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. 

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....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.

A Constitutional Nightmare

It was planned to be one of the final parliamentary appearances by José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as Spanish prime minister, and we knew in advance that yesterday's session was likely to include some new economic measures. What we got was a mini bombshell. The decision, announced by Zapatero, to change the Spanish constitution to include a budget deficit cap was a well kept secret, or perhaps that should be well kept from the Spanish people. It's going to be an express change, pushed through parliament in a matter of days using the combined might of the PSOE and the Partido Popular.

Others were in on the secret in advance, we know that opposition leader Mariano Rajoy was told previously by Zapatero. The constitution cannot be changed by a simple parliamentary majority, which Zapatero doesn't possess anyway; the votes of the PP are essential to get the change through. So what was going on? The general consensus is that the measure forms part of a secret deal with Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, in return for the European Central Bank intervening in the markets on behalf of Spain. We don't know whether this deal has been documented and nothing has been admitted by the government, but little else can be found to explain the apparent urgency of a measure which we are told won't even take effect before 2018.

This is no trivial measure, although it is in many ways a bizarre one. Enshrining deficit limits in the constitution is simply stupid, it's not the place for such a measure and almost more than anything else that has been done so far it represents beautifully the dogmatic, senseless policies that have already taken Europe back to the brink of another recession. The irony is that the lunatic policies of the Tea Party are having more success in Europe so far than they are in the USA. One country after another is being pushed into depression all so that a bought out political class can forget all the promises they made 3 or 4 years ago not to let it happen again. I used to wonder a bit how Europe stumbled into depression and war in the 1930's, the mystery has now been solved for me.

Countries need deficits, not all the time but they need them. The idea that a budget deficit should be legally banned is the dogma of idiot ideologues unable to learn anything from history. Unable to learn from failure either, as things get worse the only solution they offer is more of the same. The medicine isn't working, it must be because we haven't cut the other leg off. Pushing secret deals through parliament without any proper explanation and with half the country on holiday typifies the distance between the political class and the people they occasionally still claim to represent. A movement has already started to demand a referendum on the change, a logical and perfectly practical step with elections coming in November. 10% of the parliamentary representatives can force this to happen, but that seems unlikely to happen in the world of closed lists where dissent can mean no future.

But let's leave that aside and examine how the measure might work. Taking into account the recent history of Spain's Tribunal Constitucional let's ask what happens if the constitution is changed and the country exceeds the budget cap? Unless they're going to change the procedure too the next step is that someone (the opposition?) has to present a case to the Tribunal. Based on past experience they then sit on this for a couple of years, perhaps with a bit of inter-party wrangling over court membership involved to pass the time, before issuing a decision. By this time the deficit may be smaller or bigger, so what effect does it all have? None. That's why it's a pointless, ideological trophy. Of course changing the constitution back to stop wasting the time of the judges becomes incredibly difficult without PSOE and PP agreement to do so. There are some perfectly sensible constitutional changes which have been gathering dust for years because the PP refused to touch a document that they originally opposed but now regard as sacred. 

One success of the announcement has been that the constitution issue completely overshadows quite a dramatic reduction in the already precarious rights of young workers in Spain. Employers are now going to be allowed to indefinitely string together temporary job contracts. Meaning of course that the contract is not really temporary at all, except as far as the protection of the employee is concerned. At the same time a "training" contract previously designed for employees aged 21 or under is now extended to those aged 30. I'm waiting to hear the loud cries from those who constantly bemoan the two-tier labour market as this is a significant widening of the gap. I'll wait in vain, because we know what the solution proposed for that problem will be.

Who Needs Murdoch Anyway?

With the phone hacking scandal in full flow in the UK last week, we got a useful reminder here in Spain that media abuse of power is not just confined to Rupert Murdoch. Whenever El País carries an editorial on its front page these days it almost always means that Juan Luis Cebrián, executive president of the group owning the paper, has decided to launch another attack on Spanish prime minister Zapatero. So it was this time, turning to the inside pages and unsigned editorial apart there was a separate full page article from Cebrián calling on Zapatero to go now and call for early elections.

It never used to be this way. When the then Grupo Prisa wanted to get its way with PSOE led administrations in Spain they just had to pop round to the prime ministerial residence like Rupert does in the UK and tell the man what they wanted. That worked with Felipe Gonzalez, and to some extent with Zapatero. But there has been a breakdown in the relationship as Zapatero's government played footsie with the up and coming Mediapro, locked in a bitter battle with Prisa over lucrative televised football rights. So Cebrián has been making it clear for some time his dislike of Zapatero, and given that Prisa, now owned by the Liberty group, have the much more friendly Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba as PSOE candidate for the next election they are keen for the natural order of things to be restored.

Of course Cebrián didn't put things this way. His article was dressed up in calls for action to deal with the sensation of crisis in the country with the possibility of the markets getting their evil way at any moment. But nobody who keeps even half an eye on the news can seriously try to sustain that holding elections does anything at all to lift those pressures. The simple answer to anyone who tries that argument is Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. Cebrián tried even to make a few nods in the direction of the 15-M movement in his piece, but he as much as anyone else is part of that generation from the post-transition period that had the chance to make a difference and decided not to do it. The self-interested exercise of corporate power that Cebrián and company have specialized in has no common meeting point with 15-M. Both of the possible candidates to be the next prime minister of Spain are also relics of that same generation with nothing fresh to offer the country.

A Rajoy victory in the election will simply swing the position of favoured media group sharply to the right. In this context the decision of El Mundo director Pedro J. Ramirez to bet in 2008 against Rajoy holding on in the Partido Popular is starting to look unwise. Ramirez enjoyed cozy dinners chez Aznar the last time the PP was in government, and will be keen not to lose influence to rivals. El Mundo's position as the biggest selling right wing paper is under threat from a revived and more loyalist ABC, but they can still use their influence to put pressure on a government that will in any case be entirely open to that way of doing business. Meanwhile Aznar, in his position as a Murdoch employee, is amongst those contracting expensive lawyers to deal with the possible legal consequences of the UK scandal.

Chacón Steps Back From The Brink

As a follow up to yesterday's post on the PSOE's leadership vacancy, the defence minister Carme Chacón has just announced today that she won't be contesting the job; at least not this time. She didn't look at all comfortable in the press conference, and at points even seemed to be close to tears. After detailing her project and saying that she took the decision months ago to be a candidate, Chacón has claimed that she changed her mind in the interests of party unity in the wake of Sunday's disastrous election results. 

She would say that wouldn't she? It's widely assumed that Chacón has been under very heavy pressure not to get in the way of Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, who has still not officially even stated his interest in the job. It was reported this morning that Chacón's car had been stolen, but I'm resisting the temptation to suggest that this was a warning of what could happen if she stood as a candidate. It's still possible that there could be a primary election instead of a coronation, but it will be a brave candidate who takes the step forward. Nor is it so easy, you need a minimum level of support to be able to stand. 

The whole process is beginning to look like an example of old politics winning the day. Can Rubalcaba really present a fresh vision of the country to those who have been protesting over the last week or to those PSOE voters who have opted for abstention? It was the police under his control that evicted the first campers in the Puerta del Sol. He's a throwback to the PSOE of Felipe Gonzalez, and whilst nobody doubts that he is an effective politician there's no sign of what sort of vision he can offer a country that needs change. 

Chacón's decision is almost impeccable politically, when viewed from her own interests. She can now let Rubalcaba or whoever else gets chosen take the brunt of the expected electoral defeat, and then stand as a candidate for the future in the next contest. The only risk being that by this time there may be more candidates with the same idea. There is intense speculation that the government may not see out its full term and that we could get a general election in the autumn. Despite the calls from some for early elections it can't realistically be before then, Spaniards don't go to the polls in their swimming costumes. 

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. 

ZP, El Pato Cojo

We can't really claim the suspense was killing us, the speculation was all about when Zapatero would make his announcement that he wouldn't stand for re-election, not if he would make it. Things had reached the point where it had really become unsustainable to choose any other option after months of speculation and increasing pressure inside his own party for a decision to be made.

Not that there has ever been much sign of Zapatero intending to try for a third term. It has long been rumoured that he would "do an Aznar" and stand down voluntarily after two terms in office. What has happened is that the choice over the timing has not been as voluntary as he would have liked. Powerful regional figures in the PSOE have been expressing their worry that the appalling poll ratings for the national government would lead the party to disaster in the local and regional elections, where candidates with a good local record might hope to defy the trends of the polls.

The problem now for the PSOE is to keep the lid on any leadership struggle until after the May elections, although any open bidding for power in the meantime is likely to be quickly shot down as being disloyal to the party. Zapatero has made it clear that he favours a primary election to choose the new leader, the same route that he took to the top and a stark contrast with the opposition Partido Popular whose current leader was elected by one person; José Maria Aznar. I always think that the inner workings of a party reveal much about its attitude towards democracy in general (and of course in this case political heritage).

For many the overwhelming favourite as successor is the interior minister, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba. He is seen as a safe pair of hands who might just manage to salvage something for the party in next year's general election. Rubalcaba has a very powerful ally in the newspaper El País, in what would be an attempt by that paper's owners to regain some of the influence they have lost over the government. El País seems able to produce a poll showing extraordinary prospects for Rubalcaba at a moments notice and there is little doubt that some senior PSOE figures would like him to be installed without a contested election. It's strange that a politician who was said to be seeking retirement after the last general election should now be on the verge of becoming leader of the party. It's hard to see him as being anything more than a caretaker leader but you never know.

The main expected rival to the Rubalcaba option is defence minister Carme Chacón, who would represent a younger generation of politicians in the party. Chacón has been seen as Zapatero's favourite as successor after becoming the first woman defence minister, and the fact that she is Catalan would be seen as a nod to an important region in electoral terms. Ironically, she could lead a party that she is not officially a member of, as the Catalan PSC is in principle a separate organisation. We can only imagine for the moment the reaction of the right wing press in Spain to the prospect of a Catalan female becoming prime minister. Heart attacks could be provoked just by the thought of it.

The possibility of other candidates shouldn't be ruled out, after all José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was virtually an unknown outside of his home territory when he stood for election as PSOE leader. Another question is whether there will be behind the scenes negotiations for a Rubalcaba-Chacón "dream ticket", presumably put together with the promise that Rubalcaba would stand down in the event of an election defeat. It's a risky game for Chacón to play, sometimes if you don't stand you lose your chance forever as anyone else can come forward in the future. Don't expect much ideology from either of them, Rubalcaba is a machine politician and Chacón will represent a continuation of Zapaterismo.

The PP has already been clamouring for early elections to be called, although it's still notable that they refuse to present a parliamentary motion of censure. In many ways Rubalcaba has been their main target ever since the reshuffle last year gave him a more prominent role in the general business of the government. They have been chipping away at his generally high approval rating. It's not clear whether Zapatero will stand down after the new leader is elected, or whether he will follow Aznar's lead and stay as prime minister but not as candidate, continuing to take the flak for the economy's weakness. 

Waiter! There's A Hole In My Opinion Poll Ratings

Taken as a snapshot of current Spanish political opinion, today's opinion poll in Público is not good news for Zapatero's government. The poll gives the Partido Popular a lead of 13 points over the governing PSOE. Any hopes of a rebound in the polls following the recent government reshuffle seem to have vanished quickly, as the market pressure on Spain's economy has returned with a vengeance.

The 13 point advantage for the PP is more than enough to get them into power with an absolute majority in a general election, Aznar won his majority in the year 2000 with a lower advantage over the PSOE than this. It's worth pointing out that this is not because of a significant rise in support for the PP, who on a little over 43% are still only 3 points above what they got in the previous election in 2008. The Spanish electoral system, like the British one, allows parties well short of majority support to win an absolute majority in parliament.

So where are the missing voters if the PSOE is down 13% on its 2008 performance? The answer for the moment seems to be that most of them are heading for abstention, the same circumstance that made that 2000 victory for Aznar seem so overwhelming. Izquierda Unida would hope to pick up disenchanted voters from the PSOE, given that they represent the only national alternative to the neo-liberal economic wave at the moment. To a limited extent they are picking up support, the poll puts them at 7,5%, but this still leaves a significant number of former PSOE voters not currently opting for anyone.

The continuing troubles for the government have revived speculation about the post-Zapatero era, the perception being that Zapatero is now prepared to sacrifice himself on the altar of the never ending crisis. The chances of economic recovery by 2012 get slimmer with every passing week and every deflationary measure imposed on the country. But the prospect of electoral disaster in the 2011 municipal and regional elections is also stirring talk of the general election possibly being brought forward, even though the government's pact with the Basque PNV is working fine and could still see them through for the full term.

There have been some curious movements in the last few days. Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, seen as the most likely successor to Zapatero, made a trip to Afghanistan. This was odd because he is the interior minister and such visits to the troops are normally seen as the job of defence; or the prime minister. There was speculation that Rubalcaba was displaying his power to defence minister Carme Chacón, who at one time was seen as being Zapatero's favoured successor in the event that he ever gets to exercise that privilege. The fact that Chacón quickly followed Rubalcaba's visit with a trip of her own to Spanish soldiers serving in Lebanon has only created further speculation about a possible power struggle behind the scenes.

None of this definitely means that Zapatero will voluntarily fall on his sword, even though it has long been suspected that he never intended to serve more than two terms. Letting his most highly rated minister (Rubalcaba) take much of the flak gives him some possibility of staying in control and to play off potential rivals against each other. If he really does want to hand over to someone else, then he finds himself unable to walk away on a high note as a winner; always fatal for a politicians ego.

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.

Rubalcaba....Zapatero's Prince Of Darkness?

The promotion of Spanish interior minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba in the recent government reshuffle has really got the right wing press and sections of the Partido Popular very excited. Partly it is because of Rubalcaba's long political history stretching back to when Felipe Gonzalez was prime minister of Spain in the 1980's and 1990's. This allows the PP to associate Rubalcaba with the GAL scandal, the government sponsored dirty war against ETA that led to entirely innocent people being kidnapped or murdered. Not that this aspect is what really bothers PP supporters, it's just that the GAL was one of the main political levers they used to get Gonzalez out of power.

Combine this with the fact that Rubalcaba is now in charge of the police and you get the perfect combination for the PP. We have even seen a minor resurgence of the conspiranoia surrounding the Madrid bombings, with PP general secretary Maria Dolores de Cospedal promising that the PP would reveal the "truth" about the bombings when they return to office. This act of transparency is of course not expected to include the documentation which the PP removed or destroyed on leaving office after the bombings. Instead the suggestion will presumably be that it was Rubalcaba who placed the bombs, rather than Zapatero himself.

Then there is the question of corruption. Every time a new scandal concerning PP corruption emerges (and we now have a very fine collection), the PP attempts to claim that the case is purely the result of government persecution as opposed to many of their leading representatives having their noses so firmly in the trough that they can hardly breathe. This line permits them to ignore the question of whether those accused of corruption should stand down from their positions. In the latest cases to hit the headlines, involving widespread influence peddling in Alicante, 22 PP representatives involved continue to carry on as if nothing has happened, whilst two PSOE representatives with a fairly tangential involvement have been removed from their positions. Cleaning up the party is far too arduous a task for Mariano Rajoy, reportedly "agotado" after giving two interviews in a week, so the easiest solution is to claim it is all the work of the sinister Rubalcaba.

There's A New Balance Of Power In Spain's Government

Having effectively transformed the agreement with the Basque nationalist PNV from one that supported this year's budget into a broader one that should guarantee the government's survival until the end of its term in 2012, Spain's prime minister Zapatero has today decided to relaunch his team. The changes have been far more significant than expected, as Zapatero had previously hinted that he only intended to replace outgoing labour minister Celestino Corbacho.

The big winner in the reshuffle is almost universally regarded as being Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, who remains as interior minister but also gets to be a vice-president with powers overseeing government business. The rise of Rubalcaba involves the departure from the government of María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, who had occupied the vice-presidency since Zapatero was first elected in 2004. Nobody should feel too sorry for her, she gets a cushy position on the Consejo de Estado, a body which does very little except provide a comfortable lifetime paid position for its members! None of that fixed term nonsense on the Consejo.

Rubalcaba generally figures as the most popular minister in opinion polls, but belongs very much to the old guard of the PSOE dating from the times of Felipe Gonzalez. His power behind the scenes has been increasing and this has led to him being seen as one of the possible successors to Zapatero. Other candidates are Jose Blanco, who keeps his post but also gets some of his former power in the party machine back. The defence minister, Carme Chacón, was also once seen as a possible successor to Zapatero and she keeps her post too. Rumours that she would join Corbacho by being sacrificed at the front in the forthcoming Catalan election campaign don't seem to have foundation.

Blanco regained influence through the move that takes Leire Pajín from being in charge of party organisation to taking over the health ministry. It seems that Blanco and Pajín did not get on well and there has been a bit of a turf war between them. Much has been made today of Spain getting a health minister who likes to wear one of these worthless hologram bracelets that work by separating the gullible from their money. Public finances probably don't allow for them being available on prescription, unless the hospitals are simply closed.

Space for Pajín was made with the promotion of Trinidad Jiménez to take over as foreign minister from Miguel Angel Moratinos. There's little doubt that this is a reward for Jiménez for standing against Tomas Gómez in the primaries to decide the PSOE candidate for next year's regional election in Madrid. She's done quite well out of losing that battle, you have to say. Moratinos has been running an increasingly lacklustre and low profile foreign policy which largely seems to consist of not doing anything that might annoy anyone. Not that this is likely to change now.

Then we have a new labour minister, Valeriano Gómez, who was photographed participating in the demonstration against the government's labour market reform on September 29th, the day of the general strike. If I was in the parliamentary opposition I think I would already have tabled a question on whether he decided the reform was actually a good idea before or after getting into the ministerial car for the first time? His close links to the unions are seen as a conciliatory gesture, perhaps the only one that will be offered now that the markets are given first call on all policy decisions.

The reshuffle also sees the end of two ministries, equality and housing. These have been merged into health and public works respectively. The equality ministry, headed by Bibiana Aído, has been a favourite target of the right-wing media. Mainly because they hate the idea of equality anyway, but also because Aído steered through the abortion law reform. The decision to abolish the ministry is surprising because it was one of Zapatero's own flagship innovations. To merge it with health is a very arguable decision, you could put a better case for it to belong to economy.

The housing ministry will not be missed as most of the powers in this area already belong to regional and local administrations. With no money available, the job of minister Beatriz Corredor had been more or less reduced to the annual, and still over-optimistic assertion, that house prices in Spain have stopped falling and that it was time for everyone to buy. Even Zapatero took that task upon himself recently. A further surprise came with the appointment of Rosa Aguilar, once a prominent and popular figure in Izquierda Unida, to be environment and agriculture minister. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that she gets the job as much for the political journey she has made as for any other reason.

So it's a relaunch of the government, rather than just a reshuffle, and one which allows Zapatero to hand out rewards and adjust the equilibrium between those who might be looking over his shoulder. In doing so he keeps the issue of his own future open, with a stability agreement for the first time in this parliament that he hopes will give him time to close that ominously large gap in the opinion polls. He knows the strategy of his opposition, Mariano Rajoy continues to seek a place in the record books for sleeping the longest ever siesta as he relies on the crisis continuing to chip away at the government's support. The PP have been robbed of the prospect of early elections, but the question is whether 18 months is enough time for Zapatero to recover lost ground?

Polls Apart

In the wake of last week's general strike, El País published an opinion poll showing the PSOE over 14 points behind the Partido Popular. This was a significantly greater gap than most recent polls had shown. Following the general trend since the gap between the two parties started to widen, this poll didn't show any significant increase in PP support; the difference comes from the collapse in support for the governing PSOE.

This factor makes it even stranger that El País made no attempt to account for what is happening to those voters who have deserted the government. If the PP is only 3-4% above its vote in the last election, and the PSOE is 14% below then that means 10% of that fall in support is not accounted for. El País have taken to showing the results only for the two major parties, as if Izquierda Unida, the nationalist parties and UPyD didn't even exist.

Of course they are not the only ones who use polls to offer a distorted version of what is happening. The media in Spain are frequently accused of getting the results they look for from polls. In the case of La Razón, it is hard to find any evidence for the existence of their pollsters outside the pages of the newspaper itself; leading to the suspicion that pollsters and publishers belong to the same company and possibly share the same office.

Opinion polls are also published by a government agency, the CIS. The PP has frequently claimed that the results of CIS polls are manipulated by the government, although they seem to be quite a lot more trustworthy than many of those found in the media. Recently, the woman who was in charge of the CIS was replaced, allegedly because she refused to bow to pressure to change the time the organisation did its fieldwork in July to a moment potentially more favorable for the government. All of which boosts the credibility of the organisation, at least under its previous management.

Zapatero's Primary Problem Is Not Madrid

The right-wing press in Spain were gleeful today with the result of yesterday's primary election to choose the PSOE's candidate to contest the regional presidency of Madrid in next year's elections. The narrow victory for Tomas Gómez over the health minister, Trinidad Jiménez, is presented as being a snub to Zapatero because he had made it clear his preferred candidate was Jiménez. It is even leading some commentators to talk of this election as being the beginning of 'postzapaterismo', the start of the battle to succeed Zapatero as PSOE leader. It is claimed that Zapatero wanted a candidate capable of displacing Esperanza Aguirre to compensate for what are expected to be heavy losses in other regions in next year's elections.

Zapatero can hardly complain that people interpret the result as a slap in the face for him, even where there are obvious political interests at work in reaching that judgement. He made it clear that he didn't want Gómez to be the candidate, and rather than just allow his own choice to contest the primary both he and other senior PSOE figures tried to force Gómez to withdraw from the contest. The national PSOE machine also seems to have been involved in the campaign to promote Jiménez with clear support from friendly media, notably El País. Rather than being a vote against Zapatero, the rejection of Jiménez probably has at least as much to do with party members simply not liking the attempt to link a vote for Gómez with disloyalty to the party leadership.

The contest itself was a dismal one, nobody is any the wiser now after weeks of campaigning about what either candidate thinks should be done for Madrid. Jiménez based her entire campaign around the idea that she was more popular in opinion polls than Gómez, whilst Gómez countered as being the candidate of the party base with the (unspoken) implication that Trini was being imposed on the party. It was all very uninspiring and inward looking, an opportunity for both candidates to present an alternative vision for Madrid was lost. One good thing comes out of it for Gómez, at least people now know who he is! That always helps.

Not that those parties who don't even bother electing their candidates have too much to celebrate. The Partido Popular has a couple of major candidate problems of its own. In Asturias the attempt by former PP general secretary Francisco Álvarez Cascos to force his way in as candidate for the regional elections has provoked a revolt in the Asturian PP. Cascos is hated by many of the influential figures in the party there, and it has so far only been the intervention of the national leadership that has kept his hopes alive against the local attempts to choose an alternative candidate. Cascos is a dinosaur from Aznar's PP, and it's hard to see why PP leader Mariano Rajoy would want another potential critic from that period in a position of influence. He's already got Esperanza Aguirre for that. It's no surprise that Aguirre is an enthusiastic backer of Cascos.

Then there is Valencia. The PP failed last week in an attempt to halt the transfer of that part of the Gürtel corruption case affecting Valencia to the courts in the region. This is no longer just about the suits that Francisco Camps is alleged to have received in return for political favours. The case now accuses the Valencian PP of far more serious offences, and the PP seems determined to try and slow down the judicial process as much as possible in the hope that nothing happens before the election next year. It helps that the highest court in Valencia is still in the hands of the man who last year came to the rescue of Camps, Juan Luis de la Rúa. This judge is supposed to be have been replaced, but political wrangling over who gets which position has so far kept De la Rúa in his post. Mariano Rajoy no longer likes to be photographed with Camps and there are those in the national PP who think the latter's position is untenable, but neither does Rajoy want the Valencian election to be dominated by Gürtel.

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.

Making A Mess Of Democracy

Madrid will witness an internal primary election in the PSOE this autumn to determine who the candidates will be to take on Esperanza Aguirre and Alberto Ruiz Gallardón in next year's regional and municipal elections. This is a contest which virtually nobody involved wanted to have. The national party was pressing hard for Madrid PSOE leader Tomas Gómez to stand aside in favour of Trinidad Jimenez, currently health minister. Goméz has refused to stand down, even after a private meeting with Zapatero, leaving the primary as virtually the only solution.

The reasons why the national leadership want to displace Gómez as candidate are said to come from (internal) opinion polls that show Jimenez having more chance against Esperanza Aguirre. There is a general feeling, going beyond the confines of the PSOE, that Gómez has been a fairly uninspiring leader since he was appointed as Zapatero's choice to lead the Madrid party. This has not been helped by the fact that he doesn't sit in the Madrid regional assembly, leaving it to others to lead the opposition there to Aguirre. However, by seeking another candidate the national PSOE has opened itself to the charge of yet again treating Madrid as a place where election candidates are shipped in at the last moment. The clumsy attempt to persuade Gómez to stand down was not impressive. There is also the fact that Trinidad Jimenez has been a candidate in Madrid before, and only took around 35% of the vote against Gallardón.

Even with the hints from some polls that Aguirre is vulnerable it still seems unlikely in the current circumstances that the PSOE can think seriously about winning the election. The odd thing has been the reluctance to let the issue go to a primary election, an open contest will do wonders for raising the profile of the eventual winner and it seems hard to believe that voters will punish a party for demonstrating a little internal democracy. Zapatero himself was elected as PSOE leader by the same method. Of course, now that the primary has become inevitable, everyone from Zapatero to Gómez is acting as if it's what they always wanted to happen. Based on what we have seen so far there will be little substance to the debate, Gómez is trying to rely on his influence in the Madrid party machine, whilst Jimenez will present herself as Zapatero's candidate. If there are ideological differences between the two, they are well hidden.

To make things a little bit more interesting, there are rumours circulating that the candidates for the Partido Popular could yet change. These rumours have Aguirre taking the place of Gallardón as mayor of Madrid, whilst the latter would then be free to stand in the national PP lists with the possibility of being a senior figure in a Rajoy led administration. Rajoy would obviously need a deputy to take difficult decisions, given his notorious problems in that department. The logic behind this notion is that Aguirre would be safer in Madrid city which votes more strongly for the right, and Gallardón would be free to realise his ambition to be a national political figure. It may all just be idle speculation, and it is hard to see Aguirre being content with taking over Gallardon's more or less bankrupt administration; especially with her insatiable need for plentiful autobombo funds.

When The Alternative Is To Do Nothing At All

If anything was demonstrated by last week's "State of the Nation" debate here in Spain, it is that the Partido Popular intends to offer no alternative proposals of any kind for dealing with the economic crisis. The PP's leader Mariano Rajoy made Zapatero the focus of his speech and insisted that the only thing needing to be done is for elections to be called. The distance between Rajoy and the detail of the debate was such that he didn't even bother to turn up for the second day, claiming that he had work to do. A strange position for someone who receives a salary as a parliamentarian, and knowing his leisurely habits it is probably the least likely explanation of the absence that he could offer.

For Rajoy the job of opposition seems to have become one long siesta. The strategy consists entirely of letting the crisis drag Zapatero downwards. No concrete policies on what the PP would do in office are ever spelt out, nor is it likely that we will see any sort of detail this side of a general election. The PP is said to have learnt from the dip in support for David Cameron's Conservatives when they started talking with too much relish about what they would like to cut. Even too much talk of the crisis is being discouraged by the national leadership, who don't want to "agobiar" the electorate with doom and gloom. The softly softly approach even extended to the Constitutional Court's decision on the Catalan Estatut, the PP is not interested in offending Catalan sentiments in a year when they may have the chance to be the kingmakers following the regional elections.

The verdict on an uninspiring debate was mixed. Some polls gave it to Rajoy, others to Zapatero who has won quite clearly in previous editions. This result tells us virtually everything we need to know about Rajoy's relationship with the electorate, even when facing Zapatero at his lowest point he was still not capable of clearly winning the debate. This raises the question of whether he could win a debate with anyone or anything? Rajoy versus a plate of Callos a la Madrileña for example? The unwillingness to explain their policies is one of the reasons why the PP won't present a motion of censure against Zapatero, the norm in such situations being to explain what you would do differently. That and the current lack of allies to support such a motion.

In any case there is little need for the PP now that Zapatero's administration has assumed the role of implementing the cuts to public services. All that talk over the last few years of variable geometry for a minority government is looking a bit thin these days. The choice of partners for Zapatero on the economy comes down to the Catalan CiU or the Basque PNV, with the Catalans less willing to lend a hand than before for their own electoral reasons. There was a highly symbolic announcement yesterday when it was revealed that Zapatero would not attend the traditional union organised rally in the León mining village of Rodiezmo. This event has in previous years acted as Zapatero's launching pad for the new political year following the summer holidays. He has generally used his speech there to announce new social measures, but using it this year to tell everyone how he intends to cut pensions would not go down too well. So instead he will visit China where they know how to deal with those pesky unions.

Zapatero Could Still Make More Friends At Home

He looks decidedly unhappy, these days, in the official photographs taken at European summits. José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, surrounded in the photos by people who he thought were his friends, but who have recently forced him to take decisions on cuts in spending that have led to him betraying his commitments on an exit to the crisis without further pain. The weekend brought bad news for him as a poll published in El País showed Zapatero's government 9 percentage points behind the opposition Partido Popular, just a few days after one that had showed the gap between the two parties at a slender 1.5%. All of this in the name of a failed economic orthodoxy, whilst the supposedly wise "markets" change their minds every 10 minutes about whether they like it anyway.

We still don't know exactly how the axe is going to fall as the government tries to manage the fallout in a way which they can sell to their core voters. The cuts in salaries of public employees are supposed to be done in a way which hits the higher paid more, but the details are still not clear. Although some might welcome the pay cuts for people who they regard as the stereotypical "vuelva usted mañana" funcionarios, the more mundane reality is that the vast majority of Spain's public workforce have real jobs to do in education, health and other essential services and are going to find it hard to understand why they have to pay for a crisis they didn't cause at the same time as those who did so well seem to be getting off scot free.

Then people look at Portugal where there are are equally brutal cuts, but where there is at least some small sign of the wealthier sections of society making a contribution. Or Greece, where tax fraud has to be taken seriously as it should be in Spain. Or France, controlled by the right, where plans are afoot to tax higher incomes to protect pensions. In Spain there is still no indication of any similar measures, and we have a now familiar confusing situation where some ministers float the possibility whilst others who take the key decisions act as if it had never occurred to them. I don't know whether PSOE strategists think this is clever politics, but it's happened with a frequency that suggests that is not entirely accidental. As things stand at the moment there seem to be few better ways of pushing their voters further towards abstention in the next elections.

Such a possibility is music to the ears of the PP, because that big lead in the polls doesn't come from people being attracted to the PP's absurd solutions for the economic situation of the country. Far from it, there are no signs of non-PP voters being in any way convinced by Mariano Rajoy and the PP's best hope is yet again to try and demoralise government supporters rather than attract them. The fewer that go to the polls the better is still at the heart of their electoral strategy. The other part of that strategy is of course to deny support to the government even when it has been forced to adopt measures which the PP have claimed were necessary years ago. The contrast with Portugal could hardly be greater, there the opposition has joined with the government in supporting the measures taken. That will not happen in Spain, regardless of what the government does, and many prominent leaders in the PP are pushing Rajoy to insist on early elections. Rajoy will use his traditional method of reaching a decision, and get back to them in a couple of years time.

So This Is What They Meant By A Pacto De Estado

Although there seems little chance of the two major parties in Spain reaching agreement over economic measures, it would be wrong to assume that they cannot unite around anything. Just recently we have had two examples of the PSOE and PP finding enough common ground to shoot down any proposals that threaten their monopoly on power.

First there was a proposal to limit the amount of time which judges on the Constitutional Court could stay on after their terms of office have expired. Given that this is a situation affecting several members of that institution it would have an immediate effect if adopted. The disagreement between PSOE and PP over the way in which to nominate successors has frozen any renovation of the body which is currently very very busy sleeping - no, I really meant to say deliberating - on the issue of the Catalan Estatut. Changing the members might mean that the decision on the Estatut goes into yet another decade; but anyway the PP and PSOE ensured it wouldn't happen.

Then there was the parliamentary commission set up to study the issue of electoral reform and the massive under representation of smaller national parties that results from the current electoral system. After two years of hard work the commission has agreed that reform is needed....so the candidates for the Senate will no longer have to be listed in alphabetical order. That's it, the major beneficiaries of the current system have unsurprisingly decided that there is no need to change it for something a bit fairer.

No Takers For The Pacto De Estado

The lobbying that has taken place to promote a pact between the major Spanish parties over the economic crisis looks set to come to nothing. The initiative took off last week after the Catalan nationalists of Convergència i Unió (CiU) made an appeal for the governing PSOE to reach agreement on economic measures with the Partido Popular (PP). Then the king got involved, making it clear that he favoured such a pact and calling for "grandes esfuerzos" to get out of the crisis. A careful choice of words, had he used "sacrificios" instead of esfuerzos he might just have left himself open to some criticism.

Now when the king makes such a pronouncement it's difficult for the monarchist parties to criticise the initiative. Nevertheless, sources reliably close to the PP have made it clear that the party is furious with the royal intervention. The last thing in the world that the PP wants to do is to lose its main weapon against Zapatero's administration. A pact over the economy would remove their ability to use every consequence of the crisis for electoral benefit. The pact would mean sharing responsibility for tough measures instead of just maintaining a careful distance and criticising the government. Such seemingly responsible behaviour is beyond Mariano Rajoy's party, even though justice dictates that they should take their fair share of the credit for the collapse of the housing boom. Only amnesiacs or the deluded believe it started in 2004. In any case the Spanish right can never get used to the idea of a constitutional monarchy, it's a bit too modern for them and they still believe the monarch should always side with them.

Now CiU are also suspected of playing a political game with an eye on the Catalan elections later this year. By projecting such an image of responsibility in the face of the crisis they hope to broaden their appeal, as well as reminding nostalgics of the days when they were the main power brokers for minority national governments. They could still play that role if the government decides to do a deal with them, but then they would be the ones sharing the responsibility for unpopular measures. On economic issues CiU are the PP of Cataluña and would undoubtedly like to see even more market pleasing measures than those that have already been proposed.

From the government's point of view it's arguable whether they want a pact. On the one hand they wouldn't be so lonely, but on the other they only need seven additional supporters on each measure to get them approved. Izquierda Unida and the leftist nationalist parties are unlikely to provide those votes given the current pressure for cheaper firing, later retirement and massive public spending cuts. So that could leave things in the hands of CiU anyway. On Wednesday we get a parliamentary debate on the economy and even if Zapatero was to propose measures teken directly from the PP we can bet that Mariano Rajoy will oppose them. Of course such a situation is hypothetical because, despite claims that they have the solution to the crisis, nobody knows what measures the PP favours. The only concrete proposal they have made so far is to reduce taxes, an absurd proposal when the government is under pressure to slash the budget deficit at a moment when tax revenues have fallen through the floor.