is not allowed to exist it will be a political decision rather than a legal one. The judges may say that the new party has failed to condemn ETA's past attacks, or to call for its immediate dissolution. All of which is true, but is not legal grounds for illegalising a party. This is the sort of situation where we could see just what a bad law the Ley de Partidos is, it was created to specifically prohibit Batasuna and permits a formal legal cover for decisions that have a purely political background.

I registered for an invitation for a new web site called Storify some time ago and had forgotten all about it until I got the invitation the other day. This site allows you to aggregate information from different sources about a topic and one of the issues I have decided to use to test it is the ETA ceasefire. It also allows you to embed the resulting story in another web page. I will continue to add new reports as I see them, what is shown here are a few that I collected yesterday and today.

What Happens If ETA's Ceasefire Is For Real?

The latest declaration by ETA of a general and permanent ceasefire doesn't seem to have done much to change the outlook on achieving an end to political violence in the Basque Country. The problem with the statement is that it attempts to take us back to 2006, when the group also promised a "permanent" ceasefire, one that was broken when they didn't get what they wanted from the negotiating process with the Spanish government and which led to the 2007 bomb in Madrid airport that killed two people.

Maybe ETA, recently under intense police pressure, want to try and pick up the thread of negotiation where they left it before that bombing. The Spanish government doesn't and it's not hard to see why; the possibility of a repeat of what happened in 2007 is a political risk they will be unwilling to take. Add to that the view that with ETA being so weak they are not in a position to demand concessions in return for abandoning violence. Despite this, there is for the moment one significant difference with the previous process; the international dimension. This has meant that the ETA declaration included a willingness for their ceasefire to be verified by the international community.

Potentially this difference could be very important, with its echoes of the Northern Ireland process where international observers supervised the destruction of IRA weapons. ETA hasn't gone as far as saying that this is what they mean by verification, and the international mediators who have been contacted will be understandably cautious about getting involved without certain guarantees of the process leading somewhere. The word that is really missing from the ETA statement has been taken up by their political wing, Batasuna, in the last 24 hours. That word is "irreversible", but it's still not one that the men who hold the guns have uttered.

The illegal Batasuna is said to have been hoping for a clearer declaration that would pave the way for the legalisation of the party in time for it to contest the municipal elections in May. That looks an unlikely prospect given the very cool reaction by the Spanish government to the latest ceasefire. Batasuna will probably test the Ley de Partidos that was introduced to illegalise the party, by proposing a new organisation with a constitution that rejects the use of violence. According to the law that would be enough for the new party to contest elections, but in reality the decision is a political one and a bad law will continue to be used until either of the two major national parties decides it shouldn't be.

At least one of those parties, the Partido Popular, can be relied upon to oppose any movement that even suggests that Zapatero's government could preside over an end to ETA. That's what they did the last time, and a party whose atrocious and repugnant manipulation of terrorism as a political tool has been a consistent feature since March 11th 2004 is not going to change now.  The first demonstration by the far right Libertad Digital/ Hazte Oir crew has already been called for the 5th February, and the insane myths about how Zapatero has pacted the handover of Navarra to ETA amongst other concessions have also been resurrected for the occasion. Expect far more shouting against the government than against ETA.

We can also expect the South African international mediator, Brian Currin, to become something of a hate figure for much of the right in Spain; even though his involvement is only going to have the intention of bringing about an end to violence. The same has already happened to the prominent Basque Socialist politican, Jesús Eguiguren, only for having the temerity to suggest that a ceasefire declaration would merit a response from the government. This is a man who has been an ETA target for years but such things matter little to the fanatics who have more or less branded him as being part of the group.

Whilst ETA and Batasuna are working hard on building up the international dimension of the process, the government is attempting to avoid this. But if it turns out that ETA really are willing to go the full distance then there will surely have to be some sort of positive response. The suggestion that the Spanish police will be the ones who verify the ceasefire is absurd, it goes along with those who say the only way out is for ETA to formally surrender. That's not the way these things happen, and it would be a serious matter if a chance for peace was turned down on the grounds that Spain rejects any international involvement.

It's very hard to have an accurate picture of what is going on inside ETA, but it's clear that there is intense debate in Batasuna and almost certainly inside ETA itself about the way forward. The rejection of the opportunity that existed in the last process has ended up with more of their prisoners drifting away from the cause, and with former supporters more or less openly questioning the point of ETA's existence in a way that didn't happen often before. It's still ETA's move, but that doesn't mean the other players shouldn't be preparing their response.

It's Torture Regardless Of Who The Victim Is

Last week a court in the Basque Country convicted four members of the Guardia Civil of torturing two members of ETA. It was ruled that the victims were beaten up after being arrested and subjected to an ordeal which included being ducked in a river. The ETA members concerned were subsequently convicted of being the authors of the bombing at Madrid Barajas Airport in 2007, which killed two people and marked the beginning of the end for the last attempt at reaching a negotiated solution for terrorism in the Basque Country. 

The accused officers claimed that the injuries suffered by the victims were self inflicted, but independent medical reports were consistent with the claim of mistreatment and the court accepted that torture had taken place, sentencing four of the accused to prison sentences. It's very unusual in Spain to get a conviction for police mistreatment of prisoners, above all if the case has any connection to terrorism. The Spanish government has a long standing policy of claiming that all accusations of torture form part of the training of ETA members for when they are arrested, the implication being that all such accusations must be treated as false. This case was no exception, interior minister Rubalcaba made a statement at the time of the arrests denying any possibility of torture, a statement which has mysteriously disappeared from the ministry website following last week's verdict.

In effect this automatic defence by the government against any accusations of police violence or mistreatment gives the police carte blanche to do more or less what they feel like doing. Those of us who lived in the UK during the cases of the Guldford Four or the Birmingham Six know only too well where tolerance of such actions eventually lead. To the conviction of innocent people. There are too many who will defend the actions of the officers concerned, and even claim that the conviction is a blow to the struggle against terrorism. It's even quite possible that an appeal to a higher court will find a judge who is not prepared to accept the idea that members of the security services break the law. I for one am very glad to live in a country where torture is a crime, even if it is difficult to obtain a conviction. 

The El Mundo Journalism Masterclass

Imagine that you go to a football match. There are lots of people there and, who knows, perhaps 60-70 metres away from where you are sitting someone unfurls a banner or holds a placard supporting a political cause. Then a photographer takes a picture of the said placard which captures you along with many other people far away in the background. You might be under the impression that this does not associate you directly with the cause in question. You are wrong to think that, because you have not counted with the journalistic ethics of El Mundo and their ability to draw a circle around your head. Today's front page from El Mundo - how to construct an eye catching headline out of nothing.

I don't have any special affection for Cataluña's new president, Artur Mas, but El Mundo's crude manipulation is just pathetic. Since we're talking about media coverage and El Mundo have already introduced the Basque theme let's give Público a slap on the wrist as well. Their piece on the Wall Street Journal publishing comments by Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi is just stupid. Based around the common idea in Spain that the role of journalists in press coverage of terrorism is to instruct people on what they should think, the Público piece looks for  a way to take Murdoch's empire to task for, in their words in the paper edition, being a "loudspeaker" for ETA. 

Things get really silly because they try to hang the accusation on the association between the paper's owner, Rupert Murdoch, and José Maria Aznar. As if this really has anything to do with foreign media giving coverage to what may, after all, be interesting developments concerning ETA's future. There's a bit too much obsession with Murdoch sometimes in Spain with people fearing that the Aznar link was the prelude to him entering Spain's media market. Where Murdoch would possibility find a market opportunity in a country which already has so much flaky right-wing media is an open question.

Felipe Gonzalez And The Return Of The GAL

Former Spanish prime minister Felipe González has captured newspaper headlines in Spain for the first time in years following his interview on Sunday with El País. What caught most attention was his declaration that his government once had information concerning the time and place of a meeting of the entire leadership of ETA, and that he decided against blowing them up. The administration led by González has been accused for many years, on good grounds, of having been behind the GAL dirty war against ETA in the 1980's. The GAL group carried out kidnappings and assassinations, frequently involving people who had no connection to ETA at all, and their activities probably gave a significant boost to the Basque group given that they didn't need to invent an argument about state terrorism.

González declared that he wasn't sure whether he had made the right decision, the presumed logic behind his doubts being that organising such an act would have dealt a potentially fatal blow against ETA. It's unlikely, given the way in which ETA has so far survived several times the detention of its leadership. ETA in the 1980's was a much stronger organisation than it is at the moment. It's fairly clear from the tone of the interview that González regarded the decision as a strategic question rather than one involving any questioning of whether this is an appropriate way to respond to terrorism. More interesting in some ways was what he had to say about the GAL because his claim that the kidnapping of Segundo Marey was ended on the orders of his then interior minister amounts to what is effectively the first open admission that the GAL's activities were under direct government control. It's one thing that almost everyone believes that to be the case, quite another that it is said in such an open way.

Only González and those who are close to him know why he should choose to speak this way about the issue after so many years. The right-wing press has already been hammering away on the GAL ever since the recent government reshuffle that effectively made Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba the new strongman of Zapatero's administration. Indeed, El Mundo has been headlining with it all week. The dirty war against ETA did not begin with the GAL, but it certainly reached disastrous heights during the time González was in charge. What's depressing is the feeling that may of those who use it as a hammer to beat the PSOE and González would almost certainly have approved of it had their own party been the organizer. That, and the ambivalence shown by so many vocal opponents of terrorism when it is a government that plants the bombs.

Most People Have Left The Floor, But Zapatero's Still Dancing

The agreement between the Spanish government and the Basque nationalist PNV to support the 2011 budget means that Zapatero's administration now has a fairly strong chance of lasting its full term. By this time next year there will only be 6 months of the parliament left anyway, and a failure to pass the budget is the one thing that most threatened the stability of the government. However, we won't be hearing much anymore about the variable geometry which Zapatero has used to keep a minority government going. The parties to the left of the PSOE have been estranged by the adoption of a right wing economic agenda, and the Catalan nationalists of Convergencia are far more interested in winning the forthcoming Catalan elections than they are in extracting concessions from the national government in return for support. It was more or less the PNV or nothing.

The agreement with the PNV means that the Basque Country will receive additional powers from the national government, most notably the control of employment policy. Despite the predictable howls of protest from the right wing press in Madrid, the deal involves transferring powers that many other autonomous regions already possess, and which are long overdue in the case of the Basque Country. Partido Popular leader Mariano Rajoy knows all about making such deals, when Aznar's first government needed support Rajoy more or less announced that he would concede whatever was necessary to get the PNV's votes. However, when the boot is on the other foot. Less comfortable with the deal will be the minority Basque administration by the PSOE's Patxi Lopez which relies on the PP's support. The PNV get the credit for extracting concessions and will be strengthened as the opposition to a regional government that is in any case far more popular outside of the Basque Country than in it.

Tomorrow we should know more about what next year's budget means, but we can be fairly sure that it will bring cuts, cuts and more cuts. The talk is of 15% cuts in government departments. Another consequence of the deal being done with the PNV is that all the talk from prominent government members of the wealthy also paying their part of getting the country out of crisis remains just that....talk. There may be a new income tax band for those declaring annual earnings over €120000, but this leaves untouched much of the barely taxed wealth that was pocketed by a tiny minority during the boom years.

I was reading today about the very real possibility of Ireland being forced back into recession as a result of the slash and burn economic recipes that are being applied across Europe. This, of course, is the country that did everything the markets and our distinguished economic analysts said had to be done by applying very drastic cuts. Now the poster boy of the neoliberal "solution" is being punished by the same markets because of doubts about the capacity of the economy to grow. I can't wait for someone from those responsible to come out and say "nobody warned us this would happen". I was also reading yesterday the comments on the Wall Street Journal's interview with Zapatero and it struck me just how many people evidently desire the continuation of the crisis. They are either sick or making a lot of money a lot of money out of it. Or a combination of the two.

Egunkaria

On the face of it, it seems as if justice has worked as it should. Five directors of a Basque newspaper called Egunkaria were wrongly accused of being in the service of ETA, and today a Spanish court has absolved them of all charges. Surely no cause for complaint there, but when you look at the history of the case you come across something that can only be described as a massive and prolonged miscarriage of justice. Today Egunkaria makes headlines because of the verdict, but most of the long and sorry story of this case has been largely invisible, except to those who seek out information about it.

Egunkaria was originally founded in 1990, and was at that time the only newspaper that published entirely in the Basque language. Perhaps not surprisingly, the paper adopted positions that could be broadly identified with Basque nationalism, but not with support for ETA and terrorism. However, in 2001 a captain in the Spanish Guardia Civil presented a report to judge Baltasar Garzón claiming that documentation captured from ETA members could be interpreted to mean that Egunkaria had been set up to further the aims of the group. Garzón, who can legitimately be accused of overdoing it when it comes to tarring people as accomplices of terrorism, didn't bite on this particular hook and rejected the accusation.

That could, and should, have been the end of the matter. But the Guardia Civil officer persisted until he found a judge more receptive to his argument, and it was to be judge Juan del Olmo who took the decision to act and to close Egunkaria, claiming that it was created, financed and directed by ETA. We are now in 2003. Serious accusations of being terrorist accomplices were made against the directors of the newspaper. The years passed, and Del Olmo was unable to sustain a case proving the accusations used to close the paper. By 2006 the state prosecution service was already declaring that no evidence existed to substantiate the allegations of ETA support or control and called for the case to be shelved. Over three years ago.

Again, you might think that would spell the end of the process. But it continued, thanks above all to the fact that two of these ultra right-wing group who seem to make all the running in the Spanish legal system these days managed to keep the process going without the support of prosecutors. So finally, at the end of last year, the Egunkaria case came to trial with the accusation being presented by the Asociación Víctimas del Terrorismo and another group called, quite inappropriately, Dignidad y Justicia. The trial sessions did not last very long, but it was carried out on the principle of having a morning of hearings and then adjourning until the following week. Then it has taken another three months for the verdict to be issued, perhaps just a detail when you consider the overall time frame we are dealing with.

The verdict today dismisses the charges against the accused. Despite the careful legal language and the general unwillingness for those inside the system to ever admit mistakes, it is quite a damning document. It states clearly that the groundless prosecution has been based on the idea that anything to do with the Basque language or culture must also have something to do with ETA. The trial judge, Javier Gómez Bermúdez, comes close to suggesting that Del Olmo acted illegally in closing the paper. He even, and this is probably a first from a Spanish judge hearing a case linked to ETA, doesn't dismiss the accusations of mistreatment and torture made by the accused following their arrest. Gómez Bermúdez is certainly no radical, he was the judge who presided over the Madrid bombings trial. For that he is already on the hitlist of some of the right wing media who supported the 11-M conspiracy theories. His latest decision will guarantee his position on that list.

So there we are, surely justice has prevailed? Well no, a perfectly legal newspaper was closed years before the case affecting it came to trial and several of its directors have spent those years living under the shadow of being accused as terrorist collaborators. The closure can never be compensated, and justice still has a long way to go to right this situation. One of the ironies of the trial was that the groups presenting this bogus accusation attempted to frighten the court by claiming that huge compensation would have to be paid if the accused were not found guilty. But what price do you put on them being denied the right for years to freely publish in their language of choice?

Haiti....The Bishops Put It Into Perspective

With the race already underway to make the most idiotic comments about the the awful earthquake in Haiti, the Spanish Church could not be left behind. The bishop of San Sebastian, José Ignacio Munilla, has hit the headlines today for remarking that bad though the earthquake is, it's not as serious as the spiritual situation of the Spanish people! Obviously it's not easy for a bishop to explain anyway why God has suddenly decided so many Haitians must die. He now claims that he was misinterpreted as he was talking from a theological point of view, so that's alright then.

The recently appointed Munilla has already had his share of controversy, as the decision to give him the job is widely regarded as having been a move by the Spanish church to impose central control over their Basque followers. Munilla is from the more ultra wing of an already hardly moderate institution, and many Catholics in the Basque Country have opposed his appointment. He is on the other hand very popular amongst right wing Catholics in Madrid who see him as someone who will crack down on any signs of Basque nationalism amongst the clergy. Given the attention he has already captured he might need to spend a period in silent contemplation.

The Basque Weather Forecast

You wouldn't have thought that the weather forecast on television could really be that great a source of controversy, but with the change of government in the Basque Country comes a change in the map that viewers will see when they want to know how hard it will rain tomorrow in Bilbao. When the nationalists were in power someone decided that viewers of ETB, the Basque regional TV channel, should see a weather map that includes Navarra and the French Basque Country too. In other words, the entire area of what nationalists regard as historically being part of Basque territory. With the change of administration comes a change in those who run all of those organisations that depend on the regional government, ETB included. The winds of change mean the weather map should also change, but then the dilemma has been how to make the change without completely offending nationalist sentiment by excluding Navarra and the French areas. It seems the solution adopted will be to show half of northern Spain and the frontier area with France on the grounds that Basques also want to know about the weather in La Rioja or Burgos for their weekend getaways. Expect sunny intervals with frequent showers if you're near the coast.

An Illegalisation Too Far

Finally, Spain's Constitutional Court has placed some limits on the Ley de Partidos. This law, originally introduced to illegalise ETA's political wing, Batasuna, has subsequently been applied in an ever broader sense to illegalise any party that has had any sort of connections with Batasuna or former members of that party. The process goes like this; the right wing press launches a campaign about how party A is simply an ETA front, the state prosecution service takes up the case and the Supreme Court decides that what is good enough for the prosecutors and the press is good enough for them. It converts the process of illegalising political parties into more or less a rubber stamping formality. In this case, the left wing coalition Iniciativa Internacionalista-La Solidaridad entre los Pueblos (II-SP) was about to be prevented from taking part in next month's elections for the European Parliament.

The evidence presented by the prosecutors was based on some of those who had supported the list coming from the now illegalised ANV, and the past activities of some of the candidates; forgetting in the process that it is a coalition of different organisations. Add to this the famous catch all that if you don't explicitly condemn ETA's violence then you are considered to be part of ETA. This was enough for a majority of the Supreme Court judges, although it had several commentators pointing out that the list of those considered to be part of ETA's "entorno" was expanding rapidly precisely at the time when the group itself is at its weakest. The weakness of the argument presented for illegalisation was too much this time for the Constitutional Court, which has backed all previous illegalisations under this law. Most importantly, they have ruled that a failure to condemn terrorism is not in itself sufficient cause to make an organisation illegal. This bad law will remain, but at least it can't be used in such an indiscriminate manner against any group which may attract support from Batasuna's disenfranchised electorate.

Patxi López Takes Control

Patxi López, the leader of the Basque socialists (PSE) took office as expected last week as the first non-nationalist Lehendakari in the Basque Country. He has already announced his slim line minority administration, with half of its members being independents. The outgoing president of the region, Juan José Ibarretxe, has in turn announced his intention of leaving politics; perhaps the release of yet another Star Trek movie has given him hopes of a new career? Acclaimed by many as a fresh start for the Basque Country after so many years of control by the nationalist PNV, it remains to be seen whether the reality lives up to the presentation. López depends entirely on the Partido Popular for achieving a majority, and this party could pull the plug on his government any time it decides it is politically convenient to do so.

In retaliation for losing control in the Basque Country, the PNV is systematically voting against the national government at every opportunity. This has created a dream situation for the PP. On the one hand they use their votes in the Basque Parliament to exclude the nationalists from power (and have the PSOE depending on them to govern). On the other hand they get PNV support for any parliamentary initiative that might threaten the national government with defeat. There is much talk at the moment of an unholy alliance developing between the PP, the PNV and possibly the right wing Catalan nationalists of Convergencia i Unió. This is not in itself enough to defeat Zapatero’s government in a vote, but the unwillingness of the other smaller parties to support the government has meant that already the PSOE has decided to vote with the opposition on several initiatives to avoid the appearance of defeat.

Cataluña holds the key to the government’s chances of seeing out a full term. The still unresolved issue of financing for Spain’s autonomous regions means that none of the Catalan parties are willing to offer parliamentary support unless they get offered a good deal. The job of sorting out that issue is now in the hands of former Andalucian president Manuel Chaves. Stage one of winning them over came with an agreement last week to hand over control of the commuter train network in the region to the Catalan government. That was the easy bit. Convergencia will only support a financing deal if it looks as if they are the ones who won it, and their nationalist rivals in Esquerra Republicana will do the same. It’s a rocky road ahead for a minority government in the midst of a dreadful economic situation. The “state of the nation” debate next week might offer some clues about what lies ahead.

Change Is On The Way In The Basque Country

Barring unexpected events, the beginning of May should see political change in the Basque Country. The PSOE’s Basque section (PSE) and the Partido Popular have reached an agreement which will mean the PP will support the election of the PSE’s candidate, Patxi López, as Basque president. The first consequence of the agreement was the election last week of the new president of the regional parliament, the PP’s Arantza Quiroga. The agreement between the two parties, who have a one seat majority in the Basque parliament, is not for a coalition government. López intends to form a minority administration, but unless he can persuade the PNV to take a friendlier attitude at some point then he is always going to have to rely on the PP to win any vote.

It seems amazing that a party can finish in third place and lose 30% of its vote, as the PP did in last months election, yet still be regarded as the victor. It has emerged from the election as the party that holds the key to power for Patxi López. This prospect has got many on the right very excited, as they see the possibilities of the PP playing puppet master with a weak government in the Basque Country at the same time as the national PSOE led administration finds itself with less support. It remains to be seen whether the interruption in PNV hegemony will last even a full parliament, even though the PP has pledged that it will not support a vote of censure against López during the next 4 years. Given that some commentators see the results last month as meaning that the nationalist tide has peaked, it’s worth pointing out that the parliamentary arithmetic is not a direct reflection of the votes cast. The combination of the votes received by the PSE and the PP doesn’t exceed 45% of the total cast, even less if you included those spoiled votes cast as a protest over the illegalisation of parties linked to Batasuna.

The nationalist parties will now seek to present the new government as an anti-Basque front directed from Madrid. López would find it much easier to resist such an image were he not so dependent on the PP’s support. Ironically, a government led by the PSE may lead to a notable increase in the powers of the Basque government. There is a long list of functions due to be ceded by the national government under the terms of the Basque autonomy statute. This process has been more or less halted in the last few years, but López will hope to unlock the door on the issue. Apart from that, and removing many of the PNV’s nominees from their comfortable positions in organisations depending on the regional government, it’s hard to see what other distinctive policy moves can be made in such a restrictive political space.

The PNV does behave as if the Basque Country was its possession, and a period in opposition will do them no harm. They are also a party which has shown no hesitation in forming alliances with non-nationalist parties when it suited them, including the agreement with the PP enabling that party to form its first government in 1996. Nevertheless, they have wasted no time in demonstrating their displeasure at the prospect of losing power, and are using their votes in the national parliament to make life as uncomfortable as possible for Zapatero’s government. With the PNV having withdrawn their support at national level, the government will need to look even more than ever towards Cataluña for the support it needs to guarantee a majority. That’s not an easy option with the still unresolved financing deal for that region continuing to cause political problems. Not to mention the spectre of the eternal deliberations of the Constitutional Court on Cataluña’s now not so new autonomy statute.

ZP And The Art Of Variable Geometry

It sounds almost attractive, doesn't it? Variable geometry is the term used by the spin doctors of Spain's government to describe how they intend to make a minority government last for a full parliament. In reality it's a fancy way of describing a situation where that minority administration has no stable alliances which allow it to survive without problems, instead at each crunch point you make the agreements you need with whoever is prepared to sell their vote.

Now, with the results of the Basque elections giving the PSOE's Basque wing (PSE) the chance of forming a government in that region, we are hearing that variable geometry could also be applied there. The only problem being that this geometry may not be as variable as they would like, and the alliances formed could also have a severe impact on national politics. For the idea to work you have to have a choice of partners, and at the moment the only way it seems the Basque socialist leader Patxi Lopez can form a government is with the "support" of the Partido Popular. The euphoria many PSOE supporters feel after their party's result has to be tempered by the realisation that they may end up depending on another party whose only mission is to get them out of office at national level.

Apart from the PP the only alternative is an agreement with the Basque nationalists of the PNV, who still clearly emerged as the largest party in the election. There lies the problem, the PNV will not willingly play second fiddle to a party that got 80,000 fewer votes than they did. Coming second but with better possibilities of forming a majority than the winner causes almost more problems than it solves. Zapatero's government has survived important votes partially thanks to the PNV, if that support is lost because of what happens in the Basque Country then political life becomes much more unpredictable. Variable geometry states that the national government can still reach an agreement with the Catalan nationalists of Convergencia i Unió, but the principal objective of the latter party is to recover control of the Generalitat in Cataluña from Zapatero's own party.

This complicated scenario has already got some on the right starting to rub their hands as they conjure up the image of the government being forced to call early elections in the midst of the economic maelstrom. On the one hand they see Patxi Lopez depending on them to survive in the Basque Country, whilst of course the main objective at all times for the PP will be to do anything which dislodges the PSOE from power. Zapatero looked at last year's general election results from the Basque Country, decided that the PSOE could win in the regional version, and then as a consequence spurned the possibility of a deeper understanding with that sector of the PNV that was opposed to the Ibarretxe Plan. The two parties went head to head, and if the PSOE now uses PP support to oust the PNV from the Basque government then a dangerous game begins.

Behind The Numbers

Time for another post on the outcome of yesterday's elections in the Basque Country before I turn my attention to the pressing matter of rubbish collection in the Spanish capital. It seems that only a handful of votes are needed for the Basque socialists of the PSE to add another seat to their total, and that these could easily come from the still to be counted overseas vote. The importance of this is not that it will make the PSE the largest party, but it would mean that the combined representation of the PSE and the Partido Popular would have a majority in the regional parliament. This could at least free the PSE's candidate, Patxi Lopez, from the deadly embrace of UPyD (who have one seat), if not from that of the PP.

We have already had the first round of declarations from interested parties as the consequences of the new electoral arithmetic sink in. The PP has declared, unconvincingly, that it will provide "unconditional" support for Lopez to become Basque premier, or lehendakari. UPyD, on the other hand, has made it clear that it would use the leverage of having a deciding vote to impose the party's agenda on the new administration; despite only getting 2% of the total vote. It's interesting to reflect in these circumstances on whatever happened to the PP's insistence that the party with most votes should always be allowed to form the government, they were even promising to legislate on this. The nationalist PNV, on this interpretation, would be in pole position.

It's easily forgotten with all the talk of change that the ruling nationalist/Izquierda Unida alliance didn't have a majority in the last parliament either, to win crucial votes they depended on the support of the now illegalised Partido Comunista de las Tierras Vascas. It turns out that this time they have a more or less similar total of seats but the votes that went to the PCTV last time have ended up as spoiled ballots. There have been significant shifts of votes between parties, but the change in the overall balance is not as great as it appears. Food for thought for those who think that this election marks some kind of watershed for Basque politics.

The entry of UPyD into the Basque parliament has attracted much attention, but in reality their meagre total of 22,000 votes vindicates the decision last year of their leader, Rosa Diez, to abandon the Basque Country and make Madrid her political base. She would never have got near to her seat in the national parliament had she stood in the Basque Country. In the end the foot soldiers of the campaign to roll back regional autonomy in Spain tend to parade in front of the Prado rather than the Guggenheim. Largely because most of them (not to mention their generals) live within a few blocks of this location.

Who Will Run The Basque Country Now?

By far the most intriguing results of the elections held yesterday in Galicia and the Basque Country are those in the latter region. In Galicia, barring an overwhelming overseas vote against the PP it looks clear that this party has recovered control from the coalition between the PSOE and the nationalist BNG. Four years the change lasted for, now the region is back in the hands of those who regard it as their personal property, albeit with a younger generation nominally in charge.

In the Basque Country things are very different. The PSE, the Basque section of the PSOE, failed to become the biggest party but the ruling nationalists of the PNV are left without any hope of repeating the three party alliance that has governed for the last four years. Even adding the seats won by Aralar, they still cannot reach a majority. 39 seats are in the hands of the PSOE, the PP, Izquierda Unida and the new party UPyD, although the last two only have one seat each. This leaves only 36 for the nationalist parties. Now the question is whether the PSE and the PP will reach an agreement to govern together, with the extra seat for a majority having to come from IU or UPyD. The change in the Basque Country that so many PSOE militants yearned for comes with a high price, if they want to head the Basque government they must do it with the PP; barring what seems the unlikely possibility of the PSE forming a minority government on their own. After all the effort to make themselves look as much a Basque party as a Spanish one they are confronted with the decision of going for an anti Basque-nationalist coalition.

Aralar have confirmed the predictions of some polls and in the process have become the fourth biggest party. It's hard to say exactly where their votes came from, the other nationalist parties have lost votes and there is the unknown factor of how many former Batasuna voters decided not to spoil their ballots in protest, and instead voted for another nationalist option. I've seen a claim that the spoilt votes would have amounted to 7 seats in the Basque parliament. The PSE result looks more impressive than it really is, their vote hasn't increased by a huge amount, but the decline in the vote of the PNV and PP means that they have risen substantially in the number of seats won. Add to that the factor that their party at national level is governing in the midst of a serious recession and it looks like a good result, but one which leaves behind it some difficult politics with implications at national level. The PNV will have their own problems following this result, the internal tensions between the different factions could now spill over into a battle for control.

Just as a footnote it's worth pointing out that the weight of a vote in the Basque Country depends significantly on which province it is cast in. In case anyone thinks that this is because nationalist parties are overrepresented, a common misconception in Spain, it's actually the least nationalist province of Alava where the fewest votes are needed to elect a representative.

Election Results In Galicia And The Basque Country 2009

With what promises to be a tense vote count tomorrow in both Galicia and the Basque Country, the widget wizards of soitu.es have done it again. Following on from their innovative presentation of the results in last year's general election, here you have a widget which will show the full results of tomorrow's regional elections in the Basque Country and Galicia as they are announced in the evening. In the meantime you can use this to check on what happened in the previous elections.



Updated 12:00 1st March

The abstainers will decide the day, seems to be the verdict of the press this morning. Although it's a common assumption that high abstention hurts the left more than the right the situation is a bit more complicated in two regions with an important nationalist sentiment. The PSOE is worried that the effects of the economic crisis in some of the more industrial towns of Galicia could cause some of their voters to stay at home, improving the chances of the PP getting the small increase they need to regain power. In the Basque Country abstention also threatens the ruling Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), one report I read this morning suggests they need a 70% turnout to ensure that they maintain power. This seems a bit over the top, as a level of participation this high hardly ever occurs in regional elections there.

An interesting analysis this morning from Ignacio Escolar on the possible consequences of today's election for the power struggle inside the PP, coupled with the ongoing fallout from the corruption and spying scandals. He suggests that if things don't go well for Mariano Rajoy the main threat to his position will no longer come from Esperanza Aguirre and friends.


Updated 15:00

The data released on participation up to 12:00 shows it to be about 4% down on 2005 in Galicia, but slightly up on the previous elections in the Basque Country. Could just mean that the Galicians have decided to wait until the rain stops....


Updated 17:00

One factor to bear in mind in Galicia's case is the overseas vote. If the election is very tight then there may not be a definitive result tonight, it could take another week to count the votes of Galicians living in other countries; mainly in South America.


Updated 18:30

Using state of the art methods of which I naturally cannot disclose details, the South of Watford Centre for Unreliable Electoral Forecasts has issued the following prediction for today's elections. A disappointing evening for the PSOE is in store as the PP narrowly squeeze home in Galicia and the PNV maintain their position as the largest party in the Basque Country and may even have a majority to govern as Aralar increase their representation. That's it, it will almost certainly be wrong.

It looks like I was right about the rain though, as participation in Galicia is now said to be above that of the previous election by a couple of percentage points.


Updated 20:10

The exit polls have the PP on the edge of an overall majority in Galicia, and the PNV winning in the Basque Country.


Updated 22:00

It looks very much as if the PP are going to win in Galicia, currently they have one seat more than they need for a majority and it has stayed that way pretty much throughout the count. I don't know whether the overseas vote can significantly alter that result.

In the Basque Country things are much less certain. Until about half an hour ago it seemed that there could still be a potential coalition led by the PNV, who are going to emerge as the biggest party. Then suddenly the PP seemed to leap from 11 to 13 seats and now there is a possible majority between the PSOE and the PP, with most of the votes counted.

Bermejo A La Gallega

Today's recipe. Take one slightly charred justice minister, remove the head and throw the rest away. Slowly stew the head in its own juices for a couple of days with occasional stirring. When it’s finally overdone, stick an apple in its mouth and present to the electorate on a silver platter together with the probably vain hope that the voters will then expect a similar offering to be presented by your rivals. The decision today by Justice Minister Mariano Bermejo to resign must count as an unexpected success for the Partido Popular and their media allies. As diversionary campaigns go, that against Bermejo has exceeded expectations as it became clear that the noise over Bermejo's hunting trips could end up affecting what is already being seen by some as an unsteady PSOE campaign in Galicia. Add to that the fact that much of Bermejo’s own party doesn't feel very comfortable defending his onslaught on the wildlife of various Spanish regions. Hunting is a more popular sport in Spain than it is in the UK for example, but hunting Bermejo style was too associated with images of heavily armed landed gentry roaming their private estates.

All the opinion polls over the weekend indicate that the regional elections in both Galicia and the Basque Country are going to be very tight and March 1st promises to be a tense day. In Galicia the polls suggest that voting intentions have barely changed since the last election 4 years ago. The significance of that lies in the fact that the PP fell just one seat short of a majority last time around, so they just need to do a little bit better to regain control from the governing alliance between the PSOE and the nationalist BNG. PP leader Mariano Rajoy is campaigning in these elections as if his life depended on the result, and there was a widespread feeling that a failure to recover control in Galicia would be fatal to his chances of remaining as leader. That's not so certain now, the closing of the ranks inside a PP that tries to present itself as the victim of a political attack by Baltasar Garzón and hunting associates is paradoxically making it much harder for Rajoy's internal enemies to attack him. Confidence has risen in the PP with a couple of the polls suggesting they are on the edge of getting that majority, a nervous PSOE will be looking to hit back after the Bermejo affair but they haven't got long.

Spirits in the PSOE in the Basque Country have been much higher, although the weekend polls still suggest that the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) will emerge as the biggest party, albeit without a natural coalition majority. The PSOE are still set to increase their vote significantly, but maybe not enough to strike the important blow of getting more votes than the PNV. Whilst sections of the right wing press are getting enthusiastic about the possibility of a non-nationalist alliance between the PSOE, the PP and possibly even the new party UPyD, the PSOE don't want even to discuss such an option at the moment. This is not necessarily because it will never happen, it's just that such a prospect will be used by the PNV to mobilise their more reluctant voters. The last time there was serious talk of a PSOE-PP government in the Basque Country was in 2001, in that election the PNV ended up getting their highest ever vote. If the PSOE do emerge as the strongest party, the nationalists may just decide to try and force them into an unhappy alliance with the PP.

A key factor in the Basque Country is that this is the first regional election where no party linked to ETA's illegal political wing Batasuna has been able to overcome the hurdle of the Ley de Partidos. The arguments used to justify the continuing illegalisations become increasingly bizarre. If up to now we had the dangerous notion that a failure to pronounce on an issue is sufficient proof of guilt, this time around things got worse. One party, D3M, was illegalised on the grounds that several members of their lists had connections to Batasuna. In the case of Askatasuna the argument advanced was that the absence of such connections was evidence of the intent to deceive! That closes the circle nicely. One party with quite a variation in their poll ratings is Aralar, a break off organisation from Batasuna who have explicitly rejected the use of violence by ETA. If they can convince enough of Batasuna's natural constituency not to abstain then they could emerge from the election as the embryo of a new future for radical nationalism; as well as perhaps tipping the balance towards a nationalist coalition. Tomorrow’s recipe….stuffed Bermejo.

Leonard Nimoy Offered Role As Basque President

I think I've got this story right....

That's No Way To Stop A Train

The latest action this week by ETA, the execution of businessman Ignacio Uria, goes beyond demonstrating the ever more clear futility of the group's existence. Uria was killed because his company was working on the extension of Spain's high speed rail network to the Basque cities of Bilbao and San Sebastian. What is known in the rest of the country as the AVE (Alta Velocidad Española) had already been retitled for its Basque section as the TAV (Tren de Alta Velocidad). This rebadging does little to comfort those who regard a fast train link to Madrid as a connection to the heart of the colonialist beast.

There are good reasons for not feeling comfortable with the way in which high speed train travel has developed in Spain. The very fast connections between cities come with an environmental cost and the withdrawal of other trains that served intermediate towns on the route. Personally I think its great that I can get to Barcelona from Madrid in 2.5 hours but it comes at a cost that some people can't necessarily afford. The straight flat line that 300 km per hour trains require means that obstacles in the way have to be somehow removed. Perhaps if the train went at 200 km per hour it could just go round rather than through some of the natural landscapes affected by the new lines.

The problem now for anyone who wants to make such reasoned arguments in the Basque Country is that ETA has charged into the fray by shooting a contractor. The great fault line that runs through many of the arguments justifying terrorism is that those who claim to act in the name of the "people" are not inclined to let those same people decide how to campaign on an issue. Instead they assume the right to decide for themselves. Anyone opposing the project without supporting violence against those working on it will now find that their arguments are overshadowed by ETA's decision to try and dictate the shape of opposition to the new link.