New polling data

El Periodico newspaper- PSOE (42.5%), PP (37%).

Telecinco TV- PSOE (44,2%), PP (38,6%).

Expansion financial newspaper- PSOE (41,7%), PP (38,2%).

Publico newspaper- PSOE (44,7%), PP (39,3%).

FT on Spanish election

The Financial Times today has published an article on the conservative strategy to promote abstention and Zapatero's get out the vote strategy. You can read it here

Video blitz

'Great' Aznar moments (I)

'Are you suggesting NATO should bomb Lebanon?'- Stephen Shackur
'If is necessary yes'- J. M. Aznar
(Aznar interviewed in BBC's Hardtalk show during the Israeli-Hizbullah crisis in summer 2006)

'Raul Castro represents the continuation of tiranny in Cuba'
(Aznar's statement on his way back from a dinner party in Lybia hosted by Muammar Al Gadaffi, according to human rights organisations Cuba currently has 234 political prisoners, Lybia 450).

'Look me in the eyes, I am telling you Iraq has weapons of mass destruction'
(Aznar's statement to Congress on the eve of the Iraq war).

'Who are they to say one cannot drink and drive?'
(Aznar criticising the safety warnings by the Road Safety Agency during the Annual Wine Convention in 2007. In that same year 1,700 people died in car accidents in Spain).

'Young fascists are tired of giving and not receiving, tired of listening to promises and receiving failures [...] I, as a youth, and having read a copy of the Complete Works by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, I have taken a decision.'
(Aznar writing on SP magazine in 1969 as a young falangista- Francoist official and only party- of his admiration for Primo de Rivera's writing. Primo de Rivera was the main ideologue of Spanish fascism).

'I speak Catalan in the intimacy of my home'
(Aznar courting the Catalan nationalist leader, Jordi Puyol, for a coalition government in 1996).

Populist fears made in PP

Rajoy has lost the battle of ideas during these last four years because he never accepted his defeat in 2004. He has spent four years blaming others of his own failures and hasn't done a critical self-evaluation of what made him lose the election then.

The campaign arrived and he found himself rethorically empty, only attacks no proposals. But then he found the issue that conservatives across Europe like most, immigration. For a country like Spain where its population emmigrated in the mid 1900s and that now receives immigration, this is a dangerous development. El Pais newspaper today has published an article showing that 2 out of 3 Spanish kids are today looked after by foreign babysitters and Consumer magazine that 90% of carers for the elderly and other dependent people in Spain are also immigrants. How could our country cope without those people? People that accept lower salaries to do jobs Spaniards don't want to do anymore, long hours, sometimes even sacrificing their own families' welfare to produce a living wage.

Rajoy should know he's playing with fire when appealing to the emotional side of the electorate. And I ask myself, is it really worth it to incite hatred and fear to win an election? And more importantly is he willing to sacrifice Spanish values and our democratic consensus that took us so long to achieve for personal gain?

Zapatero must win to let the Spanish right know that there are certain values dearly hold by the Spanish people that cannot ever be put into question. Our democratic system and our image as a welcoming society are at stake on March 9. You've been warned.

Polls on the debate.

Who won the debate according to flash polls:

Cuatro TV- Zapatero 45.4%, Rajoy 33.4% (Men: 63.6% Zapatero, 36.4% Rajoy; Women: 51.8% Zapatero, 48.2% Rajoy)

La Sexta TV- Zapatero 45.7% Rajoy 30.1%

Antena 3 TV- Zapatero 45%, Rajoy 39%

El Mundo newspaper- Zapatero won by little but won't say before tomorrow's edition.

La Vanguardia newspaper set of experts- Zapatero 5.5, Rajoy 5.1 out of 10.

El Pais newspaper- Zapatero 53%, Rajoy 39%

Just read that this debate is the first one to have been available for deaf people. I have to say little things like that show PSOE's continuing concern with democratic accessibility.

Debate summary and apology

First of all I have to apologise for not have blogged live the debate, but wasn't able to watch and write at the same time on my laptop.

Secondly, Zapatero, I believe, has won the debate tonight. It felt great to have presidential debates back in Spain and frankly that only has happened under Socialist governments.

The debate started slowly, with the candidates observing each other tricks, and then moved into top gear when entering the issue of ETA's terrorism and inmigration. Rajoy has gone really tough and made a massive mistake by accusing Zapatero of betraying the terrorist victims again (he mentioned it in Parliament many times before).

As the debate was moving forward, Zapatero started liking himself. He sorted through the economic section quite well showing graphs and hard data on growth and employment. The second section on social policy, Rajoy knew he couldn't beat Zapatero's government on social policy with the new dependency and equality laws as well as pensions and minimum wage. He moved quickly into inmigration, a populist right wing topic, talking about crime, illegal inmigration and public services. Zapatero here did well in two things, he avoided getting into the inmigration debate by sticking to the long list of Socialist social policy achievements and then adressed the issue of inmigration reminding Rajoy on how many inmigrants fight and die in the Spanish armed forces. The third section on foreign and security policy, Rajoy went into overdrive accusing Zapatero of betraying the victims. Talking heads on the radio and TV are all mentioning how that was a massive mistake by Rajoy reminding voters of his nastiest side that some were already forgetting. Zapatero did well not accepting the proposition that he betrayed them and then reminded voters of Rajoy's alliance with Bush and his support for the Iraq war. In his final statement Rajoy gave a very strange speech on a little girl growing in Spain that didn't connect well in its imagery neither in its supposedly aspirational tone. Zapatero did a similar speech but it connected better and his delivery was good, avoiding reading and using a calmed but firm voice.

On a personal level, Rajoy failed to support the Ebro water plan that my local conservative government in Murcia has always defended and won many votes out of. Zapatero forced him to state if he was going to propose its construction again and he failed to say yes. I hope my fellow Murcians will take note of his statement when casting their vote on March 9.

More on flash polls as they come out in a bit.

First presidential debate tonight!

The first presidential debate in Spain in 15 years is 3 hours away. It can be watched live in El Pais online website.

For those of you that don't understand Spanish, I'll be blogging the debate live as it happens as I did with the economic one last week.

So tune in for some good mano-a-mano between Zapatero and Rajoy. If it goes as the weekly PMQs normally does, it should be a good one for us. But as any good political strategist would tell you, it's all about lowering expectations... so frankly expectations are so high that Zapatero really needs to shine tonight to keep the momentum PSOE finds itself in since last week's debate. We are now four points ahead of PP from 1.5 just three weeks ago.

Those annoying third party candidates

This past Sunday, Ralph Nader, the left-of-the-Democrats independent candidate announced in Tim Russert's Meet the Press that he's running again for the US Presidency. Then he went on to attack Democratic candidates Obama and Clinton for their 'spineless' candidacies and the need for someone with substance in the left to lead the country. His annoucement has shocked the DNC that fears another 2000 campaign when Nader took away support from Al Gore in the key state of Florida. On the other hand, Republicans are delighted with his announcement and attacks on the Democrats.

Nader's isn't an isolated case. In plenty of elections disgruntled 'I know better' egocentric so-called progressive candidates enter the fray harming the electoral possibilities of mainstream left wing parties. It springs to mind the case of Rosa Diez in Spain. A Socialist Euro MP for many years, she contested the leadership of the party twice (1997 and 2001) and twice lost. So realising that she couldn't be a senior figure within PSOE, she started her own party. UPyD was launched this past summer in Spain and is participating in the March 9 general election. Diez claims her new party is PSOE without Zapatero's support for peripheral nationalisms in Spain (i.e.: Catalan and Basque mainly). However, her entire campaign so far (and we are two weeks ago from polling day) has been focused on attacking Zapatero and the Socialists and playing into PP's electoral strategy. And she's getting around 4-5% of the vote which could give her party one seat in Congress and take it away from PSOE in an very tight race.

Nader, like Diez, should know better. If they really cared about the electorate they would step aside on these elections where they know real decissions are at stake. Especially when they don't present any new policy and just focus on slagging off those progressive parties that can actually win. Such is the case of the 2008 Spanish and American elections and their bids are nothing but big circus of egocentrism and nothing to do with the good of their countries.

Famous third party candidacies (not necessarily all bad ones though):

- Ken Livingstone (London mayoral election 2000). Ken Livingstone presented himself as an independent candidate opposing the official Labour candidate Frank Dobson. Livingstone won the race with Dobson coming third behind Tory Steve Norris.

- George Galloway (UK General election 2005). Left the Labour Party in opposition to the war in Iraq and created his own party, RESPECT. He won the seat for Bethnal Green and Bow defeating incumbent Oona King from Labour.

- Ciutadans (Catalan regional elections 2006). Claiming to represent the interests of Spanish-identified Catalan voters, Ciutadans within months of its foundation won three seats in the Catalan Assembly.

- Ralph Nader (US general election 2000 and 2004). Nader, running as a Green candidate in 2000, claim there was no difference between Al Gore and Bush Jr's bids. His popularity then took away key votes from Gore in the state of Florida that eventually made Bush president.

- Joe Lieberman (US Mid-term elections 2007). Having been de-selected by his own party (and the liberal blogosphere) for his support for the war in Iraq, Lieberman ran as an independent beating Ned Lamont, the official Democratic candidate, to retain his seat in the Senate.

The official campaign starts!

The campaign is officially on. Zapatero from Madrid and Rajoy from Cadiz kicked off their presidential campaigns.

The economic debate tonight gave me a big boost of optimism, Solbes destroyed Pizarro with voter-friendly language, visuals and tough attacks on the conservative agenda. Certainly Pizarro's proposal to scrap the current housing policy really hurts PP with young voters and women.

I also just got a letter from the head of the Socialist Congressional list for Murcia, my constituency, asking for my vote.

PSOE has also put out a very interesting campaign. Its PEB asks for people to go vote (abstention hurts us) at any cost. But the video shows a Socialist young voter going to pick up his mum in the village to take her to the polling booth even if he know she's going to vote PP. Nice positive message, will it work? I think so, bold nevertheless.

Economic debate live blogging

Pedro Solbes, the Economic Minister, is debating Manuel Pizarro, former CEO of Endesa electrics, and PP candidate.

Solbes is hitting hard, giving lots of data and explaining it well. Pizarro is trying to go into abstract issues. Solbes should keep it up, go hard on Pizarro, he's twice the man.

Household economy now... the trickiest part for us, let's see.

Solbes presenting data, might need to simplify a bit the discourse, too technical I think. Salaries growing over inflation and attacking PP on the famous 'decretazo' that froze salaries for two years in the early 2000s.
Pizarro now attacking with polling data and the last economic data since the credit crunch...Solbes needs to hit hard in his reply now, this is the most crucial point of the debate!!

Another graph by Solbes, nice little touch, a big bar graph with Spain at the top of GDP growth in the EU.

Solbes turn now...

Great point by Solbes, Pizarro wants polling data, Solbes just hit him with polling data showing Socialists are more trusted to deal with the present crisis. Nice!

30 billion euros would be the cost of the fiscal reform proposed by PP, Solbes is asking Pizarro which cuts are they going to make to pay for it.

Pizarro is going nuclear now, saying they will cut the money from the negotiation with terrorists! PP's classical strategy, no solution then demagogy.

Solbes just called Pizarro a demagogue, read my mind. He's attacking Pizarro on housing policy because PP proposes to scrap the housing ministry, bad call by PP, housing is a key issue these days with young people in Spain. And they get to vote...

Solbes on a great Socialist policy, pensions gone up and he's showing graphics on live prime time TV, classic! Pizarro's face has just gone pale.

Solbes has just shown the cover of conservative El Mundo newspaper from 1994 where Pizarro defends the privatisation of the pension scheme. Ouch!

Pizarro is not coming out well... going back on the apparent lack of trust on PSOE to run the economy, which polls show isn't true. He goes back to macroeconomic data showing a slowdown in the past months because of the global credit crunch. That's not a good strategy when you talk about household economy, one should stick to easy examples people can relate to. I'd say Pizarro 0 Solbes 1 so far in the debate.

Little break on the debate, the moderator in his concluding remarks has mentioned 'the scrapping of a ministry', little nice hiccup that leaves viewers with the image of PP scrapping PSOE's popular housing policy.

Debate back again with next block of questions, electoral proposals...

Pizarro is far too liberal for the Spanish electorate, I'm pretty liberal but I know my co-citizens aren't there yet.

Pizarro has first defended the fight against climate change and is now talking about keeping coal as a source of energy!! nice shot at the marginals in Asturias, big mining region in northern Spain.

R+D investment under PP was 0.5%, Solbes mentions how he has put it up to 1.5% and pledging up to European standards in the next four years. Solbes now going into education policy and how is dependent on regional governments and PP regions are bottom of the table.

84 bilion euros spent on infrastructure under the Socialist Government, the same amount as all the cohesion funds ever received by Spain from the EU since its inclusion.

Pizarro is showing graphs as well now, quick aides during the break.

Solbes showing Socialists policies on gender equality and the new dependency law. Two popular policies with the women vote.

Solbes back to housing, good issue for us.

Closing statements...

Pizarro's closing statement on the current crisis as PSOE's fault. Also how PSOE has been creating political division and partisan economic institutions. Not very good I would say.

Solbes talking about how Spain is best prepared to face the current crisis. He's proposing a choice of vote, pessimism versus optimism. Solbes going on his record, healthy public finances and high social spending on competitiveness. PP, he points out, tax cuts and social spending cuts. Solbes points out how he has always worked in the public sector serving the country unlike his opponent.

The debate is finished... Antena 3 is producing a poll in 40 minutes but I feel Solbes has won big time. Solbes 4 - Pizarro 1, in no single issue Pizarro has won. Talking heads in Onda Cero radio, conservative radio station, are spinning for PP but I think people will see through the smoke screen. Nevertheless they are saying Solbes has won.

These talking heads are shameless, outrageous spinning, not a single Socialist on the after-debate commentary. They are even defending demagogy as a campaign technique! Voters will definitely see through, let's see the poll though.

PP's lies about ETA's terrorism

A video on PP's negotiation with ETA in 1998 that they now claim never existed. In it one can see Aznar calling ETA, Basque Liberation Movement. As I've said many times before, they lie and lie and lie...

PP copies his campaign from Latin America.

I found out today that PP's new slogan and PEB for the official campaign starting tonight at 10.00 pm Spanish time, is copied from two Latin American campaigns ran by Antonio Sola, the Spanish neocon strategist.

The slogan 'Con cabeza y corazón' (roughtly translated as 'with reason and heart') is almost an exact copy from the conservative Patriotic Party of Guatemala slogan 'Mano dura, cabeza y corazón' (again translated roughly as 'firm hand, reason and heart').

The video is copied from Felipe Calderon's presidential campaign in Mexico, again designed by Sola. In the video, one can hear Zapatero talking about economic growth while a family sees their household stuff taken away repossesion style. Frankly, I think noone in Spain would go as far as fearing repossesion, that's why I think the video overmakes it a bit in the line of Sola's overdramatisation in his campaigns.

PP official sources claim Sola is there just to advise Rajoy on telegenity and 'tie picking', they make me laugh. They lie and lie and lie and got no shame. However, I don't think this is a story big enough to be embarrasing to PP, it only excites us political junkies. Note this is not the first time PP has copied a campaign slogan, I reported a similar case on this blog some months ago.

Cannot find the videos on YouTube, but you can see them in Cadena Ser's website here

News of the day.

A very quite day in the campaign trail, but rumour has it that El Mundo newspaper, in perferct coordination with PP and its leadership, is preparing several shock-and-awe headlines for the last days of the campaign. PSOE should be ready for it, frankly the lot at El Mundo are a nasty bunch that deserve every name in the world but that of journalists.

On a diferent issue, I've got several texts and email messages from friends asking why is it Spain doesn't recognise Kosovo as an independent country. Many of you must have guessed already, but the reason is that Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence cannot be acknowledged by Spain because it would pose a precedent for the Basque Country to take the same action.

Finally one for your diaries', remember the first debate of the campaign season will be this coming Thursday between Super-Minister of the economy Pedro Solbes and PP's Manuel Pizarro. The time hasn't been decided yet but assume 10 pm prime time unless the parties arrange for something special (that exact time is the official opening of the formal campaign). The channel will be Antena 3 which hopefully I'll be able to get on streaming online.

New poll and BIG warning

The most prestigious poll in Spain, CIS, has given PSOE an advantage of just 1.5 points over PP in voting intention for the March 9 election.

Although Zapatero's personal numbers are high and Rajoy's are pathetically low, conservative PP keeps closing the gap as election day draws closer. The official campaign hasn't started yet, we haven't had debates yet, but PP's campaign is light years ahead of PSOE's, and that is worrying me a lot more than our programme being far ahead of theirs.

Noone debates the fact that this election is crucial, for us is about further modernisation both social and economic, for PP is about rolling back social liberalism and getting back their caciquist control of the economy.

Today however we saw how things can change and PSOE can hit back at PP. Felipe Gonzalez, former President from 1982 to 1996, has shown the way and PSOE leadership should follow his line. He stood up in a podium in Barcelona and bashed every single PP leader hard, where it hurts. Stop the nice-guy campaigning, it has failed us and can make us lose the election. If they are nasty so can we be. Spain is definitely left-leaning that's why PSOE has a comparative electoral advantage, conservatives know it as well and they have gone negative. They are gaining ground day by day, their noise neutralises our message. We need to hit back and we need to do it soon. Maybe Gonzalez should join the electoral team, he's the best and most experience campainger this party has and we need him now. There's a reason why he won four elections in a row. Time to wake up, the CIS poll this week has given as a warning next one could be too late.

Zapatero gathers support in Europe.

Zapatero's reelection bid has now got a website to gather support from fellow Europeans.

You can find the website here

Two Nobel Prize winners, Gunter Grass and Jose Saramago, have already joint the platform's manifesto.

Our home-grown Lynton Crosby?

It has emerged that Antonio Sola, a political consultant from the Madrid firm Ostos & Sola, has been advising Rajoy since September on the campaign trail.

Sola is a conservative political consultant of the neocon school. He has advised campaigns in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina and Guatemala. But where his campaign skills have been more prominent was in the last Mexican presidential campaign when he got Felipe Calderon elected president. He was the creator of Calderon's campaign slogans such as 'Citizens behind bars, criminals on the streets' and 'A firm hand, passion for Mexico'.

Sola copies the campaigning style of Lynton Crosby and Karl Rove by using demagogy, manipulation and sensationalism to appeal to the emotional core of voters in issues such as immigration or religion. That will explain Rajoy's latest turn to a tough agenda on immigration, abortion and gay marriages among others. His business partner, Gloria Ostos, has been behind several of the so-called 'spontaneous' demonstrations of the religious right since 2004.

Sola is a close friend of Jose Maria Aznar and collaborates with the neocon FAES thinktank. If PP has got Sola, PSOE should be alert, his campaign style is tough and difficult to beat, PSOE will need to rebutt all the demagogy and populism with clear and concise messages. It also seems now Rajoy has made his mind up about the debates, he's blocking the negotiations because he knows he's weak in face-to-face debates. I think he's ready to avoid a debate to focus on populist messages against the Socialist more complex policy proposals.

It's going to be a close race.

Time to deal with Gibraltar.

After the latest ship accident on Gibraltarian waters affecting the Spanish coast, it's time Spain deals with the greater threat Gibraltar has become.

Let's be clear, I'm not trying to make a patriotic statement here. I couldn't care less whether Gibraltar stays British or becomes Spanish. But when the British government keeps using Gibraltar (Tireless nuclear sub, Samothraki, Sierra Nava, New Flame,...) as a dumping site away from its own isles, it becomes a problem for both the Gibraltarian and the Spanish people.

I find it quite interesting that I have read not a single mention of the New Flame case in the British media, not even a single one. I would like to know why the British government and media feel Gibraltar isn't worth their attention as British citizens.

The Spanish government has to seriously take into consideration the actual situation of complete indifference taken by the UK towards the extremely serious environmental situation developing in Gibraltar. Because they are British territorial waters, the Spanish government cannot enter them and sort out problems and sea traffic. But obviously if something goes wrong, the problem is for us.

I'm not demanding the classic 'Gibraltar is Spain' solution. I'm asking that the UK takes serious action about the disastrous environmental problems its attitude is creating. And that Spain forces such action on the UK. Enough is enough.

Live interviews.

Cuatro TV station has carried out two in-depth interviews. One on Monday with Rajoy and Tuesday with Zapatero. The interviewer was Iñaki Gabilondo, one of my favourite journalists. Conservatives hate him because he's definitely left-leaning, though he's not scared to push whoever whenever he thinks is necessary, as he did with Zapatero in this interview.

Overall I think Zapatero came out better, specially on the economy which is going to be the key battleground. Rajoy as always very 'on message', very pessimistic though. More substance came out of Zapatero's mouth than Rajoy's.

Also important to know is that one million more people watched the President. I think this means voters want to hear the details of the socialist manifesto, while they know what message is going to come out of PP. Different is the fact that PP's negative message is sticking, as polls show. So far my personal opinion is that PSOE's message is more attractive to voters but it isn't easily getting through PP's noise. Communication is going to be key, again debate, debate, debate, our path to success.

For Spanish-speakers you can watch the interviews here

Rajoy and the audacity of idiocity

Rajoy, PP's candidate to the Presidency of Spain, thinks that Spanish people are stupid and have no memory. We know you have been a public official before mr. Rajoy and we know you weren't very good at it. In fact, you are by far the worst Minister of the Interior this country has ever had.

This is no subjective conclusion, we have facts:

- Highest homicide rate in Spanish democratic history, 2001-2002, when Rajoy was Interior Minister, the number was 1,251. Under the current Socialist Party, homicides are down to 987 in 2007. Fact.

- After the Socialist Party lost power in 1996, it left behind 125,000 police officers. In eight years of conservative PP government that number actually went down to 118,000 (7,000 less officers). Under the current Socialist government, in 2007 we have in Spain 136,000 officers, 17,000 new officers. Fact.

- The PP government spent in 2003 0,49% of its GDP in public safety, the Zapatero government has put that number up to 0,60% of the GDP. Fact.

There you go, facts versus demagogy, don't let PP supporters tell you conservatives are better at keeping you safe, because it's just a big fat lie. Fact.

The radio host that came in from the cold.

Jimenez Losantos is known throughout Spain as the bishops' star host in COPE radio. Known for his ultra right wing stances and bitter attacks on the left and anyone on the right that's not a hawk, it was no surprise that in 2006 he took on PP's Mayor of Madrid for his 'soft' positions in his radio show. Unfortunately for him, the Mayor, sued him for insults and defamation against his person.

Rajoy removed the Mayor out of the Congressional lists for the election, as I reported here a while ago, forced by the hardliners within PP, many close to Losantos, himself an influential figure in rigt wing circles in Spain. That was seen as a sign of weakness by Rajoy but he wasn't ready for the bombshell that follows...

Losantos has called Aguirre, President of the region of Madrid, Acebes, Secretary General of PP and Zaplana, official spokesperson for PP, to declare against Gallardon, the Mayor of Madrid, in court! Rajoy has fallen in his own dithering trap. He has let this nutter run freely for the sake of winning an election and now Losantos has got him into serious trouble. If these senior PP officials don't testify against Gallardon, Losantos will certainly retaliate, if they do they will be testifying against a member of their own party, and one proud of its internal cohesion as well.

How's Rajoy going to get out of this one? certainly not looking good. Hopefully they'll testify before election day...

Losantos's statement on air against Gallardon:

'The Mayor of Madrid doesn't want to know who kills people by the hundreds in his own city'

- Gallardon was Mayor at the time of the 2004 Madrid bombings, Losantos is the greatest exponent of the 'conspiracy theory' that blames Basque terrorism instead of Al-Qaeda for the massacre although the courts have ruled that it was Al-Qaeda alone that carried out the attacks.

The online video revolution.

After the absolutely brilliant Obama 'Yes we can' online video, a new one has come out about McCain... again fantastic, have a look...

The arts with Zapatero.

Musicians and actors have made this video to support Zapatero's reelection bid.

On a personal note, pretty proud Joaquín Sabina, my favourite musician, is the first guy on the video.

Quote of the day.

'Today there are no real right wing parties in Europe. The majority are becoming social democratic ones and don't talk about the issues people really care about, like inmigration. The only exception is Partido Popular (PP) in Spain, a real right wing party'

Filip Dewinter
Leader of Vlaams Belang, the notorious Belgian extreme right party.

Day and night of political endorsements.

Zapatero has today recived the public support of the independent National Research Council and soon there will be a manifesto endorsing him from the scientific community called 'Science and University with Zapatero'.

Rajoy has received the support of the Spanish Catholic Church.

No need to go any further. 21st century Europe, which party you think is better prepared to keep the country on its modernising path? Science or religion?

Crazy electoral promises, made in PP (II)

This section is going to grow faster than I thought (don't underestimate right wing paranoia as a force of nature when it comes to policy production).

Rajoy and inmigration. Rajoy has come out with a new legislative paradigm, the law of local customs. He has come out with the 'great' idea of creating a contract for inmigrants who want to reside in Spain for over a year. Such contract, according to Rajoy, would entail inmigrants respect for Spanish customs such as monogamy or the illegality of female genital mutilation (he could only name those two in an interview yesterday on prime time TV). Most probably Rajoy doesn't realise that a) local customs are not socially or legally defined therefore difficult to be codified, and b) his two examples are already part of Spanish law therefore his contract would be legally redundant. New show of hands, please. How many of you readers think this is an actual sensible and legally sound proposal or a simple let's blame the inmigrant that doesn't vote situation? I would go for the second choice again. Specially after Arias Cañete, the disgraced economic spokesperson for PP, yesterday went on an off message rant claiming that inmigrants exploit the public health service and work badly 'because I used to get my coffee and croissant speedily before [when we had Spanish waiters] and not anymore [now that inmigrants are the waiters]'. So there you are PP's inmigration policy, you make them pay taxes but don't let them use public services they are entitled to, force them to sign a contract with Spain as if we were an employer and finally if the contract is 'broken' the government and inmigrant can go on a long judicial fight, costing us taxpayers money, to clarify what the contract actually said.

Let's see if that proposal will be put up in regional elections where inmigrants vote in 2011... doubt so, they are crazy but not that crazy.

Crazy electoral promises, made in PP (I)

After four years in the opposition, presenting not a single initiative neither trying to propose improvements to any laws made by the Zapatero government. After four years of saying no to every single legislative proposal going through Congress. After four years of actually sitting down and saying nothing constructive, one would have thought PP officials would have thousand of great proposals ready to go for the campaign. We were all wrong...

PP and climate change. Rajoy has promised to plant 500 million trees in the next four years!! That would account for planting 238 trees per minute or equally 12 trees per person in Spain. Let's do a show of hands? How many readers think this is actually possible and how many think is a crazy idea to counteract his statement six months ago that climate change didn't exist and backfired? I'm going for the second one.

Thought it was hilarious? don't worry there are plenty more of these, just keep an eye in this section 'Crazy electoral promises, made in PP'.

The need for an urgent clear message on the economy and more importantly, stick to it.

Jose Blanco, PSOE's secretary of organisation, points out in his blog that the economic slowdown in Spain is being fueled by the economic data in those regions governed by PP.

Navarra (10.15%), Murcia (9.63%), Valencia (8.14%), La Rioja (7.87%) and Madrid (7.7%), all governed by PP, are the regions where unemployment has risen the most. On the other hand Socialist regions such as Galicia (3.99%), Extremadura (3.59%) and Andalucia (4.4%) have the lowest unemployment rises in the country.

There is a very simple explanation for this. While in the last four years the Zapatero government has focused in switching the national economic model to a more competitive system, PP regions have stuck to the model they know best, unsustainable construction. The central government on one hand has invested in R+D, education and scholarships to improve human capital and high-tech employment, while PP regions have the lowest investments on those fields.

The Spanish economy is ready for a global crisis because public finances are healthy. However, if we want the country to switch economic models to higher efficiency, quality of labour and high value-added production, we need to target those regional economies that lag behind. And those ones are clearly conservative-led ones as unemployment data shows.

Time to speak up. The economy has become by far the most important issue in the campaign, PSOE needs a clear and coherent message to counteract PP's economic demagogy. Once that message is found, and I think regional differences between PP and PSOE regions is a key issue, PSOE should repeat it consistently to let it sink into the electorate's mind. There is too much at stake to let PP win in the last metres of the race.

Showing their real colours.

And another 'rare' case of radicalism for the self-appointed moderate right in Spain.

PP has presented a homophobic journalists as number 2 in their lists to the Senate for the province of Albacete. Dimas Cuevas, former editor of the local newspaper 'La tribuna de Albacete', was approached by PP and later accepted the party's proposal to seek a seat in the Upper House. Because PP normally does get three seats in Albacete Cuevas place is almost guaranteed this time around.

Dimas Cuevas is well known in the province for his homophobic articles in the local press. It's not just the fact that he's homophobic, it's that he ridicules gays and lesbians through what he calls 'folky humour'. You let me know where the humour is in claims like this made by Cuevas: 'in gay weddings the meals will be hot dogs and baked bananas' or 'if I suddenly die, I beg my kids aren't given in adoption to a gay couple, after so many years of good education and hard work wouldn't want the poor kids to end up like that'.

He has now apologised for his comments saying they weren't supposed to insult anyone. Frankly, it's him, Rajoy and the entire PP who insult the electorate's intelligence thinking that he didn't mean it or that PP has changed as a party. It hasn't, it is still the nasty party in Spanish politics.

Obama wins Madrid.

So after SuperTuesday political madness, I thought I'll rally home a curious fact. The Spanish section of Democrats Abroad based in Madrid gave its final support to Barack Obama. Spaniards also seem to prefer Obama over Clinton these days.

You can watch a little video by El Pais newspaper of the Democratic party in Madrid here.

New PSOE video out.

PSOE has put out a new PPB this week. I think the idea is great, exposing PP's negativity. However I think the video could have been a bit tougher...still great video to contrast two very different visions, aspiration versus catastrophism.

Have a look,

Lines of attack ready.

Graph extracted from Publico newspaper.

It's all clear to me now. When we are less than two weeks away from the beginning of the official campaign, both main parties, PSOE and PP, have finalised their attack lines.

On one side PSOE is going to focus on the radicalisation of PP in the right, while PP is going to focus the message on making the global economic slow-down a PSOE problem at home.

The key to the election outcome is going to be the mobilisation of the left wing vote by PSOE.

Publico, a left of the centre newspaper, has published today a new poll suggesting that as election day draws closer, the left vote is starting to mobilise and show in the polls, therefore PSOE according to the poll would today get 44.6% of the vote and PP 38.2%, a 6.4 points difference.

I would rather say that this poll shows how Zapatero's share would go up if he gets the hyper-critical left to mobilise (the also known 'exquisite voter').

Also, I still back the proposition I made in this blog months ago, the two debates are going to be crucial. People are hungry for direct no-nonsense debate between Zapatero and Rajoy, I believe that is the single one most valuable asset Zapatero got in the one month official campaign to win big on March 9.

Political courage should be rewarded.

Today El Pais newspaper published a new poll that shows PSOE 3.4 points ahead of PP. The poll data also shows that PSOE's voters are less mobilised than those on the right. Therefore the key to victory on March 9 will be abstention. PP's share of the vote is mobilised to its maximum which means that they can go much higher than the 38.6% of the share they already have got. PSOE on the other hand has a greater potential for share growth. When the electorate is asked which party they would be more likely to vote for if they would, the 3.4 difference goes up to 10 points. However likelihood of vote cannot be equated to actual voting on polling day, the greatest Socialist nightmare in this election.

If one looks at specific issues, PSOE's implemented legislation is extremely popular with the electorate (an average of 7.18 out of 10 value points). However it is the failed peace process with ETA (4 out of 10) what has monopolised most of this term's media attention.

The key conclusion one can take out of this poll (with a sample of 2000 people) is that Zapatero has led his government with extreme force of political conviction rather than crowd-pleasing flip-flopping. It's obvious that if the government would have stuck to its 2004 electoral manifesto, which they have succesfully implemented, PSOE would find itself in a much better position and certainly within the possibility of absolute majority in March. However Zapatero has taken on not just his 2004 promises but also a great deal of unpopular but essential issues that affect Spanish society since 1975 with the restoration of democracy.

I believe that politicians are there to lead, to listen to the people but also to tackle grave problems of which no solution will ever be satisfactory for everyone. Zapatero has done that and that's the reason why he's not in such a comfortable position as he could have been. Zapatero has shown political courage on top of fulfilling his electoral promises and I believe such stance should be rewarded on March 9 for the sake of our country's democracy.