Let's Kiss And Make Up

Crisis, crisis, everywhere crisis. I am wondering if it would be possible for any news media to exist without the word "crisis". Were its usage to be banned, how on earth would they cope? At one point, until early yesterday morning, there was a time of high crisis, über-crisis possibly, in the ranks of the island's governments. One says "governments" because there were three involved - the regional government, the Mallorca Council and Palma town hall (itself a sort of mini-government all of its own given the relative size of the city's population to that of the rest of the island). This elevated state of crisis surrounded - still - the resignations of councillors belonging to the Unió Mallorquina (UM) party from the Mallorca Council, which had confined its crisis-state to the Council alone until the lesser-crisis stakes were suddenly cranked up and embraced the other two. There had been a move towards kissing and making up, but then there loomed, on the turbulent political horizon, a golf course. Yes, a golf course.

One needs to be reminded that the three governmental institutions are all run (if that's the word) through a coalition comprising the PSOE socialists, the UM and the left-wing Bloc. I think I have explained this before, but you might not have been listening or had given up the will to live. So it is necessary to state it once again. One might also be reminded of the story of the golf course, that will never be, on the Son Baco finca in the municipality of Campos. One has to go back almost a year to get something of a handle on this; to 17 November (Heart And Soul) in fact, when I argued that the planned golf project was an important story not to be ignored. I hadn't envisaged that it might be so important as to bring the three institutions to a state of virtual paralysis and of minority government with the PSOE ruling alone because of the fractious nature of the relationship between the UM and the Bloc.

The Campos development had been vetoed, much to the chagrin of the UM, a party which sometimes appears intent on converting Mallorca into one giant fairway. Nevertheless, there was a good argument for its going ahead in a town largely devoid of tourism. Undeterred, the UM had placed an amendment to the so-called "Decreto Nadal" (named after the tourism minister, himself a member of the UM and its former leader) that might have paved the greens of a golf construction. The Bloc insisted that this was withdrawn. If not, it would have thrown its clubs out of the golf buggy, thus breaking the coalitions. There was, indeed is, an alternative offer on the table for Campos, i.e. the development of two luxury hotels in Sa Ràpita, an alternative that the UM had appeared to accept, but which the Bloc seemed disinclined to.

Extraordinary though it may be to think that governments could tumble or be made all but unworkable by something as seemingly unimportant as a golf course (unimportant compared with graver issues such as the economy and the state of tourism), this is, I'm afraid, how things are in Mallorca. The golf course stand-off was a point of arch-politicking, making large the discontent between the various parties. It was irrelevant, but golf became a political football. Stupid.

And all the more stupid when, by coincidence, tourism minister Nadal had been meeting with the president of the international association of golf tour operators. First time I've heard of such a body, but exist it does and keen also to help in making Mallorca the leading golf tourism destination in Europe, a destination to which an additional 100,000 more places could be sold. At a time of über-crisis in the economy and tourism market, these are not to be sniffed at, but that president might be alarmed at the perfectly ridiculous inability of competing political parties to arrive at a consensus concerning what might have been a sensible addition to the golf stock of the island, one that is not going to happen.

But back at the crisis ... at the last moment, the clock ticking and politicos ready for their beds at two in the morning, they did indeed all kiss and make up. An agreement was reached, minus any golf course. The governments were saved. Long live the governments! Until next time.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Cliff, "Living Doll", and here he is with The Young Ones, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGOU0o9K89g. Today's title - old favourite of this blog, this was BS - Before Sarah.

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