I love Zapatero video (no comment)

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CiU's xenophobic video.

I will never learn the lesson. After listening to Rajoy's demagogic discourse throughout this last four years I desperately looked around for the hope of a different kind of right-wing party in Spain. And thought I found it in Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida, the Parliamentary spokesperson for CiU, Catalan Christian Democrat party, in Congress. A man of great oratory and gently manners, conservative yes, but of a healthy kind.

But today my hopes have gone astray after seeing Duran i Lleida's new video for the March 2008 campaign. At the beginning of the video one can see a Catalan newspaper in a bin with a headline about the story of a Moroccan father prohibiting his daughter from attending PE classes in school. The paper is located on a dark alley surrounded by Arab businesses in Barcelona clearly linking immigration and the intolerance of an isolated case. It is interesting as the entire video is all about complains, infrastructures, education and crime, with immigration put into the same basket of 'bad things' happening in Catalonia.

I will never learn the lesson. Right-wing parties cannot help themselves to score points on such cheap arguments. I am extremely disappointed with the only right-wing politician left in Spain I had a bit of respect for.

You can watch the video here:

http://www.ciu.cat/reproductor.php?v_id=22418

It's transport investment, stupid!

New high speed lines are connecting Malaga, Cordoba, Valladolid and Segovia to Madrid since the beginning of this week.

Zapatero and Magdalena Alvarez, Minister for transport, inagurated the first 300 km per hour train this week.

With this new investment Spain is well on its way to becoming by 2010 the country in Europe with more km. of high speed lines, as promised by Zapatero in his electoral manifesto of 2004.

I personally feel extremely proud of this achievement of the PSOE Government. It's good for the economy, it's good for the environment and it puts Spain on the frontline of transport innovation in the world. This is exactly what a Socialist government should do, to show right-wing politicians and polluters how environmental protection can go hand on hand, and even improve, with economic growth. Today is a good day to be a Socialist in Spain.

In the meantime I am getting ready for the new line to Murcia, which unfortunately our regional PP government is blocking, god knows why! Actually I know why, because they can't bear seeing PSOE doing good things for Murcia, while Aznar did none, and are trying to fool the local population to vote for them on empty promises. All they care about is perpetuating their power grip and filling their pockets at the expense of the hard working people of Murcia.

PSOE and Catalonia

El Pais newspaper has produced a leaked memo from PSOE HQ advising their Catalan section, Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC), to promote a more Catalanist discourse in the run up to the March election. The reason for this is, as mentioned many times before in this blog, that Catalonia is key for PSOE to win the election. In the 2004 election, PSOE won from Catalonia 21 seats in Congress against 6 by PP. PSOE strategists however are worried about the more nationalist vote within Catalonia that might be going to nationalist parties or abstain this time around after the infrastructure crisis in Barcelona and the delay on the arrival of the high-speed train line from Madrid.

PSOE's support in Catalonia is divided between two groups. Firstly, immigrants from other parts of Spain that moved to industrialised Catalonia and share a dual identity, both Spanish and Catalan, and which tend to go vote and represent around 70% of PSOE's share in the region. The second group is that of Catalan-born middle-classes with a strong Catalan identity that tend to vote nationalist in regional and local elections but vote PSOE in general elections as they see the party friendlier to their interets. This second group represents around 20-22% of PSOE's vote but is more volatile, as it tends to abstain more often.

This second group is the one PSOE strategists are worried about. The infrastructure crisis hits them harder than any other group, as business people, and feel that a nationalist party in a coalition government could bring in the extra investment to sort ou the situation in Catalonia. A more Catalanist discourse by the newly chosen head of list, the current housing minister, Carme Chacon, could reactivate their vote.

Although PSOE's vote loss isn't going to go to PP, it would mean a smaller number of seats to add up to the national count. PP is gearing up to fight hard in Valencia and Madrid where the biggest number of seats for them are going to come from. PSOE is focusing in Catalonia, as Andalucia, its other key stronghold, is very active politically and will carry a big majority for them.

The only problem is the leak comes from those within the party that feel PSOE is pandering to peripheral nationalists rather than focusing on a more 'Spanish' vote. Although unlikely, this can also add up to the growing concern of moderate voters from poorer regions, that feel alienated while Catalonia gets bigger chunks of the budget for public investment.

Rajoy's movie taste.

Today PP opened a personal website for their candidate to the Presidency. I decided to have a look at it and among several things one can do is to look at Rajoy's all time favourite movies, the personal touch see.

And I was horrified! These are his three favourite movies:

Tesis (Thesis): a gore movie about torture. The movie plot is about a media student in Madrid who is writing her thesis on how far violence should be displayed on TV. She embarks herself in a journey throughout the movie watching gore videos about amputations and other forms of torture. Very pleasant.

El Abuelo (The grandfather): a movie about a grandfather who comes back from the US to figure out, after his son's death, which one of his two granddaughters is not really so. Familiar isn't it, an old man on a personal moralistic crusade to save the honour of his family, very Rajoy wouldn't you say? just change family for country and you get the picture.

Back to the future: a classic Hollywood movie. I personally quite like it and many people do as well. But would it be among your all time favourites? I don't think so. Maybe someone told him to put it up after the two previous titles. PP strategists don't want voters to think Rajoy is some kind of old psychopath. Now it seems his an old psycopath with bad movie taste.

Rajoy praises Aznar's archenemy.

Rajoy has praised Felipe Gonzalez, Spanish Socialist President from 1982 to 1996, as a man who has good ideas for Europe. He has welcomed Gonzalez candidacy as chairman of the new group of experts to look into the future of the EU.

And I wonder... why wasn't Aznar considered for this post? It was Nicolas Sarkozy, the French right-wing President, who proposed Gonzalez for the post. Why didn't he proposed Aznar? I'll tell you why, because no European right-wing leader would even dare having a photo-op taken with Aznar. He has become the toxic neo-con kind of leader. Rajoy would have loved to have Aznar rather than Gonzalez, but seeing that it was almost impossible for it to happen, well...he though he might as well praise Gonzalez's election as 'an honour for Spain'. I would say, cut it short Mariano and say it as it is, PSOE today is the only well respected Spanish party in Europe, both within the left and the right ideological spectrum.

Liberal wannabes crumble.

Rosa Diez's new party, UPD, the new liberal wannabe party in Spain is crumbling even before it started campaigning. Rosa Diez, the eternal second in line candidate to the PSOE leadership, decided to leave PSOE in September to become leader of her own right of the left (whatever that means) party. She, together with Fernando Savater, thought they could build a new party which could claim the political centre of Spanish politics. The sad thing is that Diez, and certainly Savater, don't have much of an ideological drive. Their only common believe, as they are both Basque, is that PSOE has given too much away to nationalist parties from Catalonia and the Basque Country. Their new party is based on the idea of a Socialist party without the so-called centrifugal forces within PSOE represented by the present President of Spain. Their error has been to label themselves as economic liberals, when they aren't as they are more of the protectionist Socialist kind, and political liberals, which is PSOE policy minus the previously mentioned centrifugal policy. Such liberal label has no base in Spain where, as argued in my earlier entry about Spanish electoral behaviour, the centre is a marginal political position among the electorate. The need to create a new image has forced them to create a new party that: a) hasn't got a militant or electoral base b) hasn't got a clear differentiated ideology c) isn't any different from many currents within PSOE itself.

I believe that Diez is gone into some kind of massive egotrip. She knew she never had enough support within PSOE to win the leadership of the party and has decided to play into the hands of PP on the Spanish nationalism card. It hasn't really worked out, today her entire party executive committee in Catalonia resigned over an internal infight over who was going to be the candidate for Congress for Barcelona! How can it be that a party that is three months old, that has never contested a national general election is already fighting over a leadership contest as if they were a natural party of government? It seems to me that her egocentrism is the only value Diez has transmited to the very few activists that have joined her party in the last three months. Good luck to her and her sect, they'll need it to even be in the ballot on the 9th of March.

The war within PP: Madrid.

Rajoy has declared today that it could be possible for a mayor to be candidate for Congress in March according to his party's Constitution. He gave this answer to a question by a journalist asking about the possibility of Alberto Ruiz Gallardon, mayor of Madrid, being his number 2 in the list for Madrid in the March election.

With this comment Rajoy has for the second time this year contradicted one of his own party officials. Ignacio Gonzalez, Esperanza Aguirre's right-hand man in Madrid, claimed this Sunday in El Mundo that it is incompatible to hold both positions under PP internal rules. Several months ago it was Angel Acebes, Secretary General of PP, who stated a similar position.

As this blog has been commenting for a while now there is an internal struggle within PP to position key candidates to the succession of Rajoy in case he loses the general election in March. Esperanza Aguirre, President of the region of Madrid, who controls the party in the capital, has been trying for months to block the possiblity of Ruiz Gallardon entering the national lists for Congress. Aguirre cannot become a Congresswoman while President of Madrid, Spanish law doesn't permit this possibility, so she's trying to block Gallardon from doing so. The reason for this is that it's expected that the leader of the main oppossition party must be a member of Congress to be able to debate the President in the chamber. She could be a Senator under the law but the Senate attracts substantially less media attention which would make a leadership challenge from there much more difficult. Aguirre has got the hardliners within PP on her side, Acebes positioning months ago is a clear example, Gallardon on the other side got the more moderate wing of the party.

Rajoy, is seriously considering having Gallardon as his number 2 for Madrid in March, PP strategists consider that this move would put a face of moderation in PP's lists to appeal to centrist voters. But Aguirre isn't going to let it be without putting up a fight within the party in Madrid, her own powerhouse. Under PP's Constitution, the party list for Madrid has to be approved first by Madrid's Regional Electoral Committee, which funnily enough is chaired by Ignacio Gonzalez. Rajoy and Gallardon have a tremendous battle ahead to bypass that roadblock organised by Aguirre and the party's hardliners. Furthermore, Rajoy has already distanced himself from Acebes and Zaplana. If they feel left behind in the eventuality of a leadership contest they will openly align with Aguirre against Rajoy and Gallardon and the battle could then turn out to be really nasty.

No courage in British Labour.

If you'll excuse me I am going to talk a little bit about something else today. I was considering putting a little remark about Felipe Gonzalez, former Socialist President of Spain from 1982 to 1996, being selected by EU leaders as the chair of a group of European experts to look into the long term future of the Union. But then reading the British press I found attacks on Prime Minister Gordon Brown by the Conservative shadow Europe minister, Mark Francois, for 'opening a pandora's box with the election of an old Spanish socialist' to lead this group.

As it has become the common norm in the British Labour Party, besides within its group of very courageous MEPs, they didn't respond to the attack. So I have decided to, modestly, do it for them.

If Mark Francois would honour his title by knowing a little bit about European politics he would realise that Felipe Gonzalez isn't an old socialist by any means. In 1979 during the 28th PSOE National Congress Felipe Gonzalez defended the removal of any mention to Marxism in the party's Constitution, similar to Blair's removal of Labour's clause 4. He famously gave an ultimatum, 'Marxism or me', and after the party voted against his proposal resigned as leader. Later in the year the party decide to scrap the clause on Marxism and Gonzalez came back as leader. Furthermore, he undertook structural reforms in several industries that modernised the Spanish economy, without the disastrous consequences of Thatcherite reforms. He also took on the trade unions when he had to and got Spain into NATO. So Mark Francois should really think twice about making such innacurate statements if he's hoping to be taken seriously at any point in his career.

But going back to the title of this entry, the British Labour Party has no courage when it comes to its European policy. Why are they letting themselves been attacked continously on EU policy? Why are they not saying what they expect from Europe and what they can contribute to it? Political leadership is about shaping people's perception on issues when one believes he's right. Labour is the pro-European party in Britain and should be saying so out loud. Where are the high-profile rebuttal of innacurate information by the Tories, UKip and the right-wing press? Britain is by far the most Euro-sceptical country in the EU and when the Labour party stops defending the benefits Britain has got from Europe the fight gets tougher and tougher. Brown cannot be late for a signing and cannot play down the issue, he should be proud of what he has accomplished and explain how Britain is going to benefit. How British people want more transparency in Europe and that's what the Lisbon Treaty does. How a common market is free market and how many British enjoy welfare benefits on holidays in Portugal, Spain or France because of the EU. Etc, etc, etc. Labour thinks they can avoid Europe and be ok, but every time Europe comes up in the politica agenda they will be attacked and at some point they might want to bang their fist on the table and speak the truth to Eurosceptic right-wingers. Internationalism is left-wing and Socialist parties in Europe are friends no foes of Labour and they should start acknowledging that.
There was a time Labour was seeing unelectable because of being loony lefties and Blair changed that. It is time Brown stops apologising for being in the EU and starts to change British attitudes towards it, for the sake of Britain, Europe and the British Labour party.

Quote of the day.

'If they don't put bombs is because you have surrendered'

Mariano Rajoy tells Zapatero that if ETA stops bombing is because the Government has negotiated with terrorists (16th January 2007).

Also if people are interested El Pais newspaper following its annual tradition has prepared a special presentation on events that happened in 2007. It is quite well done and thought people might find it interesting. The site is:

http://www.elpais.com/comunes/2007/resumen_2007/

Enjoy!

New poll today.

Antena 3 TV and Onda Cero radio published a joint poll yesterday. Both media outlets are owned by the same centre-right media conglomerate so their poll could help us balance out the left-leaning polling we saw on Monday from Publico and Cadena Ser.

The poll shows that if the election were held today, PSOE would win with 42% of the vote, 0.6% less than in the 2004 elections. PP will get 38.2% of the vote, 0.5% more than in 2004. The same poll shows ERC, the Catalan nationalist party, going down losing almost 1% of its share while IU would go up and the rest of the parties remain the same.

The results aren't very specific so cannot really anlyse that much further. The result stays within my personal margin of error, almost 4 points difference before the official campaign starts, which shows PSOE is in good shape even after the bumpy ride of the last month. Being a conservative-leaning poll I would say it's good news overall, people are talking about election day but many still need to make up their mind yet and those are the ones that count.

One piece of great news in this poll is the fact that when asked which party voters think can deal better with terrorism and ETA, PSOE comes first with 35.6% and PP trailing with 31.8%. This, and I was surprised, deconstructs the idea that conservative parties are perceived to be more able to deal with national security than left-wing ones, at least in Spain that is. Also terrorism is one of the key issues PP has been campaigning on which this poll shows might not bring home that many votes after all.

Too early to pick a winning horse yet, but things are looking good for Zapatero. It's now important to make sure Socialist voters understand that they will only remain the same if they come out to campaign and to vote, that's PSOE's key task in the four months remaining to election day.

Televised debates agreed.

Yesterday around 7 pm in a centric Madrid hotel the campaign directors for PSOE and PP, Jose Blanco and Pio Garcia Escudero, met to discuss the possibility of a face off between Zapatero and Rajoy on live TV. They agreed to have two debates one during the last week before the electoral campaign officially starts and one in the last week of the official campaign (sometime at the beginning of March). They will meet again next week to discuss the format and contents of the debate.

This will be the first debates between candidates since 1993 when Felipe Gonzalez and Jose Maria Aznar debated live on TV. That time around PSOE won the election. In the 1996, 2000 and 2004 campaigns PP refused to attend the debate.

A week ago Zapatero challenged Rajoy to a televised national debate. PP candidates have never been very keen on televised debates, neither in Parliament, but the latest are compulsory by law. Normally incumbents prefer not to celebrate debates because that puts the challenger at the same level with them. However challengers are pretty much forced to say yes to debates or else they are perceived by the public as too weak to take on the incumbent and therefore provide a credible alternative, and supposedly better, governmental programme.

This time around seeing that Zapatero, the incumbent, challenged Rajoy didn't really have an excuse not to attend. But Rajoy is hating the idea of a debate, he knows he's a worst speaker than Zapatero by far and he knows he can only come worse off, even more than he's at the moment. That's why he has asked for two debates, first one to see what Zapatero weak points are to attack them in a second one that will stay in the viewer's mind. Will it work? I extremely doubt it, but PP's dirty tricks are well known so PSOE should be careful about negotiating the format and contents. Zapatero debating skills are well-known and he can take the final blow to Rajoy then, but expectations for him are so high that a bad performance could boost Rajoy and put PSOE in bad shape for the last sprint to the finish line. Overall great news for Zapatero and PSOE.

I am very excited, a proper national debate live on TV. Now, problem is I have to figure out how to watch it from London.

Business wants PSOE to stay.

Gerardo Diaz Ferran, president of the Spanish business council, has said today in Cadena Ser radio that the Spanish economy in 2008 is going to do better than certain prophet of doom has said. He continued by saying that the business council sees as excellent news Pedro Solbes' reelection as economic Minister for PSOE.

Needless to say Diaz Ferran was talking about Rajoy when he mentioned a 'prophet of doom'. I wrote a week ago that PSOE should be careful with the economy during the campaign. It seems the business council agrees, they have given PSOE an early Christmas present in the form of their indirect backing.

Still waiting for anyone to say, outside PP obviously, that Rajoy would be a better president than Zapatero. Seems even his traditional allies don't even believe it for a moment.

How to blow economic stability in 3 easy steps and bring down your political credibility along with it.

Step 1: announce a tax cut. A serious one as well, no paying taxes for people earning less than 16.000 euros a year. Good electoral stuff, people love it.

Step 2: in the same speech and with no shame, keep your poker face on, announce free nursery schools for all children across the country. Not just any country, a country of 44 million people so you can show how many of them you are going to build and how noone is going to pay. People love it but start wondering how you are going to pay for it if you cut taxes.

Step 3: polls show you aren't doing very well at all. Announce a raise of 150 euros a month in the lowest pensions. People, who were already a bit suspicious, take your party's ballot paper put it in a bin and go look for someone who actually stops mocking their intelligence.

So there you have it, nice and easy, the ultimate guide to PP's political campaigning.

A conservative party, anywhere else, will always look into two issues lowering taxes and lowering public services, you might not agree with the idea, I don't, but it's coherent, less money equals less spending.

But when it comes to PP and his leader Rajoy, they always can do better. Like Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes they can lower taxes and raise public spending. Not sure people are buying it anymore. Rajoy is starting to look like Joaquín Almunia, the Socialist candidate in 2000, who knowing that he was going to lose badly started his own electoral miracle shop offering similar promises. He lost by absolute majority. Rajoy is starting to look desperately Almunia-like.

Quote of the day.

'The Left allies itself with radical Islamism. The loss of intellectual and historical references after the fall of the wall and 9-11 has taken the Left into a profound crisis. I observe with worry the alliance that a part of the Left maintains with the radical Islamic fundamentalism, with antisystem extremists, with relativist culture'.

From 'Letters to a Spanish youth' by Jose Maria Aznar.

PP's hipocrisy surfaces again.

Another appaling display of hipocrisy today by PP, this time in the Senate. The leadership of PP must presume voters are stupid people who can't read and therefore they can get away with anything. That can be the sole answer for their behaviour today.

For the last four years PP has relentlessly accused the Socialist Government of giving away the shop to the Catalan nationalists, demonised Catalan people in the rest of Spain and taken the new Catalan Statute to the Constitutional Court. But today they put aside all those stances on behalf of their so-called 'Spanish patriotism' and voted in favour of the vetoe proposed by CiU (nationalist Catalan party) and supported by ERC (independentist nationalist Catalan party) to the Budget for 2008.

The Catalan parties wanted to threaten PSOE with a vetoe to force them to negotiate further investment in Catalonia. And PP has supported that goal today with their unanimous vote. After permanently accusing PSOE of giving away too much to Catalonia today they changed it all and PP's hipocrisy has surfaced once again. They voted today together with their archienemies because they care more about beating PSOE than about standing on principle. This vote today dismantles PP's stance throughout this term, they only care about winning not about building anything of substance in the benefit of the country. They don't care how many lines they have to cross and how much divide they might create as far as people vote for them in March. But this last move is quite something. They have in one vote change their stance in one of their key issues this last four years just to deliver a small defeat for PSOE. How can people trust them anymore on any issue? Are they going to flip flop like this if they get to govern again? Are they willing to compromise the common good for the sake of a victory? PSOE will still pass its Budget in Congress overriding the vetoe and PP will have to explain to the electorate why the devils of yesterday are their friends of today.

New polling today.

Two new pieces of polling have been published today. The weekly Pulsometro poll by Cadena Ser radio station and the Publiscopio poll by the daily Publico.

Cadena Ser gives PSOE a 7.5 points lead. PSOE will get today 45% of the vote, PP 37.5%, IU 4.5% and a combined 6% to the three big nationalist parties (Catalans CIU and ERC and Basque PNV). These results compared to two weeks ago show PSOE maintaining its 45% share and PP falling 0.5%. Furthermore, Zapatero's personal rating by voters stays at 52% while Rajoy's goes down to 29% of those who approve of his work. When voters are asked who would they prefer to win power in March, 59% believe a change in government isn't necessary and 50% prefer Zapatero to Rajoy.

Publico, on the other side, in this poll has asked voters to evaluate the Government's and Opposition's jobs. The Government falls in all the fields although isn't at bad as it looks. Voters approves Government policy in 8 out of 11 fields and on the 3 that Government policy fails it is only with a 40% approval rate. In terms of swing voters, abstentionists mainly, 60% approve of Government's policy while only 38% does of PP's. It's also worrying for PP the fact that in Madrid, a key constituency for PP to win in March, 60% of voters disaprove of its job, more than the national average (58.9%).

Both of these polls are conducted by PSOE friendly media outlets, so its results should be considered carefully. This last month hasn't been very good for the Government, the terrorist attack in France, the transport crisis in Catalonia, PSOE's equivalent to Madrid for PP, and the economic projections have put them off message a little bit. That's why I would tend to believe more Publico's poll this week than Cadena Ser's. I am still waiting for some right-wing press' polling to contrast with these ones. So far, PSOE is holding ok, but they need a big push to win this election with the big margin Zapatero asked for in his candidacy launch three weeks ago. I presume they're holding their fire, and money, until January. I can't wait for this to start properly and see Zapatero in action 2004 style. Socialist have been avoiding the fight for too long and is about time to speak up to PP's infamous attacks.

The wolf in sheep's clothing.

Pio Garcia Escudero and Juan Costa, PP chief electoral strategists have decided that it is time for PP to take the long-awaited road to moderation four months before election day.
They believe that many centrist voters in Spain aren't fully convinced with Zapatero's Government. The main reason has been the difficulty the Government has had to explain the territorial reforms undertaken during this term. Certainly PP's permanent harsh criticism of Government policy has taken a toll on how the public sees the Socialist Government. Both Escudero and Costa believe it is time to cash in those centrist voters that aren't very happy with Zapatero but wouldn't yet vote PP because of its radicalism in this past term.

The new PP electoral timetable focuses exclusively on Rajoy. PP believes they can remind voters of the moderate profile Rajoy used to have before this term and they aim at achieving that by producing a extremely personalistic campaign from January onwards. Rajoy knows this is his last chance, so equating his personal image to the verdict in the ballot box isn't a risk worth avoiding anymore. The results from the 2007 local elections are also encouraging this strategy as PP did much better (winning in overall votes but losing power share) with Rajoy as the centre of the campaign rather than the party as a whole. So this Wednesday during the weekly session to monitor Government action, Rajoy for the first time in a long time is going to ask about the economy rather than ETA. First move.

But, what about the hardliners? Rajoy's squires in Parliament, Zaplana and Acebes, have proven very useful in the legislative strategy designed by PP this term of permanent confrontation. But it's time for them to go. If you think this means the end of them, you will be very much mistaken. They simply aren't electorally attractive anymore but their brains are very much appreaciated by Rajoy and will definitely coming back into the Cabinet if PP wins the election.

That's PP's reality today, hide the confrontation and the extremists today so they can bring them out tomorrow in power. But will the extremist lot keep quite until March? I very much doubt so and then we will be able to see the real wolf underneath the sheep's clothing. If they start going off message Rajoy will confirm what everyone already suspects that he cannot control his own party. And by the way, where is Aznar?

Media wars.

People that follow closely media developments in Spain might be noticing a slight change of attitude towards the Government by El Pais newspaper in the last few months. Several op-eds and reports lately are starting to be more critical than usual of the Zapatero Government. The reason for this is called La Sexta, the new TV channel in Spain and a new media group growing around it.

PRISA media group, biggest in the Spanish-speaking world and owner of El Pais, has been the sole supporter of Socialist governments in Spain for a long time against the army of right-wing media groups supporting PP. PRISA furthermore, owns the most influential media outlets in the country, Cadena Ser (radio), El Pais (newspaper) and Digital + (digital TV). Are they the most influential because Spaniards are more left-leaning and therefore prefer PRISA outlets? or is it because of the quality of their content? Whatever your opinion is noone can deny the inmense blow that losing PRISA's support would mean to PSOE's ability to get its message out to the public. So the question I present to you here is... what's going on with PRISA and PSOE?

In March 2006 La Sexta a new left-leaning channel appeared in Spain. It was given a public license strongly supported by Zapatero as a new media group able to diversify the media ideological spectrum in Spain. Zapatero wanted to have both PRISA and La Sexta on his side to be able to counterbalance the information attacks from the right-wing media more numerous in Spain. But obviously PRISA wasn't happy to see their monopoly of the left-wing audience shared with a new outlet. PRISA however it is known for producing very rigorous information and analysis and their international prestige was also at stake. They decided to wait and see the development of the new channel. In 2007, after their success with the emission of the football World Cup and the basketball World Cup (that saw Spain win their first ever world title bringing in massive audiences) La Sexta also acquired partial emission rights for the national football tournament, La Liga. PRISA started getting worried because their new open channel, Cuatro, wasn't performing as expected and was directly competing with La Sexta in terms of audience ratings. It was at this point that Zapatero decided to push further to consolidate the new channel as the vanguard of a new media group to develop from it. When the new Minister for Justice was appointed in February 2007 Zapatero decided to give the exclusive to La Sexta breaking a long tradition of giving it to PRISA outlets first. This action shook the foundation of the special relationship PSOE-PRISA. The final development in this process has been the court case being fought between La Sexta and PRISA over which La Liga matches can be shown by whom every weekend according to their respective TV rights, also known as the football war.

The shaken relationship between PRISA and PSOE is founded in one single development. PRISA has seen its business interests challenged by La Sexta with now means greater competition for an all-powerful media group. The fact that Zapatero hasn't been as friendly to PRISA as other PSOE leaders before has spread paranoia across PRISA that has decided to flex its muscles to get back their advantageous position.

PRISA is a very prestigious organisation, known for the quality of their content and analysis, able to draw in the most influential minds to contribute to its outlets. PRISA is no News Corp. and the late Jesus de Polanco no Rupert Murdoch. PRISA will stick to its left-leaning tradition in the future because they consider PP a total no-go option (especially after Rajoy decided to boycott the media group after a comment by Polanco criticising PP's attitude in Congress). Furthermore La Sexta isn't even close to be a serious contender to their power over Spanish public opinion today, at least not yet. But PSOE should be worried about pissing them off too much. They haven't damage PSOE that much yet, but they definitely could. Although I believe the relationship between both sides is honest and one of respect, PSOE got more to lose of an open war than PRISA does. Promoting La Sexta is a good strategic move to counterbalance the outrageous bias by the right-wing media in Spain controlled by both PP and the Catholic Church. But shouldn't be incompatible to keeping the special relationship with PRISA that's been so helpful so far.

Mr. Matas goes to Washington.

Like the movie, 'Mr. Smith goes to Washington', Jaume Matas, former PP President of the Balearic Islands Government, has decided to seek fortune in the US capital.

Matas has moved to the US as a new senior executive for Barceló, a big tourist industry company. Nothing wrong there if wasn't because Barceló won a public tendering to manage the crown jewel of the tourist industry in the Balearic Islands, the new Convention Centre in Majorca. This happened less than a year ago while Matas was President of the regional government.

The public contract that Barceló acquired includes the building of the centre and its management for 40 years of the entire complex formed by a parking lot, hotel, shopping centre and convention centre. The entire complex occupies 70,000 metres square of terrain and is ideally located in the seafront of the city. Furthermore, the Government will contribute 44 millions Euros of the total 130 estimated costs as well as donating free of cost the terrain for the project. The other company that didn't get selected, Tremón, has requested a judicial investigation into the tendering process, still ongoing.

According to Balearic regional law (2/1996), a public official cannot for a period of a year work for a company or institution which has benefited of a decission taken by the official in the last two years. Matas lost the Presidency of the regional government in May 2007, only 6 months ago, therefore his new position contravenes regional law.

Another 'funny' case for PP to add to their ever-growing list of dodgy businesses. Murcia, Balearic Islands, Madrid, Valencia,... the list of cases goes on forever. Rajoy should be grateful his party doesn't govern that many regions after all.

Electoral behaviour in Spain: an analysis (II)

In the first part of this two pieces analysis on electoral behaviour, I asked what is the Right's strategy to counteract the natural left-wing majority in Spain. That is the analysis I try to present here extracted from a piece by Basilio Baltasar in El Pais newspaper.

Baltasar argues that the Right in Spain isn't concerned anymore with the formal political process but rather to wave the flag of a new anti-politics populism that undermines the prestige of public institutions.

He argues that PP is encouraging a movement based on the questioning of the judicial power and the encouragement of popular suspicion not based in the idea of reasonable doubt but rather in information manipulation and the politicisation of naturally independent institutions. The continous request for further evidence in the Madrid bombings case, although a court rule has been completed, is a great example of this strategy by PP. This way PP installs a natural suspicion in the population that starts questioning the most basic democratic institutions in the State and polluting the normal development of the rule of law.

Furthermore, Baltasar argues, the Right has taken on this strategy because they realise the State, which once they use to control, is escaping them. The State today oversees their business activity, questions religious values being mixed with its rule and promotes further social rights for the lower classes. It is reason that governs today through the rule of law and a State founded in the principles inherited from European Enlightment, and therefore takes away from the Right their ability to control and manipulate as it pleases.

PP and its allies don't want to have to go through State oversights to achieve their goals, they don't want to have checks and balances because that limits their actions and they remember days when that wasn't necessary.

This is the strategy of the Right today to protect itself from a PSOE Government in 2008. Their aim is to create a wave of popular political apathy and to question the legitimacy of state institutions so in the chaos they can continue working without oversight. That is what PP's strategy has been for the last four years. The only hope for many is a new leadership, a more liberal and democratically-inspired leadership. A leadership that gets PP back into the democratic process and stops this movement that so much damage has already inflicted to the Constitutional consensus that all political forces achieved in 1978 and has taken Spain to where it is today.

PP already looking to 2012.

The new PP campaign with the slogan 'Con Rajoy es posible', copied from IU's 'con IU es posible', has proven a total disaster for the party in a similar way to the infamous Tory campaing in the UK under Michael Howard, the 'are you thinking what we are thinking?' 2005 campaign.
Flickr users have been creating 'alternative' slogans for the campaign and the joke doesn't seem to be stopping any time soon. You can find them in http://www.flickr.com/photos/marianorajoi/

Of all the 'alternative' slogans in Flickr however there is one that is worrying Rajoy and his campaign team. It is the one with Esperanza Aguirre, the main contender to replace Rajoy if PP loses the election, laughing behind Rajoy and the slogan 'Espe 2012, with Rajoy it is possible'.

But that isn't the only reference to Rajoy's future, or lack of it, in the leadership of the party. Newspapers across the country gave big headlines to the announcement that Rodrigo Rato, another main contender in the race for the leadership, has been hired as senior executive to Europe and Latin Amercia by the prestigious investment bank Lazard. All political analysts were yesterday debating if this was the end of Rato's political career.

Many in PP are feeling relieved that Rato is out of the way thus protecting Rajoy's leadership. But the reality is that journalists are finding the battle for the leadership more interesting than whatever PP got to offer this time around, which isn't much anyway. Rajoy wasn't able to bring in Rato as part of his team, unlike Zapatero's ability to bring in Bono and Solbes, highlighting even further that he got no team to match up Zapatero's in March. The media is smellling blood already and we are still four months away from election day!

It's the economy, stupid!

The Zapatero Government has been dealing with the economy pretty well this last four years. It focused in tackling two serious problems, public debt and productivity, and has dealt with them in a sound manner.
Public debt has been reduced substantially during this term and for the first time Spain enjoys a superavit in general terms in the public finances. In terms of productivity, the Government has increased public investment into R+D, education and has promoted structural changes in the economic sector in coordination with employers and unions. This Government has been the first in Spain to enjoy no union action against it since democracy was restored in 1975.

However, due to escalating oil prices, inflation across Europe has gone up lately and in Spain particularly, 1% higher than the Union's average. It is also true that Spain has grown at a faster rate than most of its European colleagues and created 45% of all the jobs created in the Union in the last four years, quite an achievement you'll have to admit. But escalating fuel prices have also spilled into the domestic economy, namely basic food products, like meat and milk. Furthermore unemployment has gone up in November for the second month in a row.

The Zapatero Government, as did Felipe Gonzalez's in the 80s, has proven the right wing press wrong in thinking that a Socialist government couldn't manage the economy as well as a PP one. Well, they didn't just not make it worse, they actually improve it to macroeconomic levels never seen before in this country. However, the latest economic figures are starting to show in opinion polls. Cadena Ser's weekly Pulsometro shows 60% of Spanish people are very worried about inflation and the general state of the economy and 34% are just worried. It also shows 45% of the people are worried about inflation in the food basket. The Government can argue, as some analysts have done already, that it is up to Brussels to manage inflation under the single currency, but the reality is that in an election year that isn't the most desirable answer. The Pulsometro poll shows that 72% of the people believe the Government isn't doing enough to change the economic situation. The Government should start thinking about the consequences of this situation in March. The economy isn't going to be a big issue this time around, but after four good years of sound economic policy surely PSOE doesn't want to have it against itself due to four bad months. Zapatero's announcement today that he's going to scrap the patrimonial tax is a good first step to reclaim the lead in the economic debate. More should be coming to make sure the economic growth of this term isn't forgotten by later developments.

PP public official goes to jail.

Jose Martinez Andreo, Mayor of Totana (Murcia) from PP, has been put in jail today without bail. Other suspects have been either bailed themselves out of prison or being released with charges due to appear in court in the near future.

The PP Mayor is being charged with false testimony, falsification of documents, omission of the duty to persecute criminal offences, fraud, misuse of public funds, prevarication, money laundering, traffic of influence and infidelity in the custody of documents and private personal information. Quite a list of charges seeing the guy has been in power for less than a year.

But the worrying thing for PP isn't the charges against Martinez Andreo. They are worried about the 'big fish' behind the curtains, Juan Morales Canovas, former Mayor of Totana, current Regional Assembly Member for PP and party heavy-weight. He cannot be charged yet because of the immunity he enjoys as Assembly Member. However his ex-wife and his current partner both have being charged in the corruption plot.

PP officials in Murcia are worried. They had it too good for too long and now they see justice falling on their heads. Rumours have it Ramon Luis Valcarcel, the all-powerful President of Murcia, might become the next Member of the European Parliament for PP. He definitely doesn't want to get caught in the mess and might just take a 'vacation' in Brussels.

Rajoy and ETA.

I wonder if anyone in PP today is feeling proud of the monster they have created in relation with the Government, ETA and their elecotral patriotism.
Yesterday during the funeral for the policeman killed by ETA in the weekend, Zapatero and several ministers from the Government were verbally abused by people present at the funeral. The insults got to levels never seen before. One could feel the bitterness in the people shouting them. Many police officers present felt angry at this display of intolerance as well as disrespect to the family of Raul Centeno.
Today during an act in front of the Madrid townhall, Pedro Zerolo, a PSOE councillor and gay rights activist was the victim of homophobic insults and had to be protected to avoid the situation worsening. The slogans against the PSOE government and Zapatero kept going even during the one minute of silence requested to honour the death of Raul Centeno.

And I really wonder, is Mariano Rajoy proud of this situation? Is he proud that he has blown to pieces years and years of unbreakeable democratic unity agaisnt ETA's terror for a handful of votes in March. He has accused Zapatero and the Government publicly of the most outrageous claims, from betraying the victims to lies about giving Navarra away to the terrorists. He has encouraged and allowed the extreme right to monopolise the debate on ETA and accuse the Government of the most outrageous acts.

Is Rajoy going to manipulate information and give up democratic unity in this country at any cost? If he would be President how can we trust he will protect all of us if he is able to let the extreme right do what it pleases, and justify their acts in light of Government actions? We have seen him speaking of his patriotism and love for Spain. All I can see today is a country divided over one of the few issues that has always united every democrat in Spain, total opposition to ETA's terror and full support to the Government's actions. Any government Mr. Rajoy, any, because patriotism is about caring for your country more than caring to win an election at any cost. Hope he could understand.

PP's taxation reality.

Rajoy during his party's convention last week announced, out of the blue, that if PP wins the election, he will cut taxes. Not much of a surprise for a right-wing party to say something like this, right? it is one of their favourite tools when election time comes. What worries me is that he announced tax cuts at the same time as promising free nursery school across the country. How is he planning to pay for them if he cuts taxes? I'll tell you how, either he doesn't build them (it wouldn't be the first time they break an electoral promise) or a PP government will take public finances into deficit again after four years of superavit with Zapatero.
However, that it's not the worst case scenario, neither the most probable. What is most probable is what has happened in Salamanca under the local PP government. They raised taxes and they lowered public services. That is the reality of PP taxation strategy.
Today 30.000 people have demonstrated in front of the town hall against the tax increases taken by the PP local government. Taxes have gone up 42% on bus passes, 16% on property and 34.8% on waste management without clear improvements say locals.
Last week polls showed that people believed Rajoy was promising tax cuts as a populist measure rather than as a thought-through policy coherent with a wider programme. It's sad not just that he is gambling with public finances in times of global economic uncertainty, but that the so far only policy put out by Rajoy in four years in opposition is unpopular as well as the opposite of what his party's elected officials are doing somewhere else.

Llamazares elected IU candidate for March election.

As it was expected, Gaspar Llamazares, Secretary General of IU (United Left), has won the nomination to the Presidency of Spain in the March general election. The party's Federal Political Council nominated him today wiht 84 votes in favour and 2 abstentions.

This is good news both for the Left in Spain as well as for the country as a whole. Llamazares, unlike his predecessor Julio Anguita, is a serious statesman with a coherent vision of how politics should be carried out.

Llamazares understands that IU isn't anymore a party aiming to win elections but rather to influence governments from the opposition. As I mentioned in my piece yesterday on electoral behaviour in Spain, IU's most useful weapon is its ability to take power away from PSOE. Anguita, in the 1990s, disgracefuly joined Aznar in his demagogic attacks against President Gonzalez. Anguita was used by Aznar as a pawn in his strategy of creating a united Left-Right front against PSOE and succeeded at it. Anguita saw himself praised in the right-wing press and with his messianic attitude towards politics always believed he was pushing himself all the way to the Presidency. He never realised how much Aznar despised IU and after he won the 1996 election Anguita was quietly brushed aside and disappeared from the political scene.
Llamazares was elected as Secretary General of IU after PP's second electoral victory in 2000. He redefined IU's political strategy by putting as his first aim a left-wing government. He believed that IU would be more influential with a PSOE government than with a PP government even if IU's share of the vote went down. He has put IU back as PSOE's natural ally in Parliament and proven his ability to have his voice heard by the Zapatero government in this last term. He has also been able to get IU back into powerful coalition governments in Catalonia and the Basque Country.
With Llamazares in charge at IU I know both IU and PSOE are better off in March.
In his nomination acceptance speech he has hinted towards political consensus and higher particiation in the political sphere. Something this author and many other Spaniards welcome in times when such consensus among the Left is more needed than ever.

Electoral behaviour in Spain- an analysis (I)

Left-wing parties across the globe have been undertaking in the last two decades what has been called ‘the journey to the centre’. Electoral behaviour theory tells us that a party has to conquer the ideological centre to win elections and power.

Cesar Molina founder of Multa Paucis, a Spanish public affairs consultancy, tell us this phenomenon is different in Spain. Here are the arguments:

Since the first democratic elections in Spain, the Left has always had between 2.3 and 3.5 million more votes than the Right. Only in the 2000 general election, won by PP with absolute majority, did the Right win more votes, 1 million more than the Left. The Left lost 2.7 million votes in comparison with the 1996 election. However of those 2.7 millions only 0.6 millions went to the Right, the remaining 2 millions simply abstained (the abstention rate in 2000 was the highest in history, 69%). This, Molina argues, shows that the real centrist voter accounts only for around 0.6 million people in Spain while the 2 millions are traditional left-wing voters that tend to abstain in certain circumstances. This atypical electoral behaviour has a precedent in history. In 1933, abstentionism by left-wing groups, anarchists in this case, gave the Right a victory while in 1936 that same group when to vote and the Left won the election.

In general terms this means that PSOE, the biggest left-wing party, always has a clear advantage to win general elections. However, the challenge for the party lies in that while the right-wing vote always goes to PP, the left-wing one is generally shared by PSOE and IU (United Left). Statistical analysis shows that for every 1% increase in voting PSOE benefits of 0.6% of that vote. But at the same time for every 1% of the vote that IU gets PSOE’s share goes down 1%. On the other hand the same analysis shows that electoral participation swings do not affect PP’s share of the vote. In other words, PP voters always vote while left-wing voters don’t always vote and they split their vote between two parties.
What are the conclusions according to Molina for the March 2008 general election? That if participation falls below 71% (in 2004 was 76%) and IU keeps their 4% share of the vote the election will be too closed to call. If IU’s share of the vote would go up to 6% PSOE would need a 74% participation to win.
This same analysis can be used to analyse the impact of the Catalan vote in March. After a series of transport and institutional crises in Catalonia, a fear of high abstentionism in the region is worrying PSOE strategists. If the vote in Catalonia falls below 64% (lowest in history in 2000) then PSOE would lose between 3 or 4 seats in Congress and would need a participation of 73% in the rest of the country to keep power.
The conclusion is that PSOE has a greater chance to win the election in March. However it is essential that it is able to mobilise the left-wing vote. The abstentionist left-wing vote stands ideologically more to the left than PSOE. However that same vote would rather see PSOE in power than PP hence why they vote for it when elections are too close. If PSOE is able to convince these voters of the crucial role they get to play this time around victory will be pretty safe in March.
What is PP doing to encourage the left-wing vote to stay at home? That is the content of my next piece.

P.S: This analysis fails to take into account the particularities of Spanish electoral law but I believe Molina rightly analyses the big picture which is very useful to understand electoral behaviour in Spain and its particularities compare to other Western democracies.

ETA kills Spanish policeman in France.

PARIS (Reuters) - ETA suspects shot and killed a Spanish Guardia Civil policeman in France on Saturday, French police said, the Basque separatist group's first killing since it abandoned a ceasefire in June.

A second Guardia Civil was seriously injured in the shooting in the French resort of Capbreton, 20 km (12 miles) from the southern city of Biarritz.

The two plain-clothed officers were taking part in a surveillance operation with French police when they were shot at point blank range as they were getting into their cars around 0830 GMT, a police source told Reuters.

Police were hunting two men and a woman who fled the scene.

The killing was the first by ETA since it called off a 15-month-old ceasefire on June 5 -- which it had effectively already broken by bombing Madrid airport last December.

Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba confirmed that one of the policemen had been killed and the other seriously wounded and said they had been shot as they left a restaurant.

"Since ETA broke the ceasefire, they continue to want to kill," Rubalcaba said at a meeting of EU interior ministers near Potsdam, Germany. "They achieved that today. Prison awaits them. They will be relentlessly pursued using all available means."

French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said ETA was trying to use France as a refuge and a base to prepare attacks. Every effort was being made to catch the culprits, she added.

ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades of armed struggle for independence for ancient Basque territories in northern Spain and southern France.

Polls show most inhabitants of Spain's Basque Country, which already enjoys considerable autonomy, do not want full separation from Spain.

Spain's ruling Socialist party said it had cancelled a political rally due to be held in Madrid later on Saturday. The Spanish government said Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had rung opposition leader Mariano Rajoy to tell him of the attack.

French anti-terrorist investigators are to launch a formal investigation into the shooting, police said.

Stem cell research equated to Nazi experiments.

Well surely there is a line one shouldn't cross and Miguel Angel Rodriguez has done so.
In this week politics show '59 seconds' in TVE, Rodriguez, former Government spokesperon with Aznar and current member of the board of FAES, debated with the Health Minister about the acceptability of stem cell research. Following on the kind of discourse displayed by PP officials these days he equated stem cell research with Nazi experiments during the Holocaust. I am not sure how far they can go with demagogy and this outrageous behaviour anymore, but they shouldn't tell us they are a centre-right moderate liberal party; noone believes that rubbish anymore.
Apologies the video is not subtitled.

Sarkozy's chief strategist warns Rajoy.

Another fellow conservative, Thierry Saussez, has warned Rajoy that the Spanish electorate is looking for someone to unite them. Speaking at a MAS Consulting Group conference in Madrid, Saussez has told Zapatero as well to not underestimate his opponent.

It seems PP is not really following his advise. At I write this entry, they continue to block the renewal of the CGPJ, the judges' highest governing body, agreed by all other political parties and are accused of being behind the legal action taken against PSOE's mayor of San Sebastian (Basque Country) for not putting up the Spanish flag in the city's town hall even though it is up in the lobby and meeting rooms of the building.

Mr. Saussez misses a point about PP, it being that their lack of new ideas and the permanent attack against the Government cannot stop now. They have put all their eggs in one basket and are going until the end with this strategy.

Zaplana and young Francoists.

PP has always opposed all kinds of condemnation of the Francoist regime both in Parliament and publicly but equated the PSOE government to it, well...let images speak for themselves...Eduardo Zaplana, PP's official spokesperson, went to watch the Spain-France football match during the 2006 World Cup in Germany and took a picture with a pre-democratic flag. So much for hipocrisy. I would like to hear PP's explanation for this, it's not like he looks sad or surprised the picture is being take.

PP copies IU campaign.

So it is now official, PP has ran out of ideas. First was the unworkable lowering of taxes while offering free nursery school to all families. Then was their campaign material quality, as old as it gets while letting Zapatero take the initiative in e-campaigning in Facebook and YouTube. But the last and biggest cock up by PP's Communication Team came yesterday, when IU put out a press release denouncing PP's new campaign slogan as being almost identical to theirs!!.
To be fair it wasn't very difficult to guess it. When Joe Biden in 1987 used a speech by Neil Kinnock, he was smart enough to change the wording but kept the message.
PP's Communication Team are either not that smart or are completely out of ideas, not that they have been putting out many legislative initiatives in the last four years anyways. They were not even very subtle either, they took the IU slogan from the March 2007 local election campaign, just seven months old.

I am not in the business of helping out Rajoy and the PP leadership, but just for fun...how is it Gabriel Elorriaga, PP's Director of Communications is still keeping his job after having lost the 2004 general and European elections and the 2007 local elections and now this?? But don't get me wrong if they like him I won't be the one asking for his resignation.

Bono accepts to be candidate for Toledo.

Jose Bono, former President of Castilla la Mancha and Defense Minister, has accepted Zapatero's offer to head the list for Toledo in the general election and to be the next President of Congress if PSOE finally wins the election.

This is great news for PSOE. Bono is considered a moderate within the party. He has always been a bridge between PSOE and right-wing voters and this time around it won't be different. He's inclusion in the party list will give a great boost to the party with moderates and Catholics as well as those in the left that are less friendly towards peripheral nationalisms.

With Bono, a self-proclaimed 'left-wing Catholic Spanish patriot', and Pedro Solbes, Economics Minster and former EU Commissioner, PSOE strategists are aiming to counterbalance the image the right-wing media is given of a radicalised party. Both high-profile candidates are well respected across the political spectrum and will help round up important centrist voters that previously could have stayed at home or even have voted PP.

Zapatero has shown a great strategic ability to hit PP where it hurts, their lack of moderation and cross-party appeal. Where are the moderates within PP? They all have been bullied into submission, only Calomarde spoke out and was forced to leave the party. That taught others like Celia Villalobos and Ruiz Gallardon a lesson, moderation isn't in PP's vocabulary.

The power of the Catholic Church.

So the PSOE electoral manifesto is not going to include this time around any mention to abortion, euthanasia or the State-Catholic Church Pact of 1979.

I can understand the reasoning behind this decission, though not share it. The continuous attacks by the Catholic Church and the bishops' radio station, COPE, against the Government have fuelled protests by PP voters and right-wing groups. Gay marriages and adoption as well as the non-sense attack against the new subject in primary education 'citizens' education' have proven difficult rides for PSOE during this term and taken away the support of Catholic working class groups.

The decission is oriented to prevent the Church to become an active part of the electoral campaign by rallying its 'troops' and hurting PSOE with the Catholic vote in key areas like the Basque Country and Andalucia. However I believe it is time to take the Catholic Church on and prove to them that Spanish people are ready to remove the few privileges they still enjoy rooted in Franco's legacy.

The Catholic Church still has the right to provide a Catholic education subject in public schools, with an alternative provided for non-religious students, and benefits from limited Government funding payed by all taxpayers, including non-Catholics. PSOE has to show the strength needed to remove these privileges and remove all relations between the State and the Church, only this way we will be able to remove their ability to exert such a demagogic influence in the political arena. It is public money which is funding the Church's activities which do not anymore concern helping the needed but rather to consistently attack the left in perfect harmony with PP. Until we do not bang the fist on the table the 'Catholic electoral problem' for PSOE will never go away.
It will be hard but PSOE is the only party able to finalise what was started in 1979, the complete separation between Church and State in Spain.
The decission to duck the problem is not just ideologically wrong it is also electorally wrong because the problem will come back in 2012 while I have to keep paying taxes for the bishops for another 4 years.

Corruption case unveiled in Murcia.

That widespread corruption in the construction licenses business exists in Murcia is a well-known issue in Spain. Since the arrival of PP to the Regional Government in 1995 Murcia has seen a growth in construction businesses like no other in Spain or Europe. Environmental concerns as well as the lack of water supply have not stopped the construction of endless holiday resorts and golf courts in natural reserves and other fragile coastal environments.

Both PSOE and environmental groups have denounced the situation for quite a while now. But two days ago and today especially the tip of the iceber has emerged. The mayor of Totana, a small town in Murcia, has been taken into custody together with several businessmen and civil servants charged with accepting illegal payments to provide construction licenses.

Partisan considerations aside this is great news for the people of Murcia, even if they still keep voting for these donkeys, and the region's environmenntal preservation.
On a partisan line, Murcia, due to demographics, carries an extra seat in Congress in March. In 2004 PP won 6 seats and PSOE 3, PSOE is hoping to gain the extra seat to a total of 4. They are just 6.000 votes short of it and this can only help to achieve the objective.

Congress rejects sanction to Minister.

It has been mentioned before in this blog the transport crisis in Catalonia the biggest headache for the PSOE strategists at the moment. Catalan voters staying at home means a closer election than expected in March.

Today Congress voted a IU (United Left) resolution to sanction the Minister for Transport, Magdalena Alvarez, for her responsibility in the situation. The Government and Socialist Parliamentary Group have had to work real hard to be able to secure enough votes to reject the resolution.

The final vote has been very close with a difference of three votes. For the first time PP, IU and Catalan nationalists have got together to vote in favour of the resolution. PSOE took with it the votes from the Mixed Group, Basque nationalist and the PP defector and now independent Congressman, Joaquin Calomarde.

The story and problems in the transport network are still there, but the impact of a headline in the right-wing press of a Congressional sanction on a Minister would have been far worse. It was the best that a bad day could bring about.

Rajoy, already a lame duck?

What do Rodrigo Rato, former economics Minister and IMF President, Esperanza Aguirre, former Senate leader and President of Madrid, and Ruiz Gallardon, Mayor of Madrid, have in common? Well... all are aiming to replace Rajoy as leader in March.

The public image of PP is that of unity and loyalty to the leader, reminiscent of past and present authoritarian organisations of the kind of the Chinese Communist Pary or Stalinist Russia. However internal realities are quite the opposite. Josep Pique (former leader of PP in Catalonia and Foreign Minister with Aznar), Joaquin Calomarde (independent Congressman after defecting from PP) and even Ruiz Gallardon have criticised Rajoy indirectly by criticising the lack of drive and modern outlook of the party. Many inside PP are concerned that even though the kind of discourse practiced by PP during this term has been its most aggresive ever, Rajoy has not been able to take a single lead in the polls since 2004.
The lack of trust in Rajoy's leadership is so evident that potential succesors have already started positioning themselves for a future leadership contest. Rodrigo Rato, one of the most valued members of Aznar's Cabinet, left the IMF Presidency earlier than his term deadline and refused to join Rajoy's candidate list in Madrid. Many believe his idea is to avoid the potentially disastrous 2008 campaign and become the party's saviour in 2012.
However the greates contest for the leadership is happening in Madrid. The Mayor of the city, Ruiz Gallardon, and the President of the Region of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, are clashing on a daily basis positioning their allies in the electoral lists as well as key centres of power in case of a contest.

The latest battlefront according to El Pais newspaper is IFEMA, the convention centre of Madrid and the most profitable exhibition centre in Europe. It all started as Luis Eduardo Cortes was succesfully elected to the role of Executive Director of the public company, a position newly created that takes away competences from Fermin Lucas, Director General of IFEMA and until now the person effectively running the company. It happens that Cortes is a former regional legislator from PP under Aguirre and Lucas the former Secretary General of PP's Parliamentary Group in the Regional Assembly when Gallardon was President before Aguirre. If one notes that IFEMA bring up to 1% of Madrid's total GDP then the public company becomes a key battlefield for influence in the political capital of the country. Aguirre's allies success in placing Cortes in IFEMA has forced Gallardon's threat to recuse Cortes unless he steps down from other boards of directors he is member of.

The battle has not yet started for Rajoy's succession, but the battle lines have been drawn by the party heavyweights. Rajoy was a lame duck leader since he blew up a 2,402,426 majority taking his party from an absolute majority government to the opposition; but he is now also a lame duck candidate for a party already thinking about 2012.

Whose PP's real leader?

When Aznar decided to leave the leadership of PP in 2004 he appointed Mariano Rajoy as his succesor. Following PP's tradition of lack of internal democracy and pluralism, he imposed his decision on the party. However after he left he was appointed Honorary President of PP and president of FAES, the most influential conservative think tank within PP.
He also made sure that his voice was heard within the new 'leadership' through the appointment by Rajoy of Eduardo Zaplana (Government spokesperson with Aznar) as party's spokesperson and Angel Acebes (Minister of the Interior with Aznar at the time of the Madrid bombings and its aftermath of accusations of manipulation of information) as Secretary General of the party.
The appointment of the two Aznar hard-liners together with his control of FAES have proven Rajoy's lack of independence from his predecessor and his inability to take control of the party to set up his own political agenda.

Zapatero seven points ahead in the polls.

Spain's biggest radio station has given PSOE a seven points difference over PP in their weekly 'Pulsometro' poll.
PSOE gains half a point from last week's poll to a total of 45% of the decided vote. PP's share of the decided vote stays unchanged on 38%.
According to the same poll, Zapatero's popularity is gone up to 5,24 points while Rajoy's is gone down to 3.9 points, one of its lowest since the 2004 elections.

This is all good news for PSOE especially after the last few weeks when the commuter train system in Catalonia was severly disrupted and its regional Parliament called for the sacking of the Minister for Transport. Catalonia being ,together with Andalucia, a crucial stronghold where PSOE has to mobilise its vote to win.
There are fears within Ferraz (PSOE HQ) that clear majorities in polling and continuing disruptions in key electoral constituencies could discourage the PSOE electorate to come out to vote. They are right, it is time to highlight the crucial times Spain is living and mobilise the left-wing vote across the country.

Three Nobel Prizes will help draft the electoral manifesto.

Jesus Caldera the Minister for Employment and Social Affairs and the person in charge of drafting the electoral manifesto for PSOE has announced a new team of high-profile advisors for the campaign:

1. Joseph Stiglitz.- Economics Nobel Prize Winner in 2001 and former Chief Economist and Vice-President of the World Bank.
2. Wangari Maathai.- Peace Nobel Prize Winner in 2004, founder of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya and environmental activist.
3. Helen Caldicott.- Peace Nobel Prize Winner in 1985 for her campaigning on nuclear disarmament
   
4. Nicholas Stern.- Former Chief Economist and Vice-President of the World Bank, present holder of the IG Patel Chair at the London School of Economics and author of the widely-praised Stern Review on the economic cost of climate change.
   
5. Torben Iversen.- Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University.
   
6. Jeremy Rifkin.- Founder and president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in the US.
7. Maria Joao Rodriguez.- Portuguese Economics Professor.
8. Barbara Probst-Solomon.- US writer and columinst.
9. Philip Pettit.- Irish philosopher and political scientist.
10. Andre Sapir.- Brussels-based economist and expert in European convergence and globalisation.
11. Marie Duru-Bellat.- Sociologist and Education Sciences specialist at the University of Rennes (France) and former adviser to French presidential candidate Segolene Royal.
    
12. Guillermo O'Donnell.- Hellen Kellog Professor of Government at Notre Dame University (US) and prominent theorist on democratisation theory in Latin America.
13. George Lakoff.- Linguistics Professor at the University of California Berkeley.
14. Wolfgang Merkel.- Professor of political sciences at the University of Heidelberg.

The announcement produces a double effect for PSOE. Firstly, it will help draft a strong and coherent manifesto for 2008 as well as future government policy. And secondly, it shows the appeal Zapatero's government has among progressists across the globe.

You might ask yourself, who is willing to volunteer for PP's electoral team? Well, the answer is no-one. Its electoral team tried to spin this failure to attract any international adviser by putting out a PPB claiming their team is made of common Spanish people with everyday problems...well, moving, but shows PP's lack of appeal both nationally and internationally.

Welcome to my blog!

Dear reader,

Spanish political parties have fired the first shot for one of the most crucial political campaigns in the short democratic history of Spain. In March 2008 Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will seek reelection as President of Spain. In front of him will be Mariano Rajoy, the conservative candidate from Partido Popular (PP).

The 2004-08 legislative term has been marked by the outrageous aggresivity displayed by PP both in Parliament and the streets. PP together with the right-wing media have been deceiving the Spanish people through their campaing of misinformation in a vast array of issues. The levels of social upheaval has gone to unprecedent levels, it is time to let PP know that the social, institutional and economic improvements made by the Socialist administration are here to stay.

This blog aims at helping any person out there who wishes to follow the electoral season closely to do so. I will be commenting on all developments, not all political unfortunately, that could influence the campaign and electoral outcome in March.

I hope you find the information and comments here worth a read. All comments welcomed!

Enjoy!

Mario.