Two Years At A Time: Bauzá mid-term blues

It is only just over two years since José Ramón Bauzá became president of the Balearics and the Partido Popular swept to power (parties which enjoy large electoral wins always do sweep to power, so do please excuse the cliché). Just over two years on and so just under two years before we go through the whole electoral rigmarole again. And when we do, guess what? Bauzá may well be out of a job, if other matters haven't intervened in the meantime to require the issuing of the presidential P45.

The poll at the weekend for "Ultima Hora" suggests that the PP would lose six or seven parliamentary seats. This in itself wouldn't automatically mean it would lose power. It would still have more deputies than any other party, but it would lose its majority and be forced to find a coalition partner or partners in order to continue in power. Permutations that the PP might be able to cobble together would be far more straightforward than any that the main opposition PSOE could come up with. According to the poll, for it to be able to come back to power would require putting together a hotch-potch of such dog's breakfast proportions that any government it were to head would surely be unworkable.

So, it isn't all bad news for Joe Ray. The main problem he would have, however, would be persuading the more likely candidates in the centre to come into the governmental bed and nestle under the sheets with someone (i.e. him) who they might prefer not to be in the same bedroom as, let alone the same bed. It is said that there has been some kissing and making up between Bauzá and Jaume Font, leader of the regionalist El Pi, but behind every font there is a tap that might turn off the water, and in Font's case that is Antoni Pastor, now with his feet well under the El Pi table. Pastor, even at arm's distance, and Bauzá could only make imperfect bedfellows; it's hard to see Font spurning the shepherdly, pastoral love of the recently integrated-into-the-El Pi Pastor in favour of a dalliance with the wolf of the PP. Even less likely, unless it wanted to blow its still only shortlived political existence (in fact, its whole credibility) out of the water, would be an alliance with the UPyD. Bauzá may well, therefore, find himself caught short.

Indeed, were the poll to prove to be an accurate forecast of the 2015 election, the Balearics could find themselves to be politically unmanageable, though whether anyone would notice any difference might be unlikely. 

The slump in the PP's support has been inevitable. Popular by name it may be, but unpopular by policies it has become. Not that it had any real choice when it came to some of them. But it has had a choice with others. If it hadn't been going around putting up certain backs, like the Catalan lobby, it might just now find itself looking forward to holding onto a majority.

The government has got itself into a right old mess. One cause of this mess has been the health policy. Partly dictated by national government, the handling of the Alpha Pam affair was more than just an embarrassment. The health minister, Martí Sansaloni, may yet find himself facing some form of charge, if those groups who have been denouncing him have their way. To compound the problem raised by the treatment of immigrants without the right health-service credentials (or any credentials), Sansaloni's predecessor at the ministry (Sansaloni is of course the third health minister in just over two years) has been looking at establishing a help system for immigrants. He, Antoni Mesquida, is not alone in distancing himself from his party's policies and attitudes.

Then there has been the debacle with the green taxes. The government was forced into backing down. Threatened with the courts by the might of the retailers, it squirmed its way out by saying that now (i.e. this summer) was not the time for the taxes, which was complete nonsense. No time is the right time, while the debacle just added to the sense of ad-hockery that has surrounded tax policy since Bauzá became president. Another tax, that on petrol, which is supposed to be used to help fund the islands' health service, has, so says the head of a consumer association, been going to pay off debts and salaries of public officials.

On top of all this, there are problems rather closer to home for the president and for one notable member of his cabinet. We still await the findings of the Balearics High Court in respect of accusations of incompatibility between the president's business interests and his position as president. And now we have the tourism minister, Carlos Delgado, facing possible indictment in the Radio Calvia affair and the possibility of the national interior ministry taking a view on the insults he levelled against the Guardia Civil. He really should know better than to allude to a whoring, heavy-drinking, sexist, fascist, police film character when mentioning the Guardia in the same breath.

So, with all this, we now look forward to the elections in two years time. But if the poll does prove to be accurate and the Balearics become politically unmanageable, then no, we probably wouldn't notice any difference.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Divisive: The next Balearics election

The opinion poll which shows a slump in support for the Partido Popular in the Balearics will come as little surprise. Indeed, it would be a surprise had there not been a fall in support.

As the poll indicates that the PP would lose its clear majority and only have 28 deputies after the next election, opposition parties will doubtless claim that the government of José Ramón Bauzá isn't working. But the opposition, PSOE (PSIB) in particular, is in no position to talk about a party not working. The main opposition party, its poll rating finds it stuck where it was at the last election - on the end of a good kicking. Poorly led, only fit to criticise, lacking any agenda or future vision, the party is a rabble. Yet, it should be doing far better, given that the government has staggered from one embarrassment to the next, that its educational policy is a pig's ear of unnecessarily confrontational dogma, its tax policy arrived at on the hoof, its so-called ethics being dragged through the mud of new corruption cases, its negotiations with Madrid over funding lamentable.

The PP isn't, therefore, in bad polling shape. One can be critical of certain austerity policies, such as health, but the Balearics health service was so much in debt there was no obvious alternative to taking the scalpel. Bauzá will be hoping that there will be some bounce in the economy over the next couple of years. He will hope this, but the hope remains remote.

As things stand, were the current polling to translate into performance at the 2015 election, the PP would be left in the uncomfortable position of having to form a coalition. Unless the PP were to do the unthinkable and form a pact with PSOE or the PSM socialists, it would have only two options for a partner, and neither would be attractive to either side.  

The poll gives two seats to both the UPyD and El Pi, the merged La Lliga and Convergència. El Pi, rather like the old Unió Mallorquina, from which the Convergència emerged, might assume its former role of governmental kingmakers in that the UM was typically dragged into coalitions. But there would be two big snags. One comes in the form of its leader, Jaume Font, a former PP minister and no friend of Bauzá's. The second lies with its attitudes towards regionalism and Catalan. While some of its policies would be along similar political lines to the PP, these two would not be. Were it to become a coalition partner with a PP under the current leadership, it would be an example of blatant and opportunistic power-grabbing, and one would wonder how long such a coalition could hold together.

The UPyD, a party with no baggage from the past, the great white hope of a new and cleaner politics, and one with a centrist and market-liberal doctrine, would find it hard to ally with the PP which it has criticised for its acts of favouritism. The UPyD leadership would know that it could set itself back and do itself enormous damage by getting into bed with the PP. I couldn't see it happening.

Much can of course occur between now and 2015. The PP nationally may even have scrapped regional governments by then, though to do so would require ripping up the Constitution, so it is most unlikely that it will have. One thing that might happen is that the PP locally does not improve its poll rating or even slips, while, for example, El Pi makes a gain. One cannot completely rule out pressure for change at the head of the PP, and this pressure might grow under such a scenario. A change that would potentially solve a coalition problem would involve Antoni Pastor being brought back into the PP fold and into a senior position. Would it happen? Probably not, but were it to, then Font wouldn't find himself as compromised.

The 2015 election threatens to create enormous uncertainty, and there is a further issue to bear in mind. I have previously suggested that 2015 could be the Ramon Llull election. The 700th anniversary of his death is, though there is a big question mark as to its accuracy, given as 29 June 1315, so not long after the election. If this anniversary is made much of in 2015, and it will be, even if it has to be in 2016, then the regionalist and Catalan issues will be even more to the fore than they might otherwise be. The next election could prove to be highly divisive for the Balearics. Far more than at present.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.


Index for December 2012

Beach wars - 1 December 2012
Brand Spain: Marca España - 22 December 2012
Business development - 14 December 2012
Business environmental tax - 13 December 2012
Christmas and the Mallorcans - 21 December 2012
Corporate tax evasion - 6 December 2012
Education law reform - 9 December 2012
Election in 2015 in the Balearics - 31 December 2012
Expat numbers and voting in the Balearics - 12 December 2012
Families and favouritism - 30 December 2012
Fomento del Turismo awards - 7 December 2012
Gerardo Díaz Ferrán and Marsans - 5 December 2012
Ghost of Manacor - 20 December 2012
GOB - 4 December 2012
Jazz in Spain - 11 December 2012
Knowledge of Mallorca - 8 December 2012
Language and nationalism - 15 December 2012
Letter from Mallorca 1912 - 24 December 2012
Mallorca quiz of the year - 26 December 2012
Obra Cultural Balear awards - 16 December 2012
Palacio de Congresos: returns - 19 December 2012
Pantomime - 3 December 2012
Sandcastles - 2 December 2012
Sky TV changes in Mallorca - 23 December 2012
Spain and its problems - 27 December 2012
Spanish educational reform and language - 9 December 2012
Spanish navel-gazing - 10 December 2012
Speed limits and driving - 17 December 2012
Tracy Island and Mallorca - 28 December 2012
Trafico: changing a driving licence - 29 December 2012
Travel fairs - 18 December 2012
Twelve Days Of Christmas for Mallorca - 25 December 2012