In Too Deep?: The minister for diving

I feel sorry for Rafael Bosch. It can't be easy being named after a German electrical-goods manufacturer and so having an appellation which suggests that you should be organised, highly efficient and run on time. It becomes even less easy when you manage to make a Bosch botch of things.

Bosch is the Balearics education and culture minister. He also has the dubious honour of being the government's spokesperson, meaning that he is the government's patsy, its fall guy. Whenever he is wheeled out in front of the press, he is left exposed while Count Dracula, the president, lurks in his lair, licking the blood of his innocent colleague-victim and smirking at his misfortune and squirming embarrassment.

Bosch is the government's Explanationfinder-General, its justifier, its spinner. Nice Sr. Bosch, forever cast in the role of governmental moderate, the pleasant, acceptable face of Balearics capitalism and policy-making, thrown to the media wolves as Bauzá sinks his fangs into whatever cut he can make, as the vice-president and finance minister Aguiló emerges periodically from the darkness to issue further edicts of ever more outrageous tax-raising, and as the tourism minister Delgado scurries and scuttles between and in and out of skirting-boards, popping his head out now and then before disappearing for months on end.

The spokesperson duties have been coming thick and fast for Sr. Bosch, and in performing them it hasn't always been certain that he has been on-message. The government's withdrawal from the Ramon Llull Institute was apparently for financial reasons, or so Bauzá had implied. Bosch has said it was for political reasons, which is what everyone knew to be the case.

He finds himself in the midst of a Partido Popular media storm, new corruption allegations attaching themselves to the mayor of Inca, Rafael Torres, the speaker of the Balearic parliament, Pere Rotger, and the former and briefly secretary of the party, José María Rodríguez. This is scandal in the good, old-fashioned tradition of political scandal in the Balearics, but Bosch, normally used to commenting on news in that he tries and explains what on earth the government is up to, now finds that he is the news and in the midst of a media storm as great if not greater than that closing in on the PP because of the corruption accusations.

Bosch and the minister for the environment, Biel Company, have both been found to have been making summer visits to the island of Cabrera. In themselves, these visits are absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. However, both ministers are being accused of having made private trips using public funds. To make matters worse, there are suggestions of gorging on lobster and washing it down with Moët, all at the taxpayer's expense. Bosch has said that his trips were for educational purposes, and he has been seen diving in the waters around Cabrera apparently as part of putting together an educational video.

Unfortunately for Bosch, no one much is buying his explanation. There has never been, or so it would seem, any budget for the making of this video. Bosch has said that he has been looking for a sponsor, which is odd for an education minister who was meant to be undertaking a trip for educational purposes. And as the story unfolds and the clouds of the media storm darken, more is emerging, for example the fact that two public employees had to be paid for overtime while accompanying Bosch and Company. This - the overtime - is not in line with Bauzá austerity policy.

The president, not entirely out of the woods because of the supposed incompatibility of his business affairs, hasn't exactly been rushing to voice his support for Bosch, who is therefore increasingly being cast adrift. One could understand if Bosch, who has to defend government policies, might feel slightly let down. But the Bauzá presidency is of course all about clean politics, which is why there are corruption allegations surrounding individuals associated with the current administration.

This is a government fast giving the impression of drowning. Bosch is one of the more likable figures in government, Company the most popular minister (according to a recent poll anyway). Yet here they are, embroiled in a ridiculous affair coming on top of the corruption allegations, the president's own embarrassment over his business affairs and the loss of two health ministers in under four months.

The resignation of both ministers has been called for in certain quarters. Either or both may yet decide to resign, even if the affair is relatively minor in the scale of things. Bosch may not be in so deep that he can't escape the consequences of his watery hole. Or maybe he is simply out of his depth. Sadly, he wouldn't be the only one.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.