Democratic Regeneration

Suddenly, Spain's government has decided that its priority for the coming months is what it describes as 'democratic regeneration'. These are words that few have ever associated with the Partido Popular and Mariano Rajoy but there's no need to worry; Spain's right wing hasn't suddenly caught the democracy 'bug'. The weight of that long political tradition is still sufficient to ensure that the PP regards anything smacking of greater democracy as something to be avoided at all costs.

Instead we are getting a response to the dismal results that Spain's two main political parties obtained in May's elections for the European Parliament. 2015 is a big election year in Spain, if everything is scheduled as expected the country will have municipal and regional elections followed a few months later by a general election. The shock of the European elections was twofold, firstly because support for the two main parties combined fell just short of 50% of the vote, and secondly because of the surprise emergence of Podemos as a potential threat to that two party hegemony.

The PP does not panic in a very public way, but results which had the party not even reaching 30% of the vote in their strongholds of Madrid and Valencia have had a profound effect internally. Were this pattern to be repeated in the municipal and regional elections then the PP faces the prospect of losing power in places where they have governed for decades. Imagine the bonfire of incriminating documents that might mean, assuming of course that any incriminating paperwork that exists hasn't already already been destroyed in the wake of all the corruption scandals of the last few years.

The PP has an abysmal problem in reaching agreements with other parties, and the prospect of either governing in minority or passing to the opposition is too terrible to contemplate. Something must be done, and that something appears to consist of manipulating electoral law to ensure they can still govern with fewer votes. Pioneer in the gerrymandering exercise has been Maria Dolores de Cospedal, who combines her job as secretary general of the PP with that of president in Castilla La Mancha. Using the excuse of austerity, Cospedal has pushed through a law drastically reducing the number of members of the regional parliament. The new law has the happy effect of both making it harder to dislodge the PP from power and of effectively excluding any smaller parties from representation unless they can overtake one of the big two.

Inspired by such an impeccably democratic example, Mariano Rajoy has announced that he intends to change electoral law for the municipal elections so that the party which receives the most votes gets to govern regardless of whether they have an absolute majority or not. Although they talk of a minimum threshold necessary for a party to claim control of a city without winning the election, we will have to wait and see what the PP tries to get away with. Currently they talk of 40% of the vote, but that could easily be lower if the poll data they manage isn't looking good. Today's El Mundo poll has them on 30% nationally, a third of those who voted for Rajoy in 2011 have gone and many may not be returning. Rajoy seems determined to push through a major change in electoral law regardless of whether any other party supports it or not, and the talk of 'democratic regeneration' is merely the cynical touch the PP seems to feel is needed to decorate all of their measures. If that's still not cynical enough for you they also claim the change will help to avoid corruption.

The illusion of change in order to ensure that everything remains safely in the same hands seems to have become the trademark of Rajoy's administration and the management of the country's crisis. As the two-party system shows signs of weakness they change to law to try and prop it up. If someone like Pablo Iglesias becomes popular partly as a result of television appearances, then the PP has a solution; try to make sure he doesn't appear on television. It's the concept of the managed democracy they hoped for after Franco's death, sure people can vote but not just for anybody. Come on. This is not just the attitude of the PP, the whole establishment of the transition years gets intensely nervous at anything that might upset the cozy cronyism they have nurtured carefully for so many years.

There is a delicious irony in seeing all those who shouted in 2011 that what the indignados had to do was form a political party and present themselves for election changing their tune. Now that a section of the movement appears to have done just that and with a certain amount of success, not just the music changes as laws get quickly changed to preserve the status quo at any cost. This is not just about Podemos, new broader based civic platforms are quickly forming to present alternative candidacies in big cities like Barcelona, Sevilla and Madrid. The common denominator is a rejection of the old way of doing politics, and of those who administer the crisis in their own interests.

The emergence of Podemos, placed just behind the PSOE in El Mundo's poll, has had the effect of provoking some kind of crisis in almost all of Spain's political parties. This was most evident with the PSOE, who finally realised they had to renovate their image after over 2 years of steady decline rather than improvement in opposition. The unconvincing way they have done this, with all sorts of manoeuvres to try and fix the election of a new leader, doesn't bode well for a significant change of direction. The PP, who vilified Rubalcaba as being the epitomy of evil, suddenly realised how much they will miss him as they become the only party of the 'old guard'. They were much more comfortable with the ritual 'y tú más' sessions that the increasingly rare parliamentary debates in Spain consist of.

Perhaps the party which has taken the biggest hit from Podemos has been Izquierda Unida, who found themselves pushed behind the new party in several regions. IU had benefited from disenchantment with the major parties, but not as much as they should have. Podemos come in a with a different language and fresher style, and the leadership of IU has been left wondering what happened. The dead hand of the Spanish Communist Party has damaged IU's prospects for years as many of those who could be attracted to the platform left to do other things. Those behind Podemos amongst them. 

Even Unión Progreso y Democracia, who presented themselves as a safe way to break the two party hold, have a crisis of their own as they are no longer in pole position to be the alternative. Still very much the personal project of Rosa Diez, the party machine reacts badly to dissent and those who favour a fusion or agreement with Ciudadanos are subjected to insults by the loyalists. Diez apparently believed she could eclipse the Catalan upstarts, but her right wing media allies seem to be in favour of the merger and have fanned the flames. Again, the emergence of Podemos leaves UPyD looking every bit as much a part of Spain's political establishment as the two big parties, a case that is supported by the reaction of its leaders to the new party.

The opinion polls differ greatly on just what is happening, and are also subject to ever greater manipulation as part of the, occasionally hysterical, counter attack. The attempt by El País a few weeks ago to spin a revival in the PSOE's fortunes following the election of Pedro Sánchez as leader was widely criticised because of the way in which they found a 10% increase in support for the major parties that no other poll seems to detect. The pollsters in general have yet to offer any explanation for how they got the voting pattern so badly wrong in the European elections, and given that there have been no elections since you have to wonder how they are adjusting their polls to fit the new scenario?

The European elections in Spain are special in that they are the most representative, despite the low participation. This is because it is a national vote and therefore doesn't suffer the sort of deformation present in general elections here, that which allows Rajoy to have an absolute majority in parliament with well under 50% of the vote. Precisely the sort of system he now wants to introduce in municipal elections too. Incidentally, if you think that the Spanish electoral system has been brutally unfair in past general elections, just wait and see what happens in the next election if the two major parties have a lower vote but are still clear of any rivals. That could really provoke some democratic regeneration.

Seven Things That Really Annoyed Me About The Catalan Elections

It's been a while since I've had anything in this blog that I would consider to be a rant. I suppose some may not share that opinion. As a final post for the moment on the Catalan elections I thought I'd share a list of some of the things I found most irritating during the campaign. Plenty of material there, but this time I've decided to leave all the ridiculous stuff from right wing sources in Madrid to one side. I've dedicated plenty of space to them before on this blog and I hope to continue doing so, it forms an important part of what I see as my public service remit. 

Instead this time I'm focusing on things from the pro-sovereignty side. Feel free to put the other side or conflicting opinions in the comments, for a day or two we can still pretend we live in a free society. The disclaimer first, I think I've already pointed out on previous occasions that I support the right to decide for Cataluña and other places too. I am not now nor have I ever been a prisoner of the opinions of the lunatic right in Madrid. I don't share the argument for Catalan independence, although I understand and respect the case for it when it is reasonably argued. However, that is not the case with the shit I'm going to describe now. Here we go:

The "nobody loves us" argument. You see it in comments like "we have to separate because we see the Spanish have no love for us". Oh please, grow up! Be like Millwall fans for God's sake. No one loves us, we don't care. Well, maybe you don't need to go that far, although at any given time half of them are probably slumped in a bar somewhere just off the Ramblas anyway. But a bit of mental toughness. Not everybody has to like everybody else to be able to share the same territory. Perhaps also consider the possibility that describing the rest of the country as fascists (see below) or lazy scroungers living off your hard earned money doesn't really help when it comes to creating a harmonious and mutually respectful atmosphere? Just a suggestion, take it away and think about it. But do stop bleating.

It's the history stupid! I don't have a disdain for history, on the contrary I think it's very important that we study and above all learn lessons from the past. But that's not the same as living in it. Trying to use past glories as a basis for the future is precisely that. Only the good bits of history, of course, not the bits where most people are just peasants standing around in their own shit and keeling over with the plague. Let's just pretend we're all in the Catalan nobility and we're riding off to conquer another chunk of Italy or an island somewhere. I don't generally accept Balkan/Catalan comparisons, but I can't stomach that kind of Serbian "we fought a battle in this muddy field 1000 years ago so therefore its ours" mentality. It's over, and it's a far better contribution to join in constructing a different future than to try and return to an often imagined past. If, after having considered the issue you decide that what you like is dressing up in stupidly heavy armour and slaughtering peasants than you are probably standing in the right muddy field. Just try not to bother anybody.

The fake solidarity argument. Of course I have nothing at all against redistribution between wealthier and poorer regions but first we have to have all of our money. ALL OF IT! I guess it helps that I can write this from a region that also contributes to the redistribution of wealth in Spain, and I can declare that I'm in favour of that policy. There should be more transparency over funding and where all the money goes. Those who want independence or the full monty in terms of fiscal receipts are clearly not in favour of redistribution, at least not outside of Catalan borders. So why pretend otherwise if you are demanding something that makes it impossible? Will it be 10 pujols a week into the collection plate at church for solidarity after independence? 

There's no investment. You know those Spanish 'pijo' cretins who like to comment in foreign media like the FT or The Economist trying to take advantage of what they assume is complete overseas ignorance about Spanish affairs? You know who I mean, they would write things like "Perhaps you are not aware of this, but Zapatero is really an ETA terrorist and second cousin of Saddam Hussein who eats the babies of decent Spanish families for a hobby". Well there's a Catalan equivalent. They write things like "Spain spends millions on high speed trains in other regions, yet we have no transport link to France". You lying little fuck is my usual measured reaction to this kind of comment. It's being built and its about to fucking open, and its not like at the moment you have to change in Barcelona into a donkey cart to get to the French border. When I come to power anybody who tries to get away with this will be taken outside and given a severe talking to by someone dressed as a traditional British bobby. Maybe a slap too, but in a non gratuitous way, obviously. Then they'll have to write a letter of apology to the media organisation concerned saying how sorry they are for being a lying little fuck. I mean, if you have to tell porkies like that to bolster your case? About 6 months after the high speed link to the border opens there'll be someone writing in the comments page of The Guardian saying "Oh it's so unfair that it takes us Catalans 27 seconds to get to Paris in our train that only goes at 3000 km a minute when in Madrid they have one that gets there in 26 seconds and lands on fucking Mars on the way".  Jeez it's annoying.

Franco. It's the opposite of the history thing combined with a touch of the pijo cretin. This notion that Cataluña is some sort of 21st century liberal Scandinavian paradise trapped in the evil grasp of a medieval theocratic Spanish beast. Or a Francoist beast, take your choice. I mean it's not like CiU are the fucking People's Democratic Front For The Liberation Of Catalunya is it? Whilst we're on the subject, and despite the attempts to talk them up, it's not like Esquerra Republicana are either. Take Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida for example. This politician, leader of the CiU group in the Spanish parliament, is bizarrely popular with all sorts of Spaniards. This is because, on issues that don't affect Cataluña, he exemplifies this sort of "Why don't you all stop bickering and sort yourselves out?" common sense approach. He also lives a very fine life in the Palace Hotel in Madrid. He is also a catholic reactionary with opinions so extreme on issues such as homosexuality that you can almost imagine people at a Hazteoir meeting nudging each other and whispering "He's a bit over the top isn't he?" Then there's Franco and this idea that Spain has not changed even a little bit since 1975. Madrid, according to the absurd caricature, is supposed to be some sort of drab city straight out of a 1940's black and white movie where blue shirted Falangists keep the cowed inhabitants of the city in check. Now even if you line up the entire readership of La Gaceta in the same place, all you end up with is something that looks a bit like a large group of smokers outside an office building. Except that by the time you've finished half of them have died of old age anyway. This Franco memorial meeting next weekend, commenters were saying, is proof of how little Spain has changed. But journalists will outnumber other attendees 4 to 1 at least. Anyway, the Falangists have been replaced by the riot cops these days, so who says we've got nothing in common with Barcelona? Of course there are all sorts of things that could and should be modernised to make a better society, and the remaining leftovers of Francoism should be dealt with. Says a person who comes from a country where the opening of parliament is like a Monty Python parody with people wearing multi-coloured smocks and waving staffs and pikes.

All these lists for everything. You know what I mean, all those space fillers in what used to be called the quality press like "57 things you didn't know about some alleged celebrity who you've never fucking heard of anyway" I don't even make lists for going shopping. Life isn't some sort of giant Powerpoint slide for Christ's sake. Down with lists!

Catalan Elections....The Loser Is The Winner

It didn't work. That's the simple and clear verdict of yesterday's elections for Artur Mas and Convergència i Unió (CiU). The gamble that they could capture absolute power in the Catalan parliament has backfired in a spectacular way that few expected. Whilst the last opinion polls suggested Mas might not reach the objective of an overall majority, I don't think any polls predicted that CiU would lose ground in the way that they have. It seems evident that there has been a significant shift of votes from CiU to Esquerra Republican (ERC). So one of the main consequences of this gamble by Mas has been to restore the fortunes of his main rival for the nationalist vote. That should have a few people inside his own party sharpening their knives. 

Despite the setback, CiU are still very much the dominant force in Catalan politics. If anyone believes that the shift in support from CiU to Esquerra represents some sort of major turning point in nationalist voting patterns then I suggest they click on the results for 2006 in the results widget in my previous post. Esquerra have been here before, they've even done better than this before. The general assumption this morning seems to be that CiU and ERC will unite in a grand coalition, as between them they command a majority in parliament. This is not, it needs to be pointed out, the same as a majority of the votes cast. Between them the two parties can claim just over 44% support. Ironically, the alliance last time around between CiU and their good friends from the Partido Popular could claim greater electoral legitimacy, at least they made it to 50%. 

The solution of a nationalist coalition might appear to be obvious but it's not so simple. Esquerra have never wanted to be a junior coalition partner to CiU, and that option is full of danger for them. There is, of course, the compensation that they get back their offices and official cars and all the trappings of power which they showed such a liking for with the 'tripartit' government a few years back. Unfortunately for them it didn't go down so well with their voters. Also, an agreement with Mas means they have to publicly line up behind setting the Mossos d'Esquadra and their rubber bullets onto anyone who doesn't like their health service being dismantled. There isn't that much remaining of the 'Esquerra' part in ERC but they also have to keep an eye out for emerging rivals, look at the rise of the CUP in yesterday's election.

In return for keeping Mas in power, ERC will need something to show for it and the obvious trophy is paving the way for an independence vote. The problem is, following yesterday's results, that the popular enthusiasm for such a move seems to have been wildly exaggerated. Nor is it really valid to spin the result by confusing an apparently pro-referendum majority with a pro-independence one. Despite what some appear to think, being in favour of the 'right to decide' yet against independence is both a coherent and an impeccably democratic viewpoint. It's the position I hold, for example, concerning Scottish independence. Even though I'm entitled to the passport if Salmond gets his way. 

It's also important to remember, when considering the balance of forces,  that regional elections tend to overstate the nationalist vote in Cataluña, with a reverse effect being seen in national Spanish elections. Nationalists are more motivated by the issues of Catalan government than Spanish. That seems to have changed a bit this time, there has been a greater mobilisation of anti-independence voters. The unionist party Ciutadans have been regarded as something of a joke, but they have tripled their representation in the new parliament. The PP also did well, by their own standards, although they are still a minor party in Catalan politics. After a build up that had almost everyone expecting a major shift towards pro-independence sentiment, a closer examination of the results reveals a small reverse in nationalist support. 

The Catalan socialists of the PSC must be relieved, not because they did well but because it could have been worse and because of all the attention focused on Mas. The PSC should be the big hitter of the national Spanish parties in Catalan elections, and in the end they've finished in third place just ahead of the PP. That's an awful result, but I still believe it has as much to do with national issues as with local ones. It fits the pattern of dismal results in other regions for the PSOE. It's hard to say whether they have lost votes to Ciutadans and the harder line anti-separatist positions. Iniciativa per Catalunya, which would expect to pick up votes on the left from disillusionment with the PSC, have gained three seats which isn't bad but it doesn't suggest great things to come either.

There are all sorts of lessons to be drawn from these elections, but perhaps its the Catalan left that really needs to be thinking hard about where it is going. Seeing every issue through the prism of the national question isn't offering any solutions to those who need them as the crisis continues to bite hard. The idea that the unemployed of Badalona have more in common with Artur Mas and company than they do with the unemployed of Alcobendas looks patently absurd. As does pretending that the rest of Spain lives a leisurely life of ease and comfort at Catalan expense. Hard times are still ahead, and holding hands with Artur won't do anything to help those who are bearing the brunt of the crisis.

Catalan Regional Election Results 2012

So is this it, crunch day for Cataluña as it decides its future relationship with Spain? Well no, not really. We are treated to yet another early election called, as in the recent case of Galicia, for opportunistic reasons. Which is not to say that today's elections won't be something of a turning point, it's just that it would not be fair to judge the results purely as a verdict on the future status of Cataluña. But such is the game being played by regional president Artur Mas that nobody can be sure that anything will happen in terms of a future sovereignty vote, even if he gets his desired overall majority. That majority is what this election is really about, Mas decided to try and ride the wave of nationalist sentiment surrounding the huge march in Barcelona on September 11th to try and get the majority government that he couldn't get last time around in 2010. 

Mas and his party, Convergència i Unió (CiU), have never been in favour of Catalan independence, and the language he has used in the campaign to refer to the national question has been deliberately ambiguous. It's not hard to foresee that he could disappoint an awful lot of people if he gets his desired result. Not the for the first time, and it's not that easy to feel much sympathy for those who allow a bit of demagogic, flag waving, populist tub thumping rhetoric to triumph over the reality of their own experience.  Mas runs a right wing government that cuts welfare services at the same time as reducing taxes for the better off. To then plead that there is no money to pay for essential services because of Spain seems blatantly ridiculous but you can hardly blame him for doing so given that it seems to work?  

The campaign against the austerity measures so enthusiastically embraced by Mas and company has been effectively destroyed by his suceess in turning it into an issue of Cataluña versus Spain. Some polls have shown Mas getting the majority he wants and others have shown him falling short, there is no consistent picture. What does seem evident is that there will be a significant collapse in support for the PSC, Catalan wing of the PSOE. Although this will also undoubtedly be attributed to nationalist issues as well it really forms part of a broader national pattern. This is all terribly flattering to the governing Partido Popular, some polls have even suggested the extraordinary outcome of the PP becoming the second biggest party in a region where its supporters have occasionally been able to fit in the largest model in the SEAT range. 

As in Galicia, where the PP lost a significant number of votes but won a larger majority on a smaller share, the collapse in the socialist vote makes the PP look stronger because of their ability to mobilise more of their core vote. For the other parties it looks like there will be some revival for Esquerra Republicana (ERC), who have resolved their attempts to combine left wing and nationalist politics in a faintly ridiculous way; they now consider themselves to be left wing in the national parliament and nationalist when playing at home. Another beneficiary of disenchanted left wing votes could be Iniciativa per Catalunya, although much of the traditional socialist vote looks destined for abstention The results, as usual, will not be known before 20:00 Madrid time. The results widget, courtesy of El País.

Despite All The Noise They're Closer Than You Think

The latter stages of the campaign for tomorrow's Catalan regional elections haven't just been about the cynical attempts by Artur Mas to convert nationalist sentiment into an overall majority for his party, Convergència i Unió (CiU). Corruption has become one of the main issues following a report by El Mundo claiming that senior figures in CiU have millions of euros carefully stashed away in Swiss bank accounts. Mas and CiU have continued to play the nationalist card by claiming that any such reports are just the evil work of Madrid based Spanish centralists. 

Now my views on El Mundo's journalistic standards have, I think, been fairly clearly expressed in my blogging over the last few years. The paper has a long history of manipulating information and sources, so it should always be a standard procedure to try and get hold of the original documentation. Yesterday, in the case of the corruption allegations we got that opportunity as a police union released the document which El Mundo used for its story. In reality, the issue of the Swiss accounts is not the core of the document, which is more about the scandal surrounding Barcelona's Palau de la Música Catalana. 

Lovely building the Palau, I went to a concert there a few months ago. Not so lovely is the the way in which the rehabilitation of the historic building was used as the cover for a massive corruption scandal which goes to the heart of the Catalan political establishment. The case concerns the paying of huge commissions by major companies in return for public contracts, with the governing bodies of the Palau being used to distribute the proceeds between individuals and organisations closely linked to CiU. El Mundo's document casts little new light on the case, but as a description of the scale of the corruption involved it's really quite useful. 

Interestingly, it turns out that it's not just CiU that is affected by the scandal. The document mentions an allegation that El Mundo, unsurprisingly given its political orientation, didn't seem to find very interesting. The claim cited by the document is that José Maria Aznar's political foundation, the FAES, also received a handsome commission via those accused of ripping off the huge sums of money involved. Surely there would be no collusion between the dominant party of Catalan nationalism and Madrid's right wingers, supposedly so bitterly opposed to each other? Well it seems that one of those accused in the Palau case, Felix Millet, was also a prominent member of the Catalan branch of the FAES. By one of those uncanny coincidences that life throws up, Aznar's administration made a generous contribution to the (by now) incredibly expensive job of restoring the Palau. 

The Palau case is not unique by any means, it's remarkably close to that pattern of corruption that is still emerging in Partido Popular ruled areas like the Balearics, Valencia and Madrid. Public money is ransacked via commissions and phony billing with part of the money being diverted to the illegal financing of political parties. The only 'fiscal deficit' we're talking about here is the millions these people have managed to extract from public funds. Nevertheless, it's clear that Cataluña is more than capable of supporting its own local kleptocracy without any help from the rest of Spain. It's going to take an awful lot of flag waving to get rid of the stench.

With all the noise of the election campaign, it's easy to forget that CiU and the PP have had a pact for the last year, with the Catalan nationalists showing enthusiasm for some of Rajoy's failed economic recipes in return for the PP propping up the minority administration run by Mas. The collaboration isn't finished either. Yesterday the Spanish governnment pardoned, for the second time, members of the Mossos d'Esquadra who had been convicted of torture. Yes. Torture. This pardon, along with that of a corrupt CiU politician a few months ago, is part of the pact between the two parties. Now the same officers will be free to torture other citizens. I would nominate them for the job of waving the Catalan flag from the police helicopter on the next Diada march in September 2013. I'm reliably informed such gestures go down very well. That is, if they're not too busy dealing with the pesky opposition. 

I was reading last week an extract from Aznar's forthcoming memoirs. It's a tedious and difficult task, but somebody has to do it - I mean, you're not going to buy this stuff? In the midst of all the vainglorious grandstanding about how Aznar made Spain the greatest nation the world has ever seen, there was some interesting detail about how he worked hard to get CiU to join his government, even when the PP had an overall majority. You see, they had quite a lot in common. They still do, it's a shame that so many will need to have Catalan independence before being prepared to deal with that.

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!

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.

The Cheap Seats

Motivated to investigate a bit further after my previous post on Spain's general election results, I decided to check different provinces to find out just how few votes you can get in order to win a parliamentary seat here. The motivation to do this came from all the complaints about how the Basque coalition Amaiur managed to "only" need 47000 votes for each seat won. My bet was that there would be several places where it was possible to elect a representative with less votes than this. I was unaware before carrying out this admittedly slightly geeky exercise just how low that number of votes needed could be. Where a party has won more than one seat in a province I've applied the Amaiur formula by dividing the number of votes by seats won. Starting from the bottom with the name of the province or colonial outpost, the number of votes needed and the party taking the cheapest seat:

1. Soria - 16058 - PSOE
2. Melilla - 17791 - Partido Popular
3. Teruel - 19896 - Partido Popular
4. Ceuta - 20981 - Partido Popular
5. Avila - 24164 - PSOE
6. Segovia - 24711 - PSOE
7. Huesca - 29128 - Partido Popular
8. Palencia - 29290 - Partido Popular
9. Burgos - 30550 - Partido Popular
10. La Rioja - 31524 - Partido Popular
11. Araba - 31849 - PNV
12. Girona - 32834 - ERC
13. Zamora - 33936 - Partido Popular
14. Cuenca - 34958 - Partido Popular
15. Guadalajara - 35641 - Partido Popular
16. Lleida - 37229 - Partido Popular
17. Ourense - 37991 - Partido Popular
18. Huelva - 38499 - Partido Popular
19. Lugo - 39962 - Partido Popular
20. Tarragona - 40917 - Partido Popular
21. Illes Balears - 42115 - PSOE
22. Navarra - 42411 - GBAI
23. Albacete - 42628 - Partido Popular
24. Salamanca - 42786 - Partido Popular
25. Gipuzkoa - 43218 - Amaiur
26. Almería - 44970 - Partido Popular
27. Cantabria - 45663 - Partido Popular
28. Caceres - 46175 - PSOE
29. Valladolid - 47125 - PSOE
30. Ciudad Real - 47618 - PSOE
31. Las Palmas - 48132 - Partido Popular
32. León - 49547 - PSOE
33. Tenerife - 51244 - Partido Popular
34. Badajoz - 51775 - Partido Popular
35. Castellón - 52181 - Partido Popular
36. Jaén - 55031 - PSOE
37. Toledo - 55078 - Partido Popular
38. Cordoba - 56678 - PSOE
39. Cádiz - 58335 - Partido Popular
40. Zaragoza - 58749 - CHA/IU
41. Murcia - 58919 - Partido Popular
42. Granada - 59245 - Partido Popular
43. Málaga - 59517 - Partido Popular
44. Alicante - 59707 - PSOE
45. Asturias - 61057 - PSOE
46. Bizkaia - 61303 - Amaiur
47. Pontevedra - 66970 - BNG
48. A Coruña - 68041 - Partido Popular
49. Barcelona - 72567 - PSOE
50. Sevilla - 73610 - PSOE
51. Valencia - 82514 - Partido Popular
52. Madrid - 86531 - UPyD

An incredible variation between Soria and Madrid. I'm aware that this is not a completely scientific study, the way in which the electoral system works means a party could have won a seat by a single vote or by 20000. Nevertheless, I think it demonstrates fairly clearly that the weight of a vote in Spain depends very much on where the voter lives. Leaving aside the special cases of the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, the upper ranks of this table are dominated by the sparsely populated provinces of northern Spain. Meanwhile, the big cities are where you really need a lot of votes to elect someone. As for the Amaiur factor, they did best in Gipuzkoa which turns out to be almost the median province in terms of votes needed for a seat.

The explanation of all this variation lies in the fact that the electoral division in Spain is based on the province. Not only that, but there is a minimum guaranteed representation for a province. That's why Soria gets two elected representatives with only 50000 people voting. Some also attribute an influence to Spain's use of the D'Hondt method for distributing seats, because this system tends to favour larger parties. Even so, studies done applying the D'Hondt calculations on a national electoral division rather than a provincial level show the result to be reasonably proportional. 

The smaller national parties, like Izquierda Unida and UPyD, don't stand a chance of winning a seat in Soria, Teruel, Avila or Segovia because the number of seats contested is too low for a party winning less than 10% of the vote to compete for. That's why these parties win their seats in larger electoral areas, principally those of the big cities, where the result tends to be more proportional (Madrid, for example, elects 36 representatives). The result of this is that a vote for a minority party in a large part of the country is extremely unlikely to count. That's the reason why UPyD have 1 seat for every 220000 votes they got, and why Izquierda Unida in the previous parliament could claim 450000 votes for each seat won.

It needs to be said again and again for those who refuse to understand it, but the major beneficiaries of Spain's electoral system are the PP and the PSOE. That's also why calls for electoral reform don't tend to get very far. In this parliament we may even get to see a bogus electoral reform disguised as an anti-crisis measure. Inside the PP they have been floating the idea of reducing the number of members of parliament from 350 to 300. Presented as a money saving proposal for austere times, such a move would of course only have the result of reducing even further the representation of the smaller parties in parliament, because it would leave the provincial bias of the electoral system untouched whilst reducing the number of seats in the larger electoral divisions.

Spanish General Election 2011....The Data Behind The Landslide

The polls didn't get it wrong this time for Spain's general election. Not very wrong anyway, although many of them underestimated the scale of the collapse in the vote for the governing PSOE. The campaign seems to have made virtually no difference to voting intentions, at least for the two biggest parties. The PSOE's total of 110 seats is a dreadful result, and well below the hoped for face-saving result of 125-130. It is this collapse in PSOE support, more than anything else, that has given the Partido Popular a comfortable absolute majority. The PP now holds unprecedented political power at all levels of government in Spain, only two provinces in the entire country were held by the PSOE.

All of this has happened with an increase of PP support of just 500,000 votes. Indeed that PP absolute majority has been won with significantly fewer votes and just 0,8% more of the total popular vote than Zapatero obtained in 2008 to run a minority government. This is made possible because the PSOE have lost over 4 million votes since the last election. The advantage under the Spanish electoral system for the largest parties has tilted hugely in favour of the PP with such a dramatic decline in the vote for the second party.

So if we assume that half a million votes went from PSOE to PP, where did the rest go? Participation was down compared to the last election but not more than a couple of percentage points, so abstention only accounts for part of the lost votes. Two smaller parties, Izquierda Unida and UPyD, both increased their total national vote in this election by more than the PP. Izquierda Unida added 700,000 votes to their 2008 total, and have leapt from just 2 seats in parliament to 11 (if we include their Catalan allies). Even more dramatic has been the increase for UPyD, who added 800,000 additional votes to the much lower base of just over 300,000 from 2008. They got 5 seats, although only 1 of these is outside of Madrid (in Valencia).

Meanwhile the right-wing nationalists of Convergència i Unió displaced the PSC (Catalan wing of the PSOE) as the largest party in Cataluña. This was not the only stronghold that the PSOE lost on the night, the PP won a clear victory in Andalucia. The decision by the PSOE's regional president in Andalucia not to hold the regional election on the same date as the national one starts to look like smart politics. Although he may still lose power in March next year. We can't completely rule out the possibility that by then the PP's intentions will be somewhat clearer than they are now. 

In the Basque Country, it was widely expected that the new coalition Amaiur would do well following ETA's declaration of an end to violence. Even so, few expected them to do better than everyone else! Although in total votes they still trail their nationalist rivals in the PNV, Amaiur took a total of 6 seats in the region and an extra one in Navarra. The result casts serious doubt on the future of the PP supported but PSOE led regional government in the Basque Country. You have to bear in mind that the nationalist vote in general elections tends to be significantly lower than in regional and municipal votes.

The distribution of seats resulting from this election has again sparked debate about the electoral system in Spain. Both UPyD and Izquierda Unida are seriously under represented in the new parliament despite having increased the number of seats obtained. Amazingly, the myth still persists that this is due to the system favouring regional nationalist parties. It is true that under a completely proportional system Amaiur would lose a couple of seats and Convergencia would lose one. But some other nationalist parties would gain, and Izquierda Unida and UPyD together fall short by some 25 seats from what they would get in a proportional system. There is, of course, a very good reason why the right in Spain seeks to focus on the nationalist vote as the source of the problem. True proportionality in the whole country would deprive the PP (with 44% of the vote and 53% of the seats) of 30 diputados and that means adíos absolute majority. 

Mariano Rajoy....A Profile Of Spain's New Prime Minister

A property registrar by profession, Mariano Rajoy spent 8 years occupying senior ministerial positions in the government of José Maria Aznar with no visible achievements of any kind to show for it. He likes to smoke cigars and read Marca.

Spanish General Election 2011....The Results

I'm away in Cantabria for the weekend and I will be sitting on a train heading back to Madrid when the election results start being announced on Sunday evening. Assuming that I haven't taken the exile option of the ferry from Santander if things are looking really grim. But where do you escape to these days anyway? My absence means that there'll be none of that live blogging nonsense here on Sunday, but you will be able to see the results as they are announced (and in English!) courtesy of this widget from El País. From 20:00 Spanish time onwards. In the meantime it shows the results from the 2008 election.

So what are the things to look out for. An absolute majority, which all the latest polls have predicted for the Partido Popular, requires 176 seats in the Congreso. Any failure to hit that mark would be regarded as a bad result for the PP given the expectation that they will easily pass it. For the governing PSOE the aim above all is to avoid a result similar, or worse than, that which they obtained in 2000. In that election they got only 125 seats. If Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba does better than that this time he will feel that he has salvaged something from the election. Again, many polls have predicted that the PSOE result could be worse than this.

The PSOE cling to the hope that many of the undecided will swing their way and that they can buck the trend of the polls, as they did quite spectacularly in 1993 and 1996. In different circumstances. There will be no dramatic resignation announcements from the PSOE if things go really badly. Rubalcaba is not the party leader, just the candidate. Zapatero is still in charge of the party and it's expected that in the event of defeat he will soon announce a special congress of the party to choose a new leader. 

Let's assume that the polls are more or less accurate. In this case much of the interest lies in where the disenchanted switch their votes to. Izquierda Unida, the main party to the left of the PSOE, has high hopes of obtaining a significant number of seats including several outside of Barcelona and Madrid which are the areas they were reduced to at the last election. IU argues that the technicalities of the electoral system mean that they are competing directly with the PP for seats in several regions. Barring absolute shocks, 15 seats would be an excellent result for them, 10 would still be good but anything closer to the 2 that they got in 2008 would be a major disappointment.

What we could call a weathervane party (blowing the way the political wind blows), UPyD have hopes of capturing more seats than the single one they currently hold. Their best chances are in Madrid. No polls that I have seen suggest they will win seats elsewhere. Their hope is that some of those who have abandoned the PSOE but can't stomach the PP will opt for them. The new eco-socialist party Equo will be happy if it ends up with a single representative (possible with an alliance in Valencia) and delighted if they manage to capture any more in Madrid or Barcelona. 

Looking at the regions, the result in Cataluña will be interesting. The PSC, Catalan wing of the PSOE, is still predicted to be the first party here, although both Convergència i Unió and the PP are not far behind. This is a region where the PP have done spectacularly badly since Aznar's time, the fact that they stand a chance of taking second place is astonishing. In Andalucia the PP is predicted to win easily against the PSOE, and such a result will represent a major change in the region that, together with Cataluña, provided the PSOE with sufficient additional representatives to govern in 2004 and 2008.

One other very interesting result will be in the Basque Country. This is where the recent declaration by ETA of a definitive end to violence can be expected to have a direct electoral impact. In the rest of the country it has hardly been a campaign issue. The battle is on to see whether the PNV can maintain their position as the major nationalist party against Amaiur, the new coalition including those who were formerly supporters of ETA's political wing Batasuna. The new political climate in that region may also affect the share of the vote for the PSOE and PP, in the case of the former they may even buck the national trend. 

Anyway, I'm not going to make any predictions, I've got ferry timetables to check.

Spanish General Election 2011....That PP Programme In Full

It's so unfair. All these people saying that the Partido Popular refuses to spell out what it will do if it comes to power. Fortunately, we have this video to reveal in full and glorious detail the PP's plans for our future. Courtesy of José Ramón Bauzà, president of the Balearic Islands, allow me to present to you the PP programme in just 18 seconds! In case you are wondering, this is not the abridged version.

Spanish General Election 2011....Game Over For Rubalcaba?

We don't get opinion polls in the last week of a general election campaign in Spain, they're not permitted. That explains the flood of polls we got at the weekend, and the message of these tests of public opinion was not a happy one for the candidate of the governing PSOE, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. Not that anyone, even Rubalcaba, was really expecting good news from the polls; but the most depressing indicator for those dreading a Partido Popular absolute majority is that every single poll suggests a crushing victory for that party.

If next Sunday's voting fulfils these predictions then Mariano Rajoy could potentially enjoy an absolute majority bigger than that obtained by Aznar in 2000. That you would think would spell the end of Rubalcaba's career. He was the favoured candidate of many in the PSOE precisely because they thought his experience would give the party a chance of avoiding electoral disaster. As I watched him failing to make any headway against a stonewalling Rajoy in last week's televised debate I couldn't help thinking that a younger, fresher candidate might have done better against the PP's leader. At least in avoiding all the futile "you did this in 92" kind of barbs that Rajoy was able to use to avoid talking about what he might do in the future. 

As Soledad Gallego-Díaz observed in yesterday's El País, we won't really know what Rajoy proposes to do until December 20th when he is expected to be voted in as prime minister. Spain doesn't have a system where the election winners come in the day after the vote and start moving the furniture around, and Zapatero's administration still remains the interim government for a month after the election. The way things are going, that might be a long month for José Luis whose only ambition for the latter part of his premiership has been to avoid the sort of European Union "rescue" where the body still gets tossed into the ditch but the ransom has already been paid. 

It's odd, in the depths of the crisis and with the whole of Europe on the verge of another recession, that the campaign should be so completely devoid of content or controversy. This of course is the way the PP wants it to be. They don't want anything that stirs emotions, especially if it reminds people of why they didn't vote for the PP in previous elections. Rajoy gives very few interviews, and holds no official press conferences of any kind. To make sure that nobody was going off message the PP even pleaded with their supporters in social networks to surrender their accounts so that the party could bombard their followers with unwanted electoral spam. Both major parties feed their selected coverage of their stage managed rallies to the television channels and the result is a deadly boring campaign almost perfectly designed to not change anyone's voting intentions. 

Spanish General Election 2011....The Story Behind The Polls

Imagine a general election in a country where:

• More people think that the right-wing opposition party would have done a worse job compared to the current government than think it would have done better.
• Only 11% of those polled think that this opposition party has done a good job of opposition to the government.
• The governing party attracts more ideological sympathy than the opposition.
• The candidate of the governing party has a higher approval rating than the opposition leader.
• Only 16% of those questioned situate themselves on the right of the political spectrum as opposed to 34% who position themselves on the left.

And, finally....this same opposition party has a lead in the polls of 16.69%!

This is the great paradox of the major pre-election opinion poll in Spain carried out by the CIS. A lead greater than almost any other opinion poll for a candidate and a party that inspire little confidence even amongst their loyal voters. The answer to this is perhaps not that difficult to find, almost 90% of those polled regard the current economic situation in Spain as bad or very bad, and this translates into the mother of all punishments for the incumbents. Bill Clinton's people had a phrase for it. 

The best hope for the PSOE with less than 2 weeks to go before voting on November 20th lies with the 31% of those who say they haven't yet made their minds up. Many of those could well be disillusioned PSOE supporters who are not prepared to vote for the Partido Popular but not yet motivated enough to come out for Rubalcaba. If the PP maintain this poll lead on election day then they will have an absolute majority even bigger than that achieved by Aznar in 2000. It's unlikely that the PP once in power will ponder too much on the origin of their votes, experience tells us that they assume a majority in parliament to mean popular support for anything they might choose to do, no matter how out of step their ideological positions are with much of Spanish society.

The CIS poll is of additional interest for its predictions on how well some of the smaller parties will do. Izquierda Unida are predicted to get 5 seats, and their former allies of Iniciativa in Cataluña to get 3. It doesn't sound like much but remember they only had 2 between them in the last parliament. A genuinely big change could take place in the Basque Country where the new nationalist coalition of Amaiur is challenging the hegemony of the PNV for the nationalist vote. CIS puts them equal on 3 seats each, and it's worth bearing in mind that the polling data precedes ETA's recent declaration of a definitive end to violence. The other relative newcomers of UPyD are predicted to increase their presence from 1 to 3 members of parliament, all of these being elected in their natural base of Madrid.

Spanish General Election 2011....They're Off, In Case You Hadn't Noticed

So the election campaign has now officially started, although it has been a very low key start in what may well be an indicator of a dismal campaign fortnight ahead. This, of course, suits the strategy of the front runner, Mariano Rajoy. With what still seems to be a fairly stable advantage of around 14-15 points in the opinion polls, the Partido Popular's campaign will be based around riding the wave of the economic crisis and doing nothing that might mobilise anti PP feeling.

It's all uphill for Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the PSOE's candidate. He's putting forward far more detailed policy proposals than the PP, his problem is that most of them run counter to what Zapatero's administration have done over the last couple of years. It's not an inspiring choice at all, between two politicians whose time has already passed and neither of whom really have any vision of the future. Rajoy and Rubalcaba have both got where they are by being loyal lieutenants and machine politicians.

There is only going to be one televised debate between the two men, and I expect it to be a tightly managed affair. It's some progress though, the PP has never before agreed to debates when ahead in the polls and Rajoy is the only one who has anything to lose by participating. He's a poor debater, coming across as arrogant and aggressive and he only got a higher rating in one of his many tussles with Zapatero when the latter was at his lowest ebb this year.

There aren't many in the PSOE who seem convinced that their candidate has much chance, it's now an open question whether Rubalcaba will manage to better what was seen at the time as a dreadful result the last time the PP got an absolute majority in 2000. The electoral system in Spain means that Rajoy can potentially get a huge majority with just a couple more percentage points than Zapatero's minority administration. Perhaps that could finally put an end to the common urban legend that the electoral system favours the smaller nationalist parties?

This same electoral system means that the election will be mostly decided in the areas returning larger numbers of representatives, in many provinces there will be no change at all. The PSOE has to do well in both Andalucia and Cataluña to stand any chance of depriving the PP of their majority, in Cataluña they may recover some ground because of opposition to cutbacks by the Catalan government but in Andalucia they could easily lose to the PP. It's interesting that Rajoy started the campaign in Cataluña, where the PP did depressingly well by running an openly racist campaign in the municipal elections in May.

With economic policy being (disastrously) overseen by the EU, voters for the main parties have in reality a limited choice between that of a party which enthusiastically supports drastic austerity measures, and a party which reluctantly supports them. Let's call it a Greek choice. There are alternatives, but the signs are that many disillusioned PSOE voters may just simply stay at home. Izquierda Unida have picked up some extra support but have a lacklustre candidate and in addition have a new rival on the left of the PSOE in the eco-socialist party Equo. It's hard to resist feeling despondent at the likely outcome of this contest. Spain is not about to get better.

Update: The CIS opinion poll released this morning gives the PP a 16.7% advantage over the PSOE, a bigger lead than most polls have shown. The poll data contains some interesting, and seemingly contradictory, data which might be worth a further post.

Spanish General Election 2011....The Future Looks Very Unclear

It's an unusual step to release an electoral programme in the midst of a long holiday weekend, I personally can't remember any similar precedent. But that's what the Partido Popular has just done in Spain. Anybody would think that they don't want people to pay too much attention to their proposals, and they would of course be absolutely right to think that. The timing, and the absence of any detailed substance in the programme, says a lot about the PP's determination not to reveal what they will really do until after the election on November 20th.

This doesn't mean that we can't draw any conclusions about the PP's policies. What you see if you piece everything together is the hazy silhouette of precisely the kind of failed economic policies that currently have us lurching from one catastrophic financial crisis to another. With a particularly Spanish nod in the direction of the construction industry. A combination of tax cuts for those who least need them, privatization gifts for the same beneficiaries, combined with even less employment rights and harsh austerity for those who are already bearing the brunt of the crisis.

The idea that the PP propagates, that they can reduce taxes at the same time as hitting the targets on deficit reduction is nothing more than a massive con-trick. The PP has already defined their get-out clause on this mathematical impossibility, everything is subject to the state of the accounts that they inherit; as if they really don't know what that situation is at the moment. What I predict we will see if they get elected is a now familiar recipe of tax redistribution, those that have the most will pay less and regressive indirect taxes will be significantly increased to pay for this. The only people in Spain who really pay taxes at a rate equivalent to other major European economies are those on salaries. The PP's strategy will increase their burden whilst reducing what they get in return.

Of course one way to substantially reduce the deficit without slashing public services would be to crack down on tax fraud and corruption. Neither issue gets a single mention in the PP's programme, we're back to the days where not talking about something means it doesn't exist. So how about changing the direction of the economy, and attempting to catch the already departing train of new, internet based, technology? No, no need for that apparently in the low rights, low wage economy they're preparing for us.

The PP provoked some amusement last week when they presented their Madrid candidates against a background of Madrid's now notorious smog. It's not really that funny, the city has yet again gone way over the limits on permitted annual air pollution and didn't even bother to present the paperwork for their proposed moratorium on doing something about it. They obviously believe a change of government will relieve them of the need to do anything at all to improve the air we breathe.

In charge (if we can call it that) of Madrid's environment is Ana Botella, whose husband used to be big in the Spanish government. I mention this because the inclusion of the current mayor, Alberto Ruiz Gallardón, in the PP's lists for Madrid makes it quite likely that the incompetent Botella will soon be in charge of the city; toxic particles and all. Gallardón has played a good hand, for himself if not for those of us who live in the city. By making Botella his likely successor, he increased his chances of becoming a minister in a government led by Mariano Rajoy. Having the support of the Aznar family business can do him no harm inside the party.

Someone else who would like to be a big hitting minister, if we believe leaks from within her circle, is Esperanza Aguirre. Rumour has it she would like to be foreign minister. The South of Watford Institute for Political Studies reckons she is more likely to be offered an ambassadorship to a remote Pacific island nation, or one of the poorest former Soviet republics. If Rajoy wins with a big majority Aguirre faces a dramatic loss of power in the PP. This was already illustrated by her absolute lack of influence over the PP lists in Madrid. There is already much talk of this being her last legislature as president of Madrid, and it's quite possible that she will end up with plenty of time to practice her swing on what may come to be seen as her only significant legacy; the numerous golf courses spread around the region as part of the construction bubble. That's if poor visibility doesn't prevent play.

Did You Say Real Democracy Or Steal Democracy?

The dust has barely settled following Sunday's crushing defeat for the PSOE in the municipal and regional elections, and the party is in turmoil over how to select their new leader. Nobody has yet declared themselves as a candidate, and this seems to be because of the behind the scenes manoeuvres to either try and avoid a contest or to keep the choice of Zapatero's successor in as few hands as possible.

It's been known for some time that those who favour the interior minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba have been looking for ways to force their candidate into pole position. What they fear most of all is a primary election process which could potentially see Rubalcaba lose out to another candidate; the most likely contender being the defence minister Carme Chacón. The argument they use is that this process would create too much uncertainty.

So we've had the idea floated of a "dream ticket" where of course Rubalcaba would be number one with Chacón as his deputy, presumably in return for a promise that the older Rubalcaba would stand aside in the event of an election defeat. Some have argued that there could still be a process of primary elections, but with only one candidate! Even this seems to be too much for some powerful figures in the party who have been pressing for the primaries to be avoided and for a decision on the succession to be taken more quickly by the party's executive or by a special congress. The latter idea was floated yesterday by the Basque regional president Patxi Lopez. 

It looks as if those who are trying to prevent primaries may have jumped the gun, Zapatero has stated today that there will be a primary election process involving the party's members. In such a situation the question arises of whether there might be other candidates. Zapatero himself stood as a virtual unknown when he was elected via the primaries. Perhaps Lopez could be one of those candidates too, a close reading of the Basque election results suggests he may well be out of work in a couple of years time - but he is not a member of parliament and cannot become one whilst he holds his current job.

There may be some legitimate fears about a long drawn out contest sapping even further the PSOE's fragile electoral base. A Rubalcaba-Chacón contest is unlikely to be very inspiring, the absence of ideological content will reduce it to a choice between experience (Rubalcaba) or the novelty for Spain of a potential female (and Catalan!) prime minister (Chacón). It's still a far better way to choose your leader than that used by the Partido Popular where the almost life president talks to the honorary life president and then names the candidate. 

The PP is pressing hard for the general election to be brought forward following their victory, although they won't present a motion of censure against the government unless they know they will win it. Zapatero clearly wants to serve his full term and give some time for his successor to prepare for the elections. The key to these plans doesn't lie within the PSOE itself, it is the Basque nationalists of the PNV who will decide whether to continue honouring the pact that saw the government through to this point. 

2011 Regional And Municipal Election Results In Spain

I looked for the El País elections results widget yesterday and couldn't find it. Here it is, along with an ominous blue look to that electoral map. I imagine in PSOE headquarters they have trouble even looking at it.

Could it have been much worse than this for Spain's ruling party? The story the opinion polls have been telling has been confirmed, and more distressingly for the PSOE it seems the announcement that Zapatero will not stand again has made little impact on the result. It's been a traumatic night for them. In only one regional election did the PSOE emerge as the party with most votes, and that by a handful in Asturias where they will struggle to govern. The only region where they look likely to remain in power (of those that voted yesterday) is Extremadura, but even here the Partido Popular (PP) got more votes and the PSOE will have to reach an agreement with Izquierda Unida to govern.

The yardstick for success or failure for both of the big national parties was Castilla-La Mancha. If the PSOE had retained power here it would have been seen as a failure for PP leader Mariano Rajoy, especially as the PP candidate was the general secretary of the party, Maria Dolores de Cospedal. In the event the PP took control by a single seat but with a voting advantage of several points. This region tells the story of the election. The outgoing president, José María Barreda, got significantly better approval ratings in the polls than his opponent, but the PP have fought these elections on national issues and these have clearly prevailed over local conditions in most areas. Barreda was one of the regional barons in the PSOE who had pushed hardest for Zapatero to make his announcement before election day; it wasn't enough.

In Madrid both regional president Esperanza Aguirre and mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón have won comfortable victories, but it's worth noting that the PP in the capital has got a lower percentage of the vote at a time when the party is achieving spectacular results elsewhere. There is now a fourth force in the regional assembly, Union Progreso y Democracia (UPyD) have achieved their best result in the city and will be represented. We will now get to see where they stand on issues like the creeping privatisation of public services or Aguirre's increasing application of segregationist policies in education. They can't have it both ways on everything, a position they've managed to maintain whilst not having elected representatives.

The odd thing in Madrid is that probably neither of the winning candidates wants to do the job they have stood for. The compulsive attention seeker Aguirre is going to be frustrated at being confined to regional affairs if the PP win power nationally in 2012. Gallardón will almost certainly leave his post to serve in a Rajoy government. We lucky Madrileños will be left with Ana Botella as mayor! Again, the local and national factors were confused in the Madrid campaign. Take a look at Aguirre's huge campaign poster from the Plaza de España if you can take it (young children and the sensitive should probably look away at this point). It calls for "change"; this from a party that has governed Madrid continuously for 16 years! Some change.

There are some very interesting results from other regions. In Cataluña the conservative nationalists of Convergència i Unió are now firmly in the driving seat and even seem to have displaced the PSOE's Catalan wing from the town hall in Barcelona. They now combine control of the regional government with that of the Catalan capital. A significant change, coupled with another terrible result for nationalist rivals Esquerra Republicana who just a few years ago seemed to be on the point of challenging CiU for the nationalist vote. It's worth noting, as a warning for the future, that the PP ran a nasty and repulsively racist campaign in Cataluña. No other description fits.

Elsewhere, there was another resounding victory in Valencia for a PP list packed with candidates facing corruption charges, including of course the regional president Francisco Camps. No surprise there for those of us who take it for granted now that corruption doesn't erode the PP vote, but in fact something has changed. Compared with 2007 the PP has lost support in percentage terms in Valencia even as the PSOE vote has slumped. Not a huge change but still happening at a moment when their support elsewhere is hitting levels not seen in years. Valencia more than anywhere else exemplifies the adoption of Berlusconi type politics in Spain, because of the insistence from the corrupt that the ballot box will absolve them.

In the Basque Country there is another fascinating situation. The political force which has the largest municipal representation in the region after the elections is the coalition Bildu, which the government and the PP tried to illegalise for alleged links with ETA. The right-wing nationalists of the PNV are the party with the most votes but Bildu has taken around 25%. It's an ominous result for the regional PSOE led government which relies on PP support to govern, and a reminder that these parties only achieved power in the first place in the Basque Country because previous illegalisations disenfranchised part of the nationalist vote. Will a PP led national government attempt again to remove the second largest Basque political formation?

Then there is Asturias. The PSOE finished the night just a few tens of votes ahead of the new party led by the former PP secretary general Francisco Álvarez Cascos. Anyone who imagines that this party is just a personal vehicle for Cascos would be absolutely right, the initials of the formation are FAC. It's a depressing result, because FAC stands for the most obsolete, cacique style of politics that you can imagine represented by a political dinosaur. But Cascos is now there as the kingmaker to decide whether PSOE or PP will govern alongside his party.

Although the night looks like a huge victory for the PP, it's worth noting that the percentages of vote obtained would not give them a majority in a general election. The difference on the night is caused by a slump in support for the PSOE. Some of those votes have gone to the PP, some to UPyD and some to Izquierda Unida who have experienced a small increase in support. But many of these votes have disappeared into abstention and the PSOE is failing to mobilise much of their core vote. This situation goes back a year, to the point when Zapatero did his great turnaround on the economy. With the PP pressing for early national elections the PSOE currently doesn't have a candidate. The current favourite, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, doesn't emerge well from these elections. Carme Chacón, at the moment his only known rival, has kept a lower profile but could be damaged by the defeat in her Catalan base. We will know very soon who intends to stand as Zapatero's replacement, that campaign was on hold until today.

Some observers have also tried to present the election as a failure for the protestors camped in Madrid's Puerta del Sol and many other cities around Spain. With so many voters sticking to the traditional and in many ways discredited parties it's likely to be disappointing for some. At the same time it was never very likely that a campaign that was virtually unknown just over a week ago was going to have a significant effect on the electoral outcome. It seems like a good moment to correct some misconceptions too. Democracia Real Ya, and the other protest platforms, are not an electoral movement. Just because the Junta Electoral decided last week they were doesn't affect that reality, and the campaign continues. 

This campaign may well have more to deal with soon, there is an expectation that many regional governments have been holding back on making severe cutbacks until after election day. Likewise, I listened to a commentator last night on Spanish TV attributing high abstention to the campaign. This is nonsense, the protesters have continually called for people to go and vote. On the other hand, there has been an unusually large number of blank votes cast and this could be partly due to the protests, people who want someone to vote for but don't find a party that represents them.

Honest Candidates Have An Unfair Advantage

With the regional and municipal elections looming, the Partido Popular in Valencia has struck an important blow for equality of treatment. They lodged a complaint with the Junta Electoral, responsible for overseeing the electoral process, because several TV channels had publicised the fact that their lists for the May elections are full of people involved in corruption cases, including the long running Gürtel case. The PP claimed that this shouldn't be allowed. It goes without saying that the regional TV channel under their control would never do such a thing, those who rely solely on this channel for their information may even be unaware that their president could soon be on trial. 

Today, after what seems to have been some pressure from national PP headquarters, the Valencian party has withdrawn their complaint. The lists for the elections contain, depending on what you read, between 9-11 important PP figures who are either directly accused of offences or who are currently under investigation. The decision to pack the lists with so many suspect characters has been seen as a further snub by the Valencian PP to Mariano Rajoy, who they know to be either unwilling or unable to act over such cases. Given that they regard electoral success as being equivalent to absolution, perhaps the only surprise is the accidental inclusion of some candidates who are not yet charged with anything.