Mariano In The Clouds

By my calculation and at the rate of one every six months, there will have been a total of eight pointless general elections by the time things get round to what should be the general election to decide the next general election. Confused? You have every right to be. As the current legislature (non-functioning, acting, caretaking, call it what you want) should extend until the end of 2019, there is ample time for them to have had eight elections in all. I can only but hope that this is what transpires. What a fabulous achievement it would be to go through the entire period of a legislature without a result. I feel we should all be cheering them on. Come on fellas (and ladies), you can do it. Do it for Spain. Bravo! Olé! There goes another failed election. Only another five to go.

This is what you get in an era of "new politics" in Spain, characterised by the emergence of a couple of upstarts like Churches and the little C of the C's (respectively Pablo and Albert). The new politics in fact mean no politics; or none that involve actually forming a government that is. As a consequence, Super Mariano can have his wish granted to continue ad infinitum: Honorary Life Prime Minister (President) forever.

I know it would spoil the fun of there being an election every six months, but why doesn't Mazza put a stop to the whole thing by decreeing that all political parties apart from the PP are to be banned? That way there wouldn't need to be the inconvenience of elections. As he's already confirming himself as PM (president) for life, just announce he's going to be a dictator. I mean, it's not as though there haven't been precedents, and Mazza's the only one of the Four Great Leaders who is ancient enough to remember the good old days of political assassination and packing dissidents off to labour camps. Plus, he does of course come from Galicia. And we all know who else came from Galicia.

On balance it's probably unlikely that Super would take such a bold step, meaning - with any luck - that we can indeed have our eight elections to be followed by a ninth with a similar outcome. Mazza, meanwhile, has signalled that there may be some innovation to come with these elections. The next one, he has suggested, could be held on Christmas Day. Why not opt for Christmas Eve and shift the polling booths to churches? There wouldn't be any Podemos sorts voting if they were expected to enter a church that wasn't one of their glorious leader. It would be a PP landslide. Mind you, a Christmas Eve or even a Christmas Day election would cause havoc with the King's address to the nation, to say nothing of his family holidays. Again.

While the royal jollies in Majorca were disrupted because the King was forced to have go through the motions related to the last failed election, someone who was having his own jollies was Mariano. As an alternative to last year's photo opp of swimming in some river in Galicia, Super took himself off to a place called Babia in León. "Here I feel at home," he told reporters. "Being in Babia is one of the things I like most."

Which would be all well and good if it weren't for the fact that the phrase "estar en Babia" is an idiom to mean having one's head in the clouds. So what fantasies was Mazza dreaming up in Babia? Who can possibly tell? Was his arrival in Babia evidence of a divorcing from reality? PSOE's Antonio Pradas insisted that Mariano should get his head out of the clouds forthwith as the little C of the C's had a proposal on the table. It was, by the way, reassuring to note that Pradas didn't have his head in the clouds and was speaking in Benalmadena, so down with the general tourist hordes and avoiding any Irish hitmen who happened to be on the loose.

When Mariano finally re-emerged, Albert's proposal of some form of governmental marriage seemed possible and then not possible. Which has been the story ever since the first election. On it goes. Here's to all those further elections.