The five Partido Popular councillors at Pollensa town hall will now officially be joined by three councillors from the Convergència who are now part of the merged El Pi party, agreement having been struck between the PP and El Pi. This will, though, still mean that there is a minority administration at the town hall, though it should also mean that there is greater stability.
See more: Ultima Hora
Showing posts with label Convergència. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Convergència. Show all posts
Friday, June 14, 2013
Thursday, February 07, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa town hall pact collapses
Almost inevitably, the pact between the now former La Lliga party and the Partido Popular at Pollensa town hall has collapsed, two of the three councillors from the old La Lliga who had formed the pact having decided to join the opposition. The pact had, in any event, been operating in a minority since the last regional elections, but now it can count on only five PP councillors and one of the ex-La Lliga three. The rupture is the consequence of two factors.
One is the fact that the merger between La Lliga and the Convergència parties in the Balearics was always destined to be problematic in Pollensa on account of ill-feeling between the parties that goes back to the last elections and to Malena Estrany's decision not to join the Convergència but to opt for La Lliga. Estrany and Tomeu Fuster declined to form a merged entity in Pollensa and have since become unaccredited councillors. The third La Lliga councillor, Martí Roca, does not have the same qualms about the merged group. Had Estrany and Fuster agreed to come into a merged party, then, adding the two Convergència councillors, they would, in theory, have created a new pact of ten councillors, i.e. a majority.
The second factor is that Estrany and Fuster have been critical, as have other councillors, of the apparent inertia on behalf of mayor Tomeu Cifre to come to a working solution for the administration of the council. Cifre has been insisting that a pact and therefore administrative team can be re-made, but now that Estrany and Fuster have gone into opposition, he is left with few options. He could bring the two Convergència councillors into the administration. This would bring the pact number back to eight, still a minority as it had previously been. But there would be a genuine issue as to how democratic this might be. The Convergència, though it secured two councillor posts in 2011, received only 9.5% of the vote two years ago, well down on La Lliga with 15.8%. Other parties in Pollensa, notably the Alternativa and PSOE, which had a higher percentage of the vote than the Convergència, would almost certainly not join a pact.
Increasingly, it is looking as though mayor Cifre may face a vote of no confidence, and as the opposition has suddenly become stronger, his position would be insecure.
One is the fact that the merger between La Lliga and the Convergència parties in the Balearics was always destined to be problematic in Pollensa on account of ill-feeling between the parties that goes back to the last elections and to Malena Estrany's decision not to join the Convergència but to opt for La Lliga. Estrany and Tomeu Fuster declined to form a merged entity in Pollensa and have since become unaccredited councillors. The third La Lliga councillor, Martí Roca, does not have the same qualms about the merged group. Had Estrany and Fuster agreed to come into a merged party, then, adding the two Convergència councillors, they would, in theory, have created a new pact of ten councillors, i.e. a majority.
The second factor is that Estrany and Fuster have been critical, as have other councillors, of the apparent inertia on behalf of mayor Tomeu Cifre to come to a working solution for the administration of the council. Cifre has been insisting that a pact and therefore administrative team can be re-made, but now that Estrany and Fuster have gone into opposition, he is left with few options. He could bring the two Convergència councillors into the administration. This would bring the pact number back to eight, still a minority as it had previously been. But there would be a genuine issue as to how democratic this might be. The Convergència, though it secured two councillor posts in 2011, received only 9.5% of the vote two years ago, well down on La Lliga with 15.8%. Other parties in Pollensa, notably the Alternativa and PSOE, which had a higher percentage of the vote than the Convergència, would almost certainly not join a pact.
Increasingly, it is looking as though mayor Cifre may face a vote of no confidence, and as the opposition has suddenly become stronger, his position would be insecure.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa opposition parties concerned by town hall administration
Opposition parties at Pollensa town hall are expressing their concern about the management of the council following the split between the three councillors from La Lliga, two of whom have become independent and one of whom has sided with the merged party, formed between La Lliga and the Convergència.
The division between the three is one aspect of the merger, another is the fact that the Convergència has, through the backdoor, gained influence in the administration that its councillors were not granted at the last election. There should be a new election, something that is difficult to call but not impossible.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
The division between the three is one aspect of the merger, another is the fact that the Convergència has, through the backdoor, gained influence in the administration that its councillors were not granted at the last election. There should be a new election, something that is difficult to call but not impossible.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Friday, December 14, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Estrany refuses to join El Pi party in Pollensa
The divisions between members of the La Lliga and Convergència parties in Pollensa have, as expected, led to deputy mayor Malena Estrany and others from La Lliga leaving the party and therefore refusing to join the merged El Pi party formed by La Lliga and the Convergència. Estrany will now be an independent, but the decision does cause issues for the town hall administration, as indeed does the very formation of El Pi, as the Convergència were not part of the administration.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Regional Differences: Mallorca's political centre
What's the difference between regionalism and nationalism?
I pose the question in the context of Mallorcan/Balearics politics. Nationalism has an unfortunate connotation, one of the extreme right, but this is not what we are talking about in Mallorca. In essence, nationalism and regionalism are one of the same thing. Both ideologies espouse regional government and autonomy (as is currently the case in the Balearics). The principle difference between the two is that nationalism implies a wish for greater independence. Regionalism, on the other hand, is federalism by another name.
Mostly all political parties in the Balearics have a regionalist philosophy, and they include a significant number of Partido Popular supporters and politicians. Of the nationalists, there are two parties, the PSM Mallorcan socialists and the Convergència, the former and disgraced Unió Mallorquina. There is a further nationalism, which is that founded on the notion of the independence of the Catalan lands, one commonly associated with the Republican Left (Esquerra Republicana) and one that has very little popular support.
The Convergència was given a good old kicking at the regional elections last year. Despite its name change, it didn't fool anyone. It was still the corrupt UM. But it has attempted to distance itself from all the former UM politicians who are still being dragged through the courts and to try and re-establish itself as the third force in Mallorcan politics.
In seeking to do so, it has edged towards what may be a formal merger with La Lliga Regionalista. This party is headed by Jaume Font, a former PP politician who fell out with the current leadership over various issues, one of them being attitudes towards regionalism. It fared almost as badly as the Convergència at the last election, but as it was a new party, it was asking a lot for it to have performed any better.
Despite the difference in emphasis between the two parties, there is much common ground. The old UM, and thus the new Convergència, was barely distinguishable from the Partido Popular in many respects, except for the key issue of nationalism. It was, and therefore now is, a centre-right party in terms of many of its policies, and the same applies to Font and La Lliga. Where it did also distinguish itself from the PP was in the fact that it didn't have a nutty wing. The PP in the Balearics generally doesn't have a lunatic right, but nationally it does.
But it is what is perceived as a decidedly rightist agenda on behalf of President Bauzá and one of the local PP's main ideologues, tourism minister Delgado, in their being cool towards regionalism that gives a party of the centre-right with an identifiable regionalist identity the possibility of becoming something of a power. Bauzá's anti-regionalism is his Achilles heel (one of them), as regionalism enjoys popular support.
Could, however, a combined Convergència-La Lliga really hope to make significant inroads into the dominance of the two-party system of the PP and the Balearics version of PSOE? The old UM managed to up to a point, but whether the electorate can ever forgive them, even under a new name, has to be questionable. Much as the leaders of the two parties, Font and the Convergència's Josep Melià, may suggest that they are able to reconcile their ideological difference, a merger would seem like a marriage of convenience between two parties which, by themselves, would in all likelihood remain marginal players. Tensions over that difference might well emerge, just as they have emerged within the PP.
For the type of party Font and Melià envisage to succeed, much would depend upon what happens with the PP in the Balearics. Historically, the local PP has been supportive of regionalism, and the chances are that it might become so again. Were it to, then much of the point of La Lliga in particular would be undermined.
There is a political figure who may well hold the key, and this is Antoni Pastor. Formerly an ally of Font's within the PP, he opted to stick with the PP rather than sign up to La Lliga, and despite his differences with Bauzá, one fancies he will continue to stick with the party. One feels sure he has his eye on the leadership, regardless of his decision not to challenge Bauzá at next month's congress.
Regionalism, as much if not more than the Catalan question, is likely to be a huge factor at the next election (assuming the national PP hasn't scrapped it by then). It is supported by a majority of the population, whereas nationalism isn't, which makes it hard for a united La Lliga-Convergència to present a coherent message, one that would be made even more difficult were Pastor to head a pro-regionalist PP and to drag the party back from its movement off to the right.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
I pose the question in the context of Mallorcan/Balearics politics. Nationalism has an unfortunate connotation, one of the extreme right, but this is not what we are talking about in Mallorca. In essence, nationalism and regionalism are one of the same thing. Both ideologies espouse regional government and autonomy (as is currently the case in the Balearics). The principle difference between the two is that nationalism implies a wish for greater independence. Regionalism, on the other hand, is federalism by another name.
Mostly all political parties in the Balearics have a regionalist philosophy, and they include a significant number of Partido Popular supporters and politicians. Of the nationalists, there are two parties, the PSM Mallorcan socialists and the Convergència, the former and disgraced Unió Mallorquina. There is a further nationalism, which is that founded on the notion of the independence of the Catalan lands, one commonly associated with the Republican Left (Esquerra Republicana) and one that has very little popular support.
The Convergència was given a good old kicking at the regional elections last year. Despite its name change, it didn't fool anyone. It was still the corrupt UM. But it has attempted to distance itself from all the former UM politicians who are still being dragged through the courts and to try and re-establish itself as the third force in Mallorcan politics.
In seeking to do so, it has edged towards what may be a formal merger with La Lliga Regionalista. This party is headed by Jaume Font, a former PP politician who fell out with the current leadership over various issues, one of them being attitudes towards regionalism. It fared almost as badly as the Convergència at the last election, but as it was a new party, it was asking a lot for it to have performed any better.
Despite the difference in emphasis between the two parties, there is much common ground. The old UM, and thus the new Convergència, was barely distinguishable from the Partido Popular in many respects, except for the key issue of nationalism. It was, and therefore now is, a centre-right party in terms of many of its policies, and the same applies to Font and La Lliga. Where it did also distinguish itself from the PP was in the fact that it didn't have a nutty wing. The PP in the Balearics generally doesn't have a lunatic right, but nationally it does.
But it is what is perceived as a decidedly rightist agenda on behalf of President Bauzá and one of the local PP's main ideologues, tourism minister Delgado, in their being cool towards regionalism that gives a party of the centre-right with an identifiable regionalist identity the possibility of becoming something of a power. Bauzá's anti-regionalism is his Achilles heel (one of them), as regionalism enjoys popular support.
Could, however, a combined Convergència-La Lliga really hope to make significant inroads into the dominance of the two-party system of the PP and the Balearics version of PSOE? The old UM managed to up to a point, but whether the electorate can ever forgive them, even under a new name, has to be questionable. Much as the leaders of the two parties, Font and the Convergència's Josep Melià, may suggest that they are able to reconcile their ideological difference, a merger would seem like a marriage of convenience between two parties which, by themselves, would in all likelihood remain marginal players. Tensions over that difference might well emerge, just as they have emerged within the PP.
For the type of party Font and Melià envisage to succeed, much would depend upon what happens with the PP in the Balearics. Historically, the local PP has been supportive of regionalism, and the chances are that it might become so again. Were it to, then much of the point of La Lliga in particular would be undermined.
There is a political figure who may well hold the key, and this is Antoni Pastor. Formerly an ally of Font's within the PP, he opted to stick with the PP rather than sign up to La Lliga, and despite his differences with Bauzá, one fancies he will continue to stick with the party. One feels sure he has his eye on the leadership, regardless of his decision not to challenge Bauzá at next month's congress.
Regionalism, as much if not more than the Catalan question, is likely to be a huge factor at the next election (assuming the national PP hasn't scrapped it by then). It is supported by a majority of the population, whereas nationalism isn't, which makes it hard for a united La Lliga-Convergència to present a coherent message, one that would be made even more difficult were Pastor to head a pro-regionalist PP and to drag the party back from its movement off to the right.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Convergència joins Santa Margalida administration
The three councillors of the Convergència (CxI) in Santa Margalida will, after all, join with the six of the Suma pel Canvi in order to give mayor Miguel Cifre sufficient numbers to form a working majority at the town hall.
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