Pastoral Care: The Partido Popular's woes

The Partido Popular is the natural party of Balearic government. Since autonomy and the creation of the first government in 1983, it has been the dominant party, save for the two periods of administration under coalitions led by the socialists (PSOE/PSIB). It should regain power in the elections this coming May, but it is doing everything it can to prevent this.

If the PP's leader, José Ramón Bauzá, were a football team manager, he would now face the terraces of his party shouting "you don't know what you're doing". He has managed to alienate different factions, firstly by his policy of selection, secondly by making a pig's ear of the language issue and upsetting the Catalanists, thirdly by seeming to be controlled by the right-wing mayor of Calvia, Carlos Delgado, fourthly by appearing to set the local party on a lurch to the right and one that goes against the notion of regionalism and fifthly by, to the utter amazement of many, overlooking the likes of the mayor of Manacor and the ex-mayor of Inca as candidate for the presidency of the Council of Mallorca in favour of someone called Maria Salom, a member of Congress in Madrid.

It's an impressive charge sheet, one to which can be added the hand of the party centrally in helping to make Bauzá's decisions for him, as with Salom, an apparent lack of openness in selection and an underlying tension of not so much a north-south divide but a Palma-Calvia versus everywhere else schism.

It is this final element that underpins the problems that Bauzá has brought upon himself. It is hardly a new issue. Other parties in Mallorca have faced the same internal antagonisms caused by the dominance of the Palma-Calvia axis. The nationalist Unió Mallorquina (UM) party, undergoing one of its regular periods of bloodletting, did this in spectacular style some while back when "choosing" Palma man Miguel Nadal to succeed Maria Antònia Munar as party leader. Its leadership election saw the then mayor of Alcúdia, Miguel Ferrer, vanquished at the end of a process that had at one point seen Nadal take his bat home in a fit of pique, only to return to the fray and be anointed by Munar.

The polemic within the PP is concerned not only with regionalism in terms of the interests of Mallorca and the islands but also in terms of the towns around the island. Martí Torres, the PP mayor of Santa Margalida has said that the "rest of Mallorca's municipalities should carry as much weight as Palma or Calvia". Other PP mayors in the "comarcas" (regions) have said similar things.

Torres is a supporter of one Antoni Pastor, the mayor of Manacor. Where Bauzá is the ashen-faced manager of the PP, Pastor is a bald-headed refereeing Pierluigi Collina, blowing his whistle on the in-fighting, while also contributing to it, but hoping to bring back some "morals" to the PP. Crucially though, Pastor is the flag-waver for the PP and its regionalist tendency, the left wing of the party which has become disgruntled enough to have suffered a defection to the nationalist UM. The issue of regionalism, bound up in matters to do with language policy, domination or not by Madrid and equality for the towns of Mallorca outside of Palma and Calvia, is the local party's Europe question. It is one that divides the PP down the middle, and Bauzá has proved to so far be incapable of creating unity. Quite the opposite. He has promoted division.

The Palma-Calvia dominance is entirely to be expected. With 70% of the island's population residing in Palma and Calvia it couldn't be anything other. Palma, as the capital, is "serious". It is the centre of commerce as well as government. It is from where and to where you should anticipate the professional and political elite to have emerged and to have gravitated. But the Palma connection has problems. Especially for the PP. The former president Jaume Matas, embroiled in corruption allegations, and the grandfather of Mallorcan politics, Gabriel Cañellas who was not without his own problems when it came to accusations (he was absolved), are both Palma men.

This history should not be underestimated. It colours what is happening in the PP at the moment. It may be under the surface, but it is there all the same. The regions might once have produced some old farmer who got lucky as the local mayor, but they are now bringing forth a new and more professional political class in different parties - the businessman Fornes in Muro, the admirable Llompart in Alcúdia, the impressive Pastor in Manacor.

The old boys' network is still very much at play, especially in the towns around the island. There is still a sense in which politics are the adults' version of playground spats among peers who have grown up with each other. This isn't about to go away, but nevertheless there is a further sense in which some growing up has occurred and that a new political maturity away from the Palma epicentre is bedding in, but is still being pushed onto the subs' bench.

Bauzá threatens to undermine his party through a Palma and Calvia-centric arrogance, one allied to Madrid, and by alienating a coherent and confident left wing in the regions. The goal for election victory in 2011 is wide open, but unless he sets about repairing the damage, the cuddly current president, Francesc Antich, can even now, much against expectation, anticipate stroking home the penalty shoot-out winner.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.