What a difference a few days make. A look forward to what 2014 might bring has changed as a result of Carlos Delgado's resignation. Before the resignation one could have predicted a rocky but nonetheless unswerving year for President Bauzá. With the resignation the scenarios shift. They will still be rocky but they might be less rocky or rockier still.
I have suggested that Delgado's departure might mean that the Partido Popular is looked upon with less animosity. The cheers that went up when his resignation was announced had comparatively little to do with his day job as tourism minister. They were to do with Delgado the dogmatic defender of Castilian, the arch "españolista" in the Bauzá administration and the philosophical champion of anti-regionalism.
Bauzá must know that he has a problem with the government's stance on Catalan and with its indifference towards regionalism. With Delgado out of the way, he could take the opportunity to soften this stance and so reduce the animosity. There will be many in his party (and formerly in his party) who will be urging him to do so, not least those who were helpful to him in the past. The dislike for Delgado was what prompted certain grandees, now disaffected, to support Bauzá at the last leadership election.
These grandees might have been naïve, but they hadn't anticipated that the former mayor of Marratxí would turn into Delgado Mark II. One-time backers of Bauzá, Jaume Font and Antoni Pastor, pro-Catalan and pro-regionalism, have both fled the PP; the first voluntarily, the second because he was excommunicated. Of those who haven't fled, old-school sorts such as Pere Rotger, Cristofal Soler and Gabriel Cañellas who were of a PP regionalist bent, have looked on as previous moderation has given way to radicalism. Cañellas didn't say so directly in his recent address at the PP's annual awards, but it was clear what his metaphors meant. Jeroni Salom, the party's president, has been less than fulsome in his praise of Bauzá. Mayors have fallen out with Bauzá over language and even over the new casino - Isern in Palma at any rate. His opponents now begin to appear as though they are a small army preparing for battle.
There are concerns that Bauzá is damaged goods and that his candidacy for president in 2015 would be harmful to the PP. He remains odds-on to be the candidate, but the mutterings are growing louder. Change might be in the air, and with Delgado, the president's ideological soul mate, having taken himself off to find richer pastures outside politics, the Bauzáists (or should that be Delgadoists) are deprived of their guiding light and look increasingly vulnerable. Bauzá can go one of two ways. He can soften and enjoy a relatively smooth ride. Or he can be unmoved or harden and face potential revolution. It is unlikely to be the former. He can't backtrack on Catalan, teaching or the law of symbols. Were he to, then he would be damaged beyond the repair of lost credibility.
Bauzá can at least draw on the support of his government inner circle, but events during 2012 and 2013 have made his cabinet one which comprises lightweights who owe their positions to patronage. Whatever one thought of Delgado, he was a politician of some substance, and so were Pep Aguiló and Rafael Bosch, both sacked in May. Who can Bauzá now call upon? A political hack at tourism (one who, however, might stick to the task of tourism rather than be involved in running the government show); Mrs. Malaprop, Joana Camps, out of her depth at education; Marti Sansaloni, last man standing at the health ministry following two resignations, and heavily criticised over his insensitivity regarding the Alpha Pam affair; Antonio Gómez, originally minister to the president (a sort of without portfolio function) and now the vice-president, who recently attacked the one-time PP member, Antoni Pastor, calling him a turncoat and a "disgrace" to the Balearic Parliament. Bauzá was forced to reprimand him.
There is a general view that Bauzá has managed to lose people of substance and to surround himself with mediocrity. And it shouldn't be overlooked that he himself was totally new to the upper echelons of politics when he became president. There is an unnerving sense of a government bound together by a radical programme that causes division within local society and by gratitude to its leader but which lacks experience, wisdom and savvy. Rocky or rockier still? I'll opt for the latter.
Index for December 2013
Algaida and tourism development plans - 8 December 2013
Balearics identity - 3 December 2013
Carlos Delgado's resignation - 28 December 2013, 31 December 2013
Catalan Lands don't exist - 12 December 2013
Catalonia's referendum - 13 December 2013
Christmas songs - 17 December 2013
Citizen Safety Law - 1 December 2013
Corruption in Spain - 6 December 2013
Eurovegas - 15 December 2013
Funds for resort modernisation - 18 December 2013
GOB: forty years - 9 December 2013
Gotmar improvements - 26 December 2013
Holiday rentals - 11 December 2013
Jaime Martinez, tenth Balearics tourism minister - 29 December 2013
Law of Symbols - 20 December 2013
Mallorca/Spain quiz of the year - 25 December 2013, 27 December 2013
Marca España decline - 10 December 2013
Non-hotel sector organisation - 27 December 2013
Quotes of the year - 24 December 2013
Paramount theme park - 19 December 2013
Pardons asked for in corruption cases - 16 December 2013
Partido Popular Larus awards - 23 December 2013
PISA survey and Balearics educational performance - 4 December 2013
Ramon Llull and the national education ministry - 14 December 2013
Rural tourism - 22 December 2013
Spain's tourism promotion - 30 December 2013
Tax breaks for hotels opening all year - 7 December 2013
Thomson Scene brand - 5 December 2013
Tourism season benefited hoteliers only - 2 December 2013
Urban tourism - 21 December 2013
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