Leaders Wanted: PSOE

If you fancied becoming the leader of the PSOE socialist party in the Balearics, you would be disheartened were you to discover that your local party was laying into you big time and saying that, in effect, you were incompetent. If you are Francina Armengol, ex-president of the Council of Mallorca, the bookies' (now probably former) favourite to replace the one-time president Francesc Antich as the party chief, this is exactly the problem she faces.

Lack of direction, lack of ideological orientation. These are just a couple of the criticisms levelled at the former Council president, to which can be added errors in responding to the economic crisis and no excuses for an electoral hammering. It couldn't get much worse, except if the local grandees were to state unequivocally that they didn't want her to succeed Antich. Indirectly, they have.

PSOE's annihilation at the regional and national elections has created all manner of soul-searching and searching for anyone prepared to step into the fray and lead the party both regionally and nationally. There isn't a shortage of candidates, just that most of them are tarnished with electoral disaster. It's a bit like England's rugby team, post-World Cup. The old guard needs sweeping away and some fresh blood needs introducing to the party's backs and forwards. Unlike England's rugby team, it probably won't happen.

The lack of direction that Armengol is accused of could just as easily apply to the party as a whole in the Balearics. It is nearly eight months since it was thrashed at the regional elections, and it is still no nearer knowing who is meant to be leading it and where it is heading. At a time when the ruling Partido Popular seems intent on ripping itself apart, there is no worthwhile opposition which, were it to be better organised and to be acting as a genuine opposition, could be taking full advantage of Bauzá's linguistic troubles. As it is, the PP is its own opposition.

If Armengol, as seems increasingly likely, doesn't succeed Antich, then the former mayor of Palma, Aina Calvo, comes into the running: another of the old and defeated guard.

Aina is playing a wider game, though. She's thrown her lot in with one of the two main challengers for PSOE's national crown, Carme Chacón, until recently the defence minister in the Zapatero administration. Chacón might well end up being Spain's first female prime minister, and the first female prime minister from Catalonia, to boot. The chances are that she won't be and that the national old guard, in the form of the defeated PSOE candidate in November, Alfredo Rubalcaba, will remain at the head of PSOE.

It is a peculiarity of Spanish politics that there aren't great putsches of party old guards. Were there, then Mariano Rajoy would have disappeared from the scene long ago. Twice defeated, how he came to still be leading the PP into ultimate victory is a genuine mystery. It's a case of better the devil you know probably, even if the devil is as uninspiring as Rajoy. Or Rubalcaba.

Uncle Alfredo, and he does have the demeanour of a benevolent uncle, is conducting a campaign against Chacón similar to that which lost him the national election. He plays the reassuring and well-meaning uncle role at the family gathering but it is one in which he gets forgotten about when the family gets drunk and raucous. And conducting a campaign is rather apt, as Rubalcaba does this thing with hands, which makes him appear as if he is conducting an orchestra or playing the piano.

Nice, benign Uncle Alfredo reckons that Chacón is not, at the moment, a solution to PSOE's future. Which means that he is. But what is the future for PSOE, both nationally and in the Balearics?

Much will rest on how the public respond to the PP's cuts and to what further austerity is in the pipeline. Rajoy promised that there would be no rise in income tax and that he was the chap to get Spain back to work. The promise has already been broken and there is not going to be any getting Spain back to work for the foreseeable future; it will be the opposite. There are simply too many fires that need fighting both on the mainland and in Mallorca.

PSOE could probably just sit on their hands for the next four years and anticipate returning to power through default. Or they could be altogether more progressive. Dump Uncle Alfredo and put a woman in charge. But Aina or Francina for PSOE locally? You would think not, but you would probably think wrong.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.