The Politics Of Dancing

Unless you happen to live here, and perhaps even if you do, you might have missed the fact that there is a little local difficulty for the Mallorcan national party (UM - Unió Mallorquina). In brief, the UM's minister for tourism in the Balearic Government sacked two aides (both also, as it happens, from the same party) without getting the ok from his party bosses. Quite why a minister, who one assumes to be responsible in various respects, has to have clearance from a higher authority over his own hiring and firing, I'm not sure, but be that as it may.

Given the coalition nature of Mallorcan politics, the sacking issue has caused something of a rumpus; the UM is part of the Balearic Government headed by the PSOE socialist party. This rumpus, apart from the internal aspect within the UM, has been placed in the political crisis category; at a time of economic difficulty and tourism uncertainty, the politicians should be focussing on these matters rather than their own positions - so it is argued. It is not a crisis; it is nothing of the sort. What it is, is a not untypical occurrence in politics, of an unexpected event then having political capital made out of it by opposition politicians and elements of the media who either have an alternative agenda or simply have nothing better to say. The tourism minister, Francesc Buils, seems to actually enjoy a degree of confidence within the industry he represents; and that is fairly untypical for many politicians, not least Mallorcan ones. For the time being, the minister and the aides have kept their posts (the aides having been bailed out of the dole queues by the party machine which had its collective nose put out of joint by Buils' action). Nevertheless, there is some justification to the argument that the UM should be pulling together rather than apart in helping the government during the present mess.

But what is the UM exactly?

Spanish and Mallorcan politics require coalitions to form governments. These do not always lead to natural bedfellows. The UM is the reason for the PSOE socialists holding ultimate power in Mallorca and the Balearics, yet its philosophy is to the right of centre. The UM is also a fractious band. When a new leader was being sought some months ago, there were three candidates, each representing a different sub-philosophy and - in general - a different region of the island. One of these candidates, Miquel Nadal, even took his bat home at one point and abandoned his candidature, only to make a comeback and finally become the party leader. His now second-in-command is another of those candidates, Miquel Ferrer, the mayor of Alcúdia, who, having failed in his leadership bid, was then to be photographed with a gritted smile through his gap teeth. The two Micks are not necessarily bosom buddies. Ferrer, it's not hard to imagine, looks to drop bombs from the north onto the southern Palma heartland of Nadal who could thank the outgoing leader for being her "boy" in securing the gig. The leadership election, though it may have been partly an ideological scrap, was as much about local power bases on the island; it was rather akin to warlords vying for mastery.

It is the case that any political party represents different strands of thinking - the "broad church" cliché - and these strands cause internal conflicts. But these are no more apparent in parties whose very existences are open to some question. What actually is the point of the UM? The simple answer, as implicit in its name, is that it is a national party - Mallorca for Mallorcans, or something like that. However, the UM does not possess a central rallying cry. It is not like, for example, the SNP in Scotland which has long held independence as a core objective. There is no independence movement in Mallorca or in the Balearics. The island has traditionally been conservative with both a small and a large "c". All the more surprising, therefore, that the socialists made gains during the last national elections. Perhaps this was a blip or perhaps it was an indication of a greater acceptance of more liberal social policies across the country that the PSOE represented. If so, it leaves the UM in even more a state of political vacuum than it already was.

The main raison d'être for the UM is one of preservation, that of small-c conservatism; this is preservation of language and tradition. It's a kind of politics of dancing; keep the ball de bot and the other folky stuff and the rest can look after itself. But for any political party in a modern-day economy, these are marginal matters. More important is the preservation of the island, and here the conflict of the inner mindset of the party causes the party's potential atrophy. By inclination, it may be pro market developments in advancing the island's economy but it is hamstrung by its disinclination to sanction anything that is seen to detract from the island "way of life" (define and discuss!). It tries to tread a balance between these competing objectives and ends up motionless.

In what is essentially a two-party democracy, which Spain, like the UK, is, other parties, including the regional ones, of which there are many, need an overarching sense of purpose. Though conservative, the Mallorcan people are not, as a majority, overly exercised by some of the marginal interests of the UM; the language debate, for example, is far less important to the average Mallorcan than it is portrayed by politicians. Yet the UM manages, at local level, to set an agenda through language that is both parochial and even in contravention of what is meant to occur. I was told a story about a complaint to the mayor of Pollensa regarding official documents being produced only in Catalan, as opposed to both Catalan and Castilian. This was met with the response that it was done this way because of nationalist pressure. It was a curious response in some ways, as the mayor, Joan Cerdà, is himself a UM member; he was a supporter of Ferrer's nomination as party leader. Maybe Cerdà is a realist, but he appears to bow to his party's myopia. Such things as the use only of Catalan may play well with a minority, but ultimately it appears rather petty and typically insular. Again, one comes back to the absence of some form of nationalist narrative that would make the UM a meaningful party, in the style, say, of the SNP. But this is beyond the UM as there is no demand for it, and the party knows that.

In a way, the UM is a political party by "me-too" default. It has been in existence since 1982, created, in part, as a result of the then collapsing national Union of the Democratic Centre (the shortlived post-Franco coalition that formed the initial democratic government) and also as the consequence of regional autonomy for the Balearics. It was as though, because there was regional government, it was felt there had to be a regional party. That it has had success is more the result of its merely being there as opposed to its serving any real need. The UM has not been a party of extremes, yet it has not been unknown to the occasional xenophobic outburst. "The Bulletin", in Ray Fleming's often interesting trawl through the paper's archives, refers to a comment nine years ago by María Antonia Munar, then head of the Mallorca council, now speaker of the Balearic Parliament and the former leader of the UM who supported Nadal's accession. She complained then of an "invasion of foreigners", and she seemed to have more in mind tourists than the more recent wave of immigrant workers and those from the expanded European Union.

The danger of a nationalist party that always lurks is of a shift further from the centre. Current economic problems, allied to issues regarding immigration, can be the fertile breeding ground of extremism. This is not to say that the UM would, as a party, countenance such a move - it is a party coloured by moderation - but it remains a possibility and would also address the apparent absence of an obvious narrative. The good news perhaps is that Mallorcan politics, like Spanish politics, does not tend to breed charismatic politicians. Nationally, since Gonzalez, there have been none. Locally, there are none. But it only takes one with a populist agenda.

For the time being, the UM acts as an alternative in local politics. As such, this is no bad thing, while it makes politics more homely for those who perceive the PSOE and PP as remote Madrid-based leviathans. It is also no bad thing that it seeks to defend things like the language, albeit that it can do so in a cack-handed fashion. There is nothing at all wrong with a local, nationalist party if its purpose is progressive and if it offers an agenda with which the franchised majority can empathise. But the Buils affair makes it look silly, as did the divisiveness of the leadership election. One is tempted to conclude that, at a time when the party should be pulling with rather than against, the very nature of the economic crisis consuming Mallorca demonstrates the party's inability to effect anything meaningful, save for its own wrangling.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Who (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0i7c8tjlIs). Today's title - one-hit wonders.

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