The Scream: The anniversary of corruption in Mallorca

It was another holiday yesterday. For once, not a religious occasion, but a political one. Balearics Day, the twenty-seventh anniversary of the introduction of autonomous, regional government in the islands. How apt that a political celebration should be marked by the worst cases of political corruption that Mallorca has ever known - which is saying something. During the twenty-seven years, scandal has reared its head from time to time, but it has spent the past few weeks screaming and bellowing. Rather than dressing up in party frocks, the celebrations for Balearics Day should have witnessed Munchian mourning-black dresses, the scream of the latest political nightmare and anxiety, and hair shirts donned by discredited individuals from the political class. Henry II once did a good line in public humiliation following the murder of Thomas à Becket. No-one may have been betrayed or assassinated, but the entire system of democracy that regional autonomy was meant to have bestowed on Mallorca has been betrayed. And not for the first time. The question is whether it will be the last. You wouldn't count on it.

President Antich, in a speech to coincide with Balearics Day, has not engaged in public self-flagellation but he has offered his apologies to the people of the islands. He is resisting calls for an early election, preferring to appeal to other parties to come together. Minority rule and motions of no confidence may make this resistance futile, but the mechanics of government - and the constant harping on about the allegedly dysfunctional nature of coalition - are secondary gloss over the more fundamental issue of corruption, both within politics and within Mallorcan society. More than fretting over the electoral system, the corruption scandals should be informing a debate as to what brings them about. Balearics Day should be the focal point for what the past twenty-seven years have represented, as they have culminated in the current chaos.

Autonomous government brought with it responsibility, that of acting in accordance with democratic principles. But the revelations of the past months have suggested that this lesson has not been learned or, over the course of the past generation, has come to be forgotten. Autonomous government also brought with it the Unió Mallorquina, the party at the centre of most of the rumpuses. It was formed around the same time and in readiness for the first local elections in 1983. That it, a party designed to serve "nationalist" interests on the island, should have been exposed as one serving only its own interests is a deeply alarming condemnation of not just the wider political system but also the social system of networks and nepotism. There is a horrible sense in which "nationalist" is aligned with the self-preservation of the insular webs of family and favours. Which is not to single out the UM, far from it, but it is now symbolic of a sick system created by regionalisation that has politicised a societal preference for rule-bending. All power may well indeed corrupt, and inappropriate behaviour by politicians may indeed be taken as a signal to others in local society to misbehave, but I would argue that it is this society that begets the politics of the island, not the other way round. It has spawned Maria Munar, a figure of the UM from its inception, a Cruella de Vil who has kidnapped a doe-eyed and naïve democracy and bundled it into the back of an official limo, secreted inside a massive wedge of cash. Antich has been criticised for booting the UM out of the coalition. Booting out? He should have launched them into the far reaches of the universe. He was absolutely right to disassociate himself and the PSOE from them.

Balearics Day is the celebration of one of the most important elements of the post-Franco era, that of autonomous government. A generation on from the worthy intentions of autonomy and what does one have? A political party that can allegedly turn a ministry into its own bank. The celebration should inspire not a debate as to the technicalities of local government but soul-searching as to the intertwined mores of sectors of Mallorcan society and the political class. A generation on and one wonders what has been learned. Autonomous government was a clear statement of the rejection of Francoism. But let's not forget that Franco despised and mistrusted political parties. He did away with them, and The Scream lasted for decades.


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