Vote For The Monkey

You know those poll things you get on websites. A simple question or a list of alternatives; click here to register your vote. I don't normally bother, but there were two on one particular news website that made me do so. The simple question was - do you think Magalluf will be cleaned up this summer (or words to that effect)? A daft question. No, I duly clicked, and joined the 80% who thought likewise. The more difficult question, the list of alternatives, was and still is - which candidate for the presidency (of the Balearics) generates the most confidence?

These questions probably don't make you think too closely, but this one did. When the list of names was presented, and the choice had to be made to combine any of the candidates with "confidence", clicking was not easy. Here is the list: José Ramón Bauzá (PP): Francina Armengol (PSOE); Biel Barceló (Més); Alberto Jarabo (Podemos); Juan Antonio Horrach (UPyD); Jaume Font (Proposta per les Illes. i.e. El Pi); No candidate (Ciutadans, aka Ciudadanos); No candidate (Guanyem); None of the above.

I recognise that most of you living in Mallorca will not be able to vote for any of them, even if you were inclined to, but such is the idiosyncrasy of Spanish voting as permitted under the Maastricht Treaty: an EU foreign resident can, for example, vote for a regional Scottish Parliament but not for a regional parliament in Spain. Hey ho.

But able to vote or not, one of those listed above will, come June, be ordained as the next president of the Balearics. The closer I looked at the list and the closer I thought about each of them, the more I shivered, especially when it occurred to me that maybe it was better the devil you know. How could I? Bauzá? I had to be kidding.

As it happens, Bauzá was well ahead. As of Tuesday evening, he had 32% of the 2291 votes cast. Now, the website in question is that of a newspaper with right-wing leanings, but it certainly doesn't follow that its readers are right-wing. I'm not, but I read it, just as I read "The Telegraph", but wouldn't opt for Cameron. And there was confirmation of the spectrum of political views with the other votes. Like, for example, 11% for Biel Barceló of the Més Majorcan socialists-nationalists-greens or - in second place - 19% for Guanyem, a party with no candidate, but a party nonetheless that is hard to differentiate from Podemos, whose Alberto Jarabo only had 6%.

I suspect that there may have been a touch of social media-led support for Guanyem, but if there wasn't, for a party about which even less is known than Podemos and one without a named candidate to then come second is a fairly damning indictment of the alternatives on offer. Damning but not entirely surprising.

The lowest percentage, one point behind the UPyD guy and Jarabo, was that for Francina Armengol. In normal circumstances, you would expect PSOE to be doing much better and for there to be greater confidence in her. But circumstances aren't normal. PSOE have failed to make any impression since their dismal showing in 2011. They're not a spent force, but they are a force that has been undermined by new arrivals and the absence of a narrative that hints at their renewal.

Despite this lousy polling, despite this lack of confidence, Armengol may well become president at the head of raggle-taggle coalition. The Bauzá message at present is that only the PP can guarantee stability (in a political sense). A pact of the left would not inspire confidence is what he is saying. And the sad fact is that he is probably right. As I've mentioned before, I could see a coalition collapsing under the weight of efforts to grab power by the competing components and of its incompatible ideologies.

But I had to ask myself again. Bauzá? For all that he may have presided over something of an economic recovery (and he does deserve some credit, considering what he inherited), he has otherwise caused division in Balearic society and within his own party. He has failed to, for instance, right the wrongs of the financing from Madrid. He has abrogated any real responsibility for tourism, throwing the island's principal industry open to narrow private-sector interests and doing little to expand the attractiveness of the islands for any more than a handful of months in summer.

Confidence? Confidence in any of this lot? My click hovered over one or two before I finally decided. It was a pity that Micky the Monkey wasn't among the options. He would probably be as good as any. As he wasn't, I became part of the 0%, the not even registering eight who voted for None of the above.