More international support for Zapatero

Today the left-leaning French newspaper Liberation dedicates an entire edition of the paper to the Spanish general election and praises Zapatero's fusion of economic modernisation with social progress.

On the other hand, the platform to support Zapatero, created by a group of artists and other intellectuals, has added new names to their support base for a Socialist victory on March 9, including Carlos Fuentes, Daniel Barenboim, Bernardo Bertolucci, Helen Caldicott, Ian Gibson, Joseph Stiglitz and Gervasio Deffer.

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.

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

Time to get serious.

Today the President of Spain has officially dissolved Congress and announced the King the dates for the electoral contest. The race is on and now it's time we all Socialist unite and work together for a new mandate on March 9.

Having said that, it's Zapatero who needs to get serious about it now. His announcement yesterday in El Mundo that international institutions, not the Spanish Government, had kept contact with ETA even after the terrorist attack in Madrid in December 2006 is certainly a big blow to PSOE's moves to neutralise ETA as a campaign issue.

Zapatero is an extremely polarising character. It's the kind of politician that either you hate or you love. He should try to soften that. Although his Presidency has been an enormous success and has moved Spain forward after 8 years of inmovilism under Aznar's Government, it's obvious that its communication policy has been extremely poor. A Government that has achieved high economic growth, created employment and promoted social rights vanguard of the world, cannot be ahead just by 3 points, within the statistical margin of error, in today's Cadena SER Pulsometro poll.

I still believe the contest can be won and it will be won and with a bigger majority than polls show these days. But it should have been a victory with a certain absolute majority and this is not the case. If Zapatero is reelected he should certainly think about his communication strategy and should bring in new faces to his communication team. PSOE under Zapatero has modernised the party's internal structure and equated it to other modern social democratic parties in Europe, specially Labour in the UK. It's time he brings in professional communicators to his team, so many achievements this term aren't being explained properly to the people. And to those that could be thinking that I'm talking just about spin and image over substance, I'd say that communicating with the citizens is an essential goal of Parliamentary democracy.

Time to professionalise political communication within PSOE, a radical reform in Ferraz HQ is essential to avoid this term's problems next time around.

New Socialist Youth video.

I just watched this new electoral video by the Socialist Youth and I cannot agree more with its arguments. The night of the 14th of March 2004 thousands of young people celebrating PSOE's victory then chanted to Zapatero the now famous slogan 'No nos falles' ('Don't fail us' in Spanish). That chanting represented the trust millions of young voters had given Zapatero through their vote.

This video, though in Spanish, shows why the Zapatero Presidency has done more than any other before for the young members of society. For all of those of you that understand Spanish here you are.

Reality check

So everyone in the Socialist camp is starting to get nervous. As we get closer to election day many Socialist bloggers and activists are starting to wonder if PP could actually win the general election in March. Polls show PSOE ahead by just 2.5 points at national level and people wonder if the economic slow-down, though still growing, the Catholic Church open attacks and PP's communication strategy are starting to pay off for the conservatives.

Well, let me reassure some Socialists out there. We are in a good position to still win , and possibly big, on the 9th of March.

First of all, the official campaign hasn't started yet. We have two presidential debates, where voters will be able to compare Zapatero to Rajoy directly. It isn't a surprise Zapatero offered the debate and Rajoy was reluctant about accepting the challenge. In terms of personal ratings Rajoy's are the lowest in the history of Spanish democracy since 1978. On the other side Zapatero's are on a healty 58%, higher than Aznar's in 2000 when he won with absolute majority and similar to the golden years of the charismatic Felipe Gonzalez in the 1980s.

Secondly, voters before election day tend to criticise the Government for its failures and tend to overlook its achievements, that greatly outnumber the former. The important thing is that on election day the option will be a good Zapatero Government that has produced high economic growth, high employment figures, new social rights and has raised pensions and the minimum wage or a Rajoy opposition based on disloyalty on counterterrorist policy, demagogy in the territorial debate and no substance in anything thar really matters to voters. When it gets to March 9 voters will have to choose between Zapatero's positive vision or Rajoy's catastrophism.

El Pais and other outlets within the Prisa media group seem to have distanced themselves from PSOE. I will say that they are letting PSOE know that their support isn't for free, which is the right position, no Socialst government should be complacent with its achievements. But eventually PRISA won't let PP win without a fight, they are just making sure PSOE understand that the battle isn't yet won and that a tough fight should be put up. The communication war has been won by PP so far, but PSOE has a successful term and great candidates up to hit back on the prestige card.

I have been looking at the electoral map for a while now and hope for a great landslide is there. Firstly, Madrid, Rajoy's popularity there is lower than his national average, which means he most probably won't replicate Gallardon and Aguirre's landlsides there in the local elections. Murcia, with the latest corruption cases many in the rural areas could go PSOE this time around, it is doubtful, but we only need 6.000 votes to bring home the extra Congress seat allocated this time around, that would mean PP 6 seats and PSOE 4, not bad for a region politically monopolised by PP. In Valencia, again it's Rajoy who presents himself as candidate. Rita Barbera, Valencia's Mayor, has already announced she doesn't want to be candidate, which hurts PP's list there. Furthermore, Valencia is one of the regions where IU, United Left, gets one of their five seats nationally, so there is a strong left-wing minority there. Finally, Castilla y Leon, a moderate conservative region enjoys the fact that Zapatero is from Leon and the high-speed train has arrived to Segovia and Valladolid, many will be happy to change their vote in a region famously neglected previously. In the PSOE camp on the other hand, Catalonia might be upset about transport disruptions, but would they let anti-Catalanist PP win? if the election gets to close they will come out to vote for PSOE. In the nationalist regions, Galicia, Basque Country and Catalonia, PSOE has defended nationalists' right to express their believes against PP's Spanish centralism, many that voted nationalists in regional elections will go PSOE at national level just to stop Rajoy from winning.

To all Socialist supporters out there I will say come down. We have been united for four years against the demagogic attacks by PP. PP got no programme for government and a leader without any charisma whatsoever. The economic situation benefits them now? yes it does, but Pedro Solbes is our economic heavy-weight, where is theirs?. Our team, ideas and candidate are better. When the campaign officially starts the PSOE machine will roll into battle with all its assets intact. PP has spent four years creating chaos because it helps them to avoid policy, but when it comes to campaigning policy offers and an able team are what counts to the electorate, we got both and PP got none. You will see, we will be better off than it seems today.

I love Zapatero video (no comment)

Made by our friends from ilovezp.blogspot.com

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.