Mesquida For President!

Joan Mesquida would like to be the president of the Balearics. He made his desire known at a conference speech celebrating business studies at the Centro Universitari Ariany (which isn't in Ariany but in Palma).

Mesquida is one of Mallorca's foremost politicians, which isn't difficult as there aren't many who are foremost. He has held positions in the Balearic Government and in national government; he was, for example, tourism secretary of state under Zapatero. He is, apart from former president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich, the one member of the PSIB wing of the PSOE national party about whom one can say that weight or gravitas is carried. PSOE in the Balearics is otherwise populated with lightweights.

This said, does the Balearics political class deal with heavyweights? There are some who have knocked around the corridors in Madrid as well as Mesquida and there are plenty who have been prominent in Mallorca for years. However, being given some government position or having longevity do not necessarily equate to being any good; there are too many suspicions that politicians in Mallorca and Spain rise to the top for reasons unrelated to ability.

The impression is given that, because of the various arms of government in Mallorca, the pool from which leading politicians can be picked is wide. It is wide but it is also shallow. For instance, being a local mayor isn't any real qualification, as mayors are often selected who shouldn't be mayors. They get the jobs thanks to the nature of the system of proportional representation and thanks to connections within the community. 

There are mayors, though, who do move on to higher office; the current president, José Ramón Bauzá is an example. A criticism levelled at him, however, has been that he is inexperienced and was a mere mayor of Marratxí before becoming president. True though this is, political leaders have to come from somewhere. It might seem like a Premier League club plucking a striker from Championship obscurity in order to lead the line, but in Mallorcan politics you can't transfer a Merkel or even a Zapatero to put on the number-nine shirt.

Nevertheless, it is this inexperience which, however good or not good Bauzá is, reinforces opinion that he lacks standing and that, as a consequence, he owes his position to devotion to a Partido Popular national cause. It remains to be seen where, if anywhere, his future political career may lead, but he will forever be a hostage to a PP anti-regionalist fortune; he will never shake this off.

Mesquida tossing his hat into the presidential ring, if only tentatively, is significant. He does have standing. For the socialists in the Balearics, he would bring experience, recognition and a voice that would demand being listened to. At a time when the governing party is listing badly under the pressure of the various storms it faces, the Balearics can ill afford to have a main opposition party that is as rudderless and as inept and ill-equipped to oppose as PSOE is.

Mesquida took the occasion of his speech to ram home the message about Bauzá's inexperience and that of his governmental colleagues. He accused them of having been daydreaming when budgets were being allocated to the regions; hence why the Balearics have fared badly. He also attacked the new tax to be imposed on hire cars, a tax that he had dismissed when he was part of the regional government because it wouldn't have raised a great deal. Instead he helped to give the Balearics the eco-tax which, had it not been dropped by the Matas PP government, would now be bringing the Balearics much-needed financial relief.

This support of the eco-tax, and you would expect him to defend it, will certainly not be echoed in some quarters, but it chimes with what I have had to say about a tourist tax in the Balearics and about the car-hire tax. If tax there has to be, then it is better to think big and not fanny around.

It is the eco-tax, though, which may well be Mesquida's Achilles heel. He accepts that it is nigh on impossible to get consensus for such a tax, by which he means that the hoteliers would be against it. Were he to be PSOE's local white knight, riding in to rescue the poor damsels who are currently running it (and failing), he would have to confront the armies of the black knights of the hotels. There again, the hotels don't constitute the whole electorate, though the electorate needs to be convinced that PSOE might offer a meaningful alternative come the next elections. Formerly responsible in his different posts for the Guardia Civil, for finance and for tourism, Mesquida does at least represent experience. He would certainly make a better fist of challenging the inexperienced Bauzá than the current PSOE leadership is.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.