Tag Archives: Mariano Rajoy

Spain elections: the view from the edge of the precipice

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Mariano Rajoy’s PP will win tomorrow’s general elections in Spain. The size of the majority it achieves will shape Spanish and Catalan politics for the next few years.

The prospect of seeing the PP in power again after 8 years is not a happy one. While I’m no fan of the PSOE (I think I called them ‘the very worst party in Spain’ at one point, though I can’t find a link), my suspicion is that before long many who loathe the Socialists will remember how much more they loathed the PP last time they governed.

In Barcelona, the general mood seems to be one of totally ignoring these elections. After a swing to the right in recent Catalan and city hall elections, most people here seem to be trying to avoid thinking about having the PP in government. My prediction is that the turnout will be very low.

It is once the PP take over government (in a few weeks’ time, according to Spanish electoral law) that the dread will really set in. This is a party running for office in a country on the verge of massive economic disaster which has failed to express any coherent economic policies whatsoever. Their posters include slogans like “Primero, el Empleo” (Jobs First) but their policies will doubtless be savage cuts and successive rounds of redundancies and privatisation.

At the same time, it looks increasingly possible that Spain could be forced into needing a bailout from the European Central Bank or the IMF. I say ‘forced’ because categorcially, this does not need to happen. The pressure being applied to successive European countries is organised, focused and has at its core the aim to destroy the Euro. Politically, I’m no great fan of the EU. But forcing Spain’s exit from the Euro along with other countries in 2012 could threaten the very existence of the EU. I’d rather try to make it better for people.

In Catalonia, there are already some hints that the PP might try to buy an end to the Linguistic Immersion education policy with a fairer share of tax revenues. CiU, craven demagogues that they are, may well go for this. I worry too that fascist groups like ‘Plataforma Per Catalunya’ (Catalan fascists whose electoral pamphlets are seemingly only published in Castilian Spanish), may win a seat or two.

Finally, I expect this PP government to be faced with huge protests and strikes. One of the many problems with a PSOE government pushing through neo-liberal policies was the failure of the unions to properly challenge them. Now that the PP will be in government, there will be more inclination on the part of unions and workers to fight back. The Indignats (which inspired the Occupy movement in the USA) will also probably fight back harder: I’ll bet that more than a few Indignats have voted PSOE in the past and will do again, but that basically none of them are PP supporters. Also, the harder left wing party Izquierda Unida might fare better at the polls this year than for the last decade or so: they may be able to use this to force a more left wing opposition.

So here we are on the edge of a precipice, you and me. We face the prospect of a government which will not have won on merit but by default, with no policies for saving Spain’s economy, but hopefully with broad opposition from a curiously revitalised left. People might not be interested in these elections but the next four years will be anything but boring.

The PP’s persecution complex

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It’s the biggest political scandal in Spain for years. Numerous activists, officials, elected representatives and friends of the Partido Popular appear to be linked to a corruption case known as Gürtel. Centred on the PP in the Comunitat Valenciana, the case involves TV station managers, tailors, mayors and even the Valencian president, Francisco Camps. The accused are alleged to have taken and/or paid bribes in order to obtain public contracts for friendly companies. The most famous accusation is that Camps received €5,000 worth of suits as a gift, paid for by the company Orange Market, which ended up receiving various works contracts from the Valencian government. For background and also a lot more detail on the case, see South of Watford where Graeme has written plenty of posts about it.

Today’s Público carries the story that PP leader Mariano Rajoy yesterday claimed that “Since 2004, no PP militante [activist/party member] has been convicted… and there are several, later let off by the government, from the PSOE who were charged”. He was being questioned about the allegations that just won’t go away. What Público finds unusual about Rajoy’s rigorous defence of his party’s integrity is his less than rigorous memory of the last five years. The newspaper points out that he’s forgetting a minimum of 41 names – 41 PP activists who have been convicted of corruption or connected crimes. Now, I’m not very good with names either, so I understand his difficulty. I guess he’ll thank Público later for jogging his memory.

Denial has been a mainstay of the PP’s defence over the last few months. There’s nothing unusual about that. Few political parties, faced with a devastating series of accusations, would react differently. Though it saddens me, this seems to have become one of the primary functions of a political party (though I shouldn’t think it’s a recent a development as all that). The second defence the PP has employed – and it’s one that seems to be growing in popularity within the party – is that of political persecution. The PP has been quietly hinting from the rooftops that the Socialist government might be pursuing these corruption allegations for purely political reasons.

And it was in this spirit that PP publicity officer Esteban González Pons yesterday claimed that PP officials – even senior ‘big beasts’ like Rajoy and Aguirre – feel that they’re “being spied on”, that they have to “speak in codes on the phone” and that they “are certain” that there is a “black hand” which is politically influencing the courts and the police. It’s an old trick, of course: if you can’t win court cases fairly (and let’s face it, unless one of the judges is a mate, they don’t seem to be doing too well), you claim that the court is illegitimate. The PP are going a little further and seem to be saying that the entire justice system in Spain is illegitimate: González added this heart-rending appeal: “We’ve lived through a year during which the PP has been treated in a way that no other party has been treated since the Transition*. The government has persecuted us and has used the police and the courts to discredit our officials”.

I guess that means that pretty much anything any PP militante does is OK. Because in a country where the courts are controlled politically, there can be no justice, and no crime, right?

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*There was no ‘Dictatorship’ only 40 blank years and then a ‘Transition’. Please amend your history books in accordance with this new decree.

Updated: Reports of electoral fraud in Spain

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As mentioned in comments on my last post, there are reports today of numerous discrepancies in vote counting across Spain. Many of these incidents involve relatively small numbers of votes. But taken together, there are enough examples to plausibly suggest a widespread campaign against parties of the left, and those supporting independence for some of the ‘autonomous regions’ in Spain.

The story is being widely reported in the Catalan and Basque pro-independence media but has had few mentions in the mainstream Spanish press. The main party apparently affected by these discrepancies is Iniciativa Internacionalista (II-SP), which the Spanish government failed to have banned shortly before the elections. Zapatero’s government accused II-SP of being a front organisation for ETA but failed to present evidence supporting this claim to the courts. II-SP received a vote of support from Arnaldo Otegi, spokesman for the outlawed Basque party Batasuna days before the elections. PP leader, Mariano Rajoy named them “the ETA list”, while UPyD leader Rosa Díez declared that II-SP “is ETA”. Apparently taking the lead from the USA’s former right-wing government, neither party leader deigned to share their evidence with the voters they were appealing to.

The allegations fall into three groups: (a) the general feeling that the huge increase in blank and spoiled votes coincides a little too smoothly with II-SP and other parties faring more poorly than expected; (b) specific examples of localities reporting examples of discrepancies between town-hall and Spanish Ministry of Interior official figures; and (c) inexplicable displays of support for far-right parties in areas where they have never previously shown any support (normally at the expense of another party which did worse than expected).

It’s too late for me to scurry around collecting examples of the three groups now, but the comments pages of this Avui story list several (at least one of which, the Vilafranca del Penedès one, seems to have been ‘corrected’, though by which side, I can’t tell). Rab is sure that the way that these discrepancies affect specific parties suggests a fraud. I’ll wait and see what appears tomorrow before I make the same judgement.

UPDATE

OK this is getting silly.

María Teresa Fernández de la Vega (Spanish VP)’s constituency recorded no votes for the PSOE

Europe of the Peoples-Greens have denounced irregularities

II-SP officials removed from recounts

Numerous towns appear to have returned erroneous numbers, major Spanish press outlets stay silent

Rajoy – Una grande y libre

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Mariano Rajoy rounded-up his vision of Spain at the end of today’s debate by harking back to the days of ‘España – una, grande y libre’ – the catchphrase of the fascist Movimiento Nacional. Coming at the end of a debate marked by several major mistakes on Rajoy’s part as well as continued interruption from Zapatero, the closing comments were particularly interesting. Zapatero spoke of ‘convivancia’ and correcting the mistakes of the past (he also named at least 3 times as many concrete proposals for the next legislature), and he once again finished up with ‘Good night and good luck’. Rajoy also chose to make mention of ‘la niña’, the hypothetical little girl who’s ‘inside [his] head’ – a device he was roundly mocked for using the first time around.

Rajoy said various things which make it difficult for me to call this another draw. His claim that Zapatero ‘Lies constantly and never tells the truth’, along with his accusation that the PSOE had ‘done nothing’ over the last four years were pretty foolish. He also tacitly admitted that public spening would be cut if the PP came to power, and roundly failed to win any points when he economy, Iraq and ETA were mentioned.

Zapatero appeared much more combative and self assured than last time, though he still had trouble filling all the time allotted to him (and continued to interrupt Rajoy constantly). He was right, I feel, to defend his stewardship of the economy, which is doing pretty well.

Though no-one can be certain of the outcome of the forthcoming election, I suspect that Mariano Rajoy’s political career is close to collapse. I’d be very surprised if he survived what is now a likely electoral defeat. More on uncle Mariano this week.

When will the PP condemn Francoism?

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As the election draws near, Graeme at South of Watford has been investigating a series of different factors which could change the outcome of the vote. The economy and terrorism are important considerations for many Spaniards, as are problems with the national infrastructure, education and immigration.

The right-wing PP, keen to regain power after two terms of PSOE government, have been hammering on about terrorism more than anyone else (plus ça change…!), and recently, Spanish Catholic bishops raised their voices in support of Mariano Rajoy’s moribund campaign. One of the key points agreed on now by the major parties is that there shouldn’t be negotiation with political parties who refuse condemn ETA bombings, past and present. People who tacitly ‘approve’ of terrorism.

But the PP have a history of tacitly approving much worse movements than ETA will ever be. Born out of the ashes of Franco’s fascist dictatorship, the PP are the standard bearers for a type of neo-fascism, shrouded in the clothing of democracy but with no great love for democratic institutions, self-labelled of the ‘centre’ but retaining ultra-conservative views, explicitly in favour of the constitution yet permanently opposed to rescinding fascist-era legislation.

In fact, the PP fail their own test by refusing to explicitly condemn the atrocious crimes carried out by Franco’s regime (which, by the way, did not end in 1945 as some would have you believe). Claiming that it’s better to ‘let sleeping dogs lie’, the PP argue that nothing would be gained by their formally condemning Franco’s regime. So why not come out and do it? The answer is that the PP want to have their cake and eat it: they want to contest democratic elections and then disseminate lies about the results; they want to claim to represent the ‘centre’ while constantly appealing to the hard-right of Spanish politics; they claim ‘solidarity’ with the victims of terrorism, but only talk to the ones who are members of one of their own grassroots campaigns. They talk about looking to the future and still refuse to remove Franco as ‘Honourary Mayor in perpetuity’ of the city of Salamanca.

I couldn’t vote for a party with such a short-sighted view of history or such a terrible record of equivocation.

News from Spain

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Quite a big split has taken place in the right-wing Partido Popular, with the more Catholic conservative side (Aznar, Rajoy, Aguirre and Acebes) now claiming victory over the more centrist elements (Gallardon & Piqué). This is good news for the PSOE as a right-wing shift in the PP might convince potential non-voters to come out and back the centre-left. John at Iberian Notes (in between a couple of misogynistic and racist remarks) reckons that it would still be better for Spain if Rajoy won, if only to prevent Zapatero from having two terms. Now that’s what I call party loyalty. Mariano Rajoy is a politician who somehow manages to make Zapatero look statesmanlike, confident and wise. Actually, I wouldn’t vote for either candidate but on balance, Zapatero hasn’t had that bad a time in office.

The national anthem lyrics which I mentioned the other day, after being firmly rejected by the Spanish public, have finally been withdrawn by the Spanish Olympic Committee. They were, as you can see, awful lyrics. But it seems that the ‘Viva España!’ rallying call (which features twice in the proposed song sheet) was what upset the most people. ‘Viva España!’ is a phrase which for most people still evokes Franco’s fascist regime – the old coot used to say it every other breath. Tourists – this may be why people stared at you and muttered under their breath when you tried to express how much you love Spain.

Actually, this opens up an interesting debate about Spanish nationalism in general. At some point in the future, it’ll become more possible to shout ‘Viva España!’ and not be called a fascist. But for the moment, expressions of nationalist or patriotic pride always seem to hark back to the dictatorship. You would think that the chap who wrote the proposed lyrics for the national anthem, would have known the import of including a couple of ‘Viva España!’s… but I doubt that he realised he was saying anything that could cause anyone offence. An unemployed man from La Mancha (‘Castilla la Nueva’), I suspect he is in fact pretty cut off from public opinion in the big towns.

My wife has quite a lot of family in Ciudad Real province and while the older generations are lovely, warm and sensible country people, the cousins who are our age, are spectacularly badly informed, racist and nationalist. They even took part in that pathetic anti-Catalan boycott a few years back (and had the temerity to invite Gemma, who lives in Catalonia and is Catalan, to take part). Actually, one of them also intended to have a medieval-themed wedding at which all the guests would have to dress up in silly costumes. I found this even more offensive than the stupid boycott.

Two dinosaurs exchange insults

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As you have probably seen, Hugo Chavez was told to shut up the other day by king Juan Carlos during an international conference. Chavez was boorish as usual, using flamboyant insults to lambaste former Spanish president Aznar as a ‘fascist’ (not strictly correct – Aznar was a falangist, which isn’t quite the same thing). When current president Zapatero stepped in to say ‘Steady on, old boy’, Chavez wouldn’t stop interrupting him, despite his microphone being turned off. At this point, Juan Carlos did his bit for international diplomacy by saying “Why don’t you just shut up?”.

The general feeling in the media is that most Spaniards are pretty happy about their king taking Chavez down a peg, but the people I’ve spoken with don’t sound quite so pleased. Chavez was being a complete prick, as usual, but JC didn’t make himself look much more civilised by telling him to shut up, and then storming out of the conference. A friend said to me “He shouldn’t have said that… that’s not how you talk to people at these sorts of events”. And I agree. The king, for all the short term ‘macho’ points he might have earned, didn’t do much to make Spain look like the modern, civilised democracy we know it to be. He may also have piled some more risk onto Spain’s relations with Latin America, which could affect trade and the economy. No, it was an unhelpful flare of temper and not much more.

One man did make Spain look good, and that was Zapatero. In the coverage on the UK’s Channel 4 News, ZP was praised for his composure and diplomacy. Oh, and apparently, our cousin Mariano Rajoy telephoned the king to thank him for sticking up for Aznar… but failed to call Zapatero to thank him. What a petty, poisonous little man Rajoy is. He’s almost worse than Aznar.

Nationalism and Catalonia (Part I)

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Nationalism plays a major part in Spanish politics. In the press, both here and abroad, nationalism in Spain nearly always refers to Basque or Catalan separatist movements. Doubtless this focus is due partly to the violent campaign waged by armed Basque group ETA; and partly because perceived nationalism amongst minorities makes a shriller sound than the deep underlying drone of majority nationalism.

This majority nationalism – Spanish nationalism – is probably the single strongest political force in Spain today. Nearly half of all voters here can be accurately described as at least sympathetic to the Spanish nationalist agenda – that is: cetralised power in Madrid, no further autonomy for the regions, Spain is one nation: indivisible.

Opposition leader, Mariano Rajoy recently travelled around Spain collecting signatures of people who wanted a Spain-wide referendum on whether Catalonia should be allowed to claim more rights of self-governance. He managed to collect 4.5 million names. Putting aside for the moment more general criticisms of Rajoy’s politics, this is clearly a large number of people. Considering that there must have been many who would have signed had they had the opportunity to, or if they’d been pressed to, we can see that Rajoy’s petition – while not ‘the single largest political movement in democratic Spain’ as some right-wingers claimed – had the support of wide swathes of the Spanish population.

While the focus here in Catalonia is always on the two major Catalanista parties (ERC and CiU) and one increasingly Catalanista bloc (PSC), little time seems to be spent considering the reasons behind the growth of the separatist movement. As Giles Tremlett ably points out in Ghosts of Spain, almost anyone you ask about the issue has trenchant views on the debate. Whether in favour of independence, against independence, or sick of the entire question (this counts for a lot of people), Catalonia and Catalan independentism are seriously hot potatoes.

I reckon that the key arguments behind Catalan independentism are actually not nationalist, per se. Of course, political parties who are ostensibly in favour of greater autonomy often use nationalist rhetoric to win votes. To a greater degree though, the ‘nationalist’ tag is usually applied by opponents of the movement, often by the same people who can be accurately described as Spanish nationalists. The main arguments I hear over and over again are historical (some Catalans still feel that their land is occupied by the Spanish), left-wing (Catalonia has developed a rare breed of business-savvy socialism which doesn’t marry at all well with the aims of certain Spanish political parties), and a sense of difference, so difficult to describe that I’m going to have to come back to it at a later date.

All nationalism is stupid, more or less.
More next week…

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On a related note, just a couple of thoughts about politicians. Of course they’re all there to gain power for themselves, to some degree. But this doesn’t mean that none of them  have any values. It seems that if we dismiss all politicans as liars, all parties as morally bankrupt and all political philosophy as bunkum then not only do we damn the population as stupid (which I find an abhorrent attitude), but also we end up with politicians and parties who fulfill our worst expectations.