Wild Horses

Twelve high-ranking officials and two civil servants from eleven municipalities across Mallorca are implicated in a scandal related to false documentation centred on land in Ses Salines. It is a bizarre case involving a horse-riding club, and the officials include four mayors, five former mayors, one former mayoress and two other representatives, one of whom is still in position. All the officials come from one party - the Partido Popular (PP). They are all due to take their places in the dock today as the "caso caballistas (case of the horsemen)" is heard. Neither Alcúdia nor Pollensa has anyone implicated, you'll doubtless be pleased to learn, but Sa Pobla and Santa Margalida do.

What on earth is going on? The mayor of Llucmajor is facing a three-year stretch for another scandal, the Andratx case has claimed not only the former mayor but other officials, and at the regional government level there is the "money-in-the garden" case, to name but one. The last Balearic administration (PP) is one that seems to have been ripe with less-than-fully-legit procedures.

The hope is that the succession of scandals will finally bring to a head and to an end the corruption that appears to bedevil or to have bedevilled local Mallorca politics. One expresses the hope, but then one receives a knowing look. Scratch the surface, and the fear is that it is all around.

Why is that some mayors, and it does seem to be mainly mayors, appear to be incapable of acting with propriety? Are they out of control? I am greatly in favour of local mayors and local democracy, but when all trust in such a system evaporates in a collusion of false documents or some fraud, what is the point of it? It is not just that trust is destroyed, it sends out a rotten message, and believe me there are any number here who will willingly receive that message and enact it accordingly.

One can search for different reasons. Perhaps it's to do with competence, or the lack thereof, or with weak personalities, or with nepotism and the influence of "networks" and families. Maybe it's all these things. What qualifications do many of these mayors bring to their position? Is there any such thing as a fit-and-proper test? And where are the checks and balances? The town halls could do with a dose of external audit or of some monitoring body comprising people from outside the municipality. Except that would succeed only in slowing up decision-making and adding to bureaucracy and costs. But maybe something like this is necessary in order to create confidence in a system that at times is open to ridicule. Perhaps some areas of town hall responsibility also need attention. Anything to do with land, and so often these cases are to do with land, should be hived off and placed with an independent island commission. The particular sadness of this current scandal, however, is that it was island-wide; it was not a case of one rotten borough, and the common link is that of a political party.

While the history of the Civil War is always told as a narrative of the clash between left and right and of Republican and Nationalist, it should not be overlooked that one of Franco's key aims was the destruction of what he saw as an unworkable party system. There were plenty, once democracy and the monarchy were restored, who argued that Spain could never operate a democratic system. I daresay such voices still exist. But they were and are wrong. Nationally, the democracy has matured, but it is at local level that it remains in an infancy of pettiness and occasional petty or grander theft that seems to refuse to want to grow up. One hopes that all the rottenness has been rooted out. Otherwise those old voices are likely to become louder.


THE CATALAN DICTIONARY
Now, remember what I was saying about that free dictionary, the one with the Sunday copy of "dBalears" (24 November: Cool For Cats). I admit I had forgotten all about it, but the publicity in "The Bulletin" had clearly done something of the trick. At the newsagents yesterday, who should I bump into but Jamie from Foxes, and he was in pursuit of extending his multi-linguistic capabilities by becoming the proud owner of the Catalan-English dictionary. You see, I'm not always right. Here was one Brit committed to availing himself of Grup Serra's generosity in seeking to be able to explain that the cat is indeed under the table - in Catalan. So, Jamie asks, where is it? The newspaper, that is. We look around. It is not on the normal racks. Eventually, we spy three copies to the side of the main counter. Three copies with three pocket dictionaries for what would be pretty damn small pockets. Too small, thinks I. I'll do with the one I've got. Jamie, however, is determined that his language education demands a copy of the paper and its wee gift. The only problem was ... he hadn't ordered it. Only three copies of the paper and they had been reserved. Where was it explained that you had to reserve your copy? I don't remember that. If there were only three, they are not exactly banging out copies of the dictionary or of the newspaper. In the highly unlikely event that anyone reading this wants a copy of the Catalan to German or to French dictionaries that are to appear on subsequent Sundays, might I suggest you head off to the newsagents sharpish and bang in your order. Meantime, if they ever repeat the exercise, might it just be possible to make it clear that you can't just turn up with your euro or two and walk away with the prized dictionary.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Four Tops (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StwKWpMI9R8). Today's title - one of the greatest of all time.

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