So Many Miquels: Tourism secretary

You have to be a tad careful when sifting through all the information as it applies to Miquel Ramis, and that's because there are so many Miquel Ramises and more than just one of them are involved with the hotel industry, or have been implicated in cases that have required their presence in front of m'lud, or both.

The particular Miquel Ramis who is the subject here is not the Miquel Ramis who is the founder and president of Grupotel, the ex-mayor of Muro, disqualified from public office for ten years and mentioned in dispatches regarding the ongoing investigations into the affairs of former regional president Jaume Matas.

The Miquel Ramis, for our purposes, is the Miquel Ramis who was, confusingly enough, born in Muro but who is resident in Alcúdia, a former mayor of Alcúdia, a member of the family which is the major shareholder in the Alcúdia Beach apartments in Puerto Alcúdia and who came to an agreement in July with a court in Inca which allowed for cases against him, related to the apartments, to be archived. He is also the secretary-general of the Partido Popular in the Balearics and he is being lined up as the probable secretary of state for tourism in the national government.

A curious aspect of Ramis' continuing involvement with the PP locally is that President Bauzá made such a big thing about there not being any candidates at the regional elections who had any legal cases hanging over them. So much of a big thing did he make of it that this was one reason why there was a split in the party. Jaume Font had been implicated, albeit that his case was archived well before the elections. Nevertheless, Bauzá's stance, along with stances on other matters, was sufficient to suggest to Font that he was better off outside the PP and in charge of his own party.

There was perhaps a hint of double standards in that Ramis was secretary-general at the time of Bauzá's elevation to the PP leadership and beyond. He has recently been a candidate at different elections and was voted into the national parliament as a Balearics deputy. Now he might find himself with added responsibility in Madrid.

The closeness between Bauzá and Mariano Rajoy had led to some speculation that Bauzá might himself have been given a post in the Rajoy administration. To his credit, Bauzá dismissed the idea; it wouldn't have looked good to have walked away from the presidency only a few months into the job.

Nevertheless, the closeness may well explain why Ramis is in the frame for the secretary of state post, and were he to be chosen, there would be a sense of continuity, as the outgoing secretary was the Mallorcan Joan Mesquida who has gone on record as saying that he hopes his successor will also be from the Balearics.

Notwithstanding the little legal difficulties he found himself in, Ramis, widely regarded as having been a good mayor of Alcúdia, would represent an interesting appointment, as it would give the two island tourism regions of Spain - the Balearics and the Canaries - a dominance of national tourism policy. The new minister for industry, energy and tourism, and thus potentially Ramis's boss, is José Manuel Soria, a former president of the Canaries.

Soria, on being appointed minister, said that the Canaries "will have singular attention", but he added that the Balearics would not be forgotten as the islands also need "special attention" because of the importance of tourism.

Though many in the tourism industry had called on Rajoy to appoint a minister for tourism alone, so raising the importance of tourism around the cabinet table, the necessity for a dedicated minister is questionable. So long as the multi-tasking supremo, Soria, has a feel for tourism, which he will have, and there is a secretary-general of sufficient competence and experience, a minister is probably unnecessary.

The question is whether Ramis really fits the bill. In one respect, he does have an advantage over Mesquida, whose previous background in office was that of responsibilities in the Balearics for finance and the Guardia Civil. On the face of it, a combination of Soria and Ramis would look to be positive for the Balearics, but not everyone might agree, as the minutiae of the tourism industry won't allow them to agree.

Ramis has business interests in hotels. Which are the two regions of Spain most subject to the hotel lobby and which therefore are the strongest opponents of alternative accommodation, e.g. holiday lets? The Canaries and the Balearics.


Moving on ... Christmas 2011 -
Time, I guess, to forget all the matters that bother us for the rest of the year. If only for a day or two. A happy Christmas to all the many of you who come here every day or less frequently, and enormous thanks to the many who correspond with me and/or who provide support through appreciation (and criticism) as well as through invaluable feedback and information.

As has become traditional, here is the blog's Christmas song. Not that it is particularly Christmassy, just that somehow it captures a spirit. Plus there are the heavenly stars. Laura Veirs.





Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.


(Please note: As with other areas of the media, especially the broadcast media, I shall be taking a rest for a day or two but will be handing over to a guest blogger tomorrow. And she may even still be with us on Boxing Day. So I hope you will send a special Christmas welcome to Leonora Madd. Tomorrow - on the blog.)

I Love All The Bickering - Muro's former mayor

An era of political bickering has come to an end. So says "The Diario" in a comment related to the case of the former mayor of Muro, Miquel Ramis, who has been disqualified from public office for a period of ten years. The bickering refers to years of squabbles between Ramis and the most recently retired mayor, Jaume Perelló, while the basis for the disqualification surrounds a charge of "prevaricación" levelled at Ramis in respect of - you might have guessed it - planning and construction infraction. The "prevaricación" is a common charge in Spain. It means basically what the word does in English - a transgression through concealment. There are other public figures who have been accused thus, such as Joan Mesquida, now the national government secretary of state for tourism, but formerly the director-general of the Guardia in the Balearics.

Without boring you with the details of the case against Ramis, it boiled down to the involvement of a construction company that was owned by a partner of Ramis's in the Alcúdia Suite hotel apartments in Playa de Muro. Ramis is the president of Grupotel, of which the Alcúdia Suite is a part. The political dimension was the rivalry between the Unió Mallorquina party, of which Perelló was a member, and the Convergència Democràtica Murera (CDM), a local Muro off-shoot of the Partido Popular, and a party founded by ... Miquel Ramis. Perelló was involved with the charges against Ramis, "crossing swords" with Ramis in tribunals investigating planning infractions. The "prevarication" actually occurred in 2006, when Ramis was mayor, even if the origins of the case went back to 1997.

The current mayor of Muro, Martí Fornés, said after the disqualification was announced that it was a "pity that a small stain" should have blotted the reputation of "a great mayor in many ways". Ramis may indeed have been a great mayor in many ways, but one might recall that Fornés had the full backing of Ramis in assuming the mayoral position - from Perelló - and that Fornés was once finance director of Grupotel. One might believe that a ten-year disqualification is excessive if the case against Ramis revolved around something that was merely indicative of a small stain.

The bickering was more than just a case of lobbing accusations and political spats. It was fomented against a background of personal fiefdoms, of who - if you like - runs, or ran, the town. It was good, old-fashioned local politics at its best, or worst if you prefer. But this still rumbles on in the sense that not everyone in Muro is necessarily enamoured of the golf development, prime movers behind which are Grupotel. A curiosity, as "The Diario" points out, is that Muro is currently governed by a coalition of the CDM, the UM and the Partido Popular, leader of which is Nofre Plomer, another Muro grandee and an old ally of Ramis. Maybe they have been able to put the old bickering to one side, but you wouldn't necessarily bank on it.


Real Mallorca heading for administration
Poor old Real Mallorca. It just gets worse. The club's interim president has taken the first step towards placing the club into administration. A period of three months will now follow a declaration of the club's insolvency before a judge, a period during which the management will seek some accord with its various creditors. If this is unsuccessful, there will be a month's prolongation, at the end of which administration would be the result. The timing of the declaration before the judge is not without significance. The four months would take the process up to the end of the football season. The club may yet avoid relegation on account of its parlous financial position, and relegation would be massively unjust for a team that has performed surprisingly well given the off-field crisis.
The club's president has, meantime, been in discussion with the regional government's president. One outcome of this is that the government may take over as club sponsors. "The Bulletin" referred to this the other day, though it said the "Mallorca government". There is no such thing; it is either the Balearic regional government or the Council of Mallorca. Either way, if any government is going to start piling in with some cash for the club, then it could well be asked what the hell it's playing at. Why should government intervene with a club that has been so mis-managed and which is so poorly supported? It is not a club for the majority of Mallorcans, or anything like it. Nor is it somehow emblematic, in a way that a Barcelona is. The government might perceive some involvement with a new "strategic plan" as a way of garnering electoral support from supporters, but their numbers are hardly great. And one, inevitably, comes back to the question as to why no serious buyer has emerged over the past couple of years. It's because it's not really worth anything, despite the remarkable efforts of the team and the coach Manzano who is almost certain to leave at the end of the season, come what may.

Make the most of it, any football fans in Mallorca. What is left of this season might be your last chance.


Inestur corruption case - arrests
A director general in the current regional government, Antoni Oliver, has been dismissed from the government and arrested by police investigating the allegations of corruption surrounding Inestur. He was previously the managing director of the tourism institute. The director general of tourism promotion at the government, Joan Sastre, has also been detained, as have two businesspeople in Pollensa - owners of Viajes Pollença Balear. Oliver and Sastre are members of which party? Yep, the Unió Mallorquina. Here we go again.

QUIZ
Yesterday: Jon Secada, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yfu9egNOdA. Today's title: "I love all the bickering" comes from someone hugely soulful with big hair.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.