The Politics Of Regeneration

The people of the Balearics have been asked what they think about the political situation in the islands and in the country. The good news is that there are more who think the situation is very good in the Balearics than in Spain: 1.1% beats 0.1%. The bad news is that, no surprise here, over three quarters believe that the Balearics situation is bad or very bad. It is worse in Spain, but that will be small comfort to an islands' political class which might previously have taken little notice of such findings but which now finds that it has to take note. Democratic regeneration is on everyone's lips (well, not quite everyone's) and the various parties are galvanising themselves into regenerative action, having been stung out of their inertia by the regenerators of Podemos.

This political flavour of the moment is even being tasted by the Balearics' Partido Popular, President Bauzá claiming that it is only the PP which can regenerate democracy. Given that it has been the PP which has been principally responsible for its degeneration, this might sound a bit rich, but then as we know the president is apparently steadfast in his desire to drive out corruption, and it is corruption that, according to the recent survey by the research organisation Gadeso, is the main cause of this degeneration. Fighting the fight against corruption or not, it is doubtful whether Bauzá would have suddenly discovered a regeneration zeal had it not been for Podemos going around telling everyone that democracy needed regenerating.

There are other parties who have been waving the flag of regeneration for a few years longer than Podemos has been, but it is unquestionably the emergence of Podemos and its campaigning against corruption and the political system that has brought the issue to the front of the public's mind. It is doubtful that the public would, until recently, have been asked about democratic regeneration; it is a mark of the impact that Podemos has had that the question should now be being put.

The Gadeso survey concludes that confidence in the post-Franco political system is at an all-time low (which we knew anyway), and the causes are familiar ones. Corruption and dissatisfaction with the political system cover a multitude of sins, so they are not just about trousering some dodgy money. Lack of transparency, lousy communications and aloofness, nepotism and "amiguismo" (favouring friends) and sheer inefficiency are all identified. Basically, the whole system sucks, and into this mix can be added the perceived ills of the justice system (unfair, too slow, not independent): the second greatest concern after corruption.

While discontent with political systems is not unique to the Balearics or Spain, the system here has its peculiarities which mean that it is not as entrenched as elsewhere. The main target for the discontent is the dominant two-party system (the PP and PSOE). Yet this is comparatively new. The PP is only 26 years old. Its forerunner, the Alianza Popular, with its Francoist hangover, was not a great power in the land. It performed well enough in some regions (the first Balearics government was an Alianza one) but not nationally, being soundly stuffed by PSOE at both the 1982 and 1986 general elections. It reinvented itself as the PP in 1989 and finally gained power for the first time in 1996 under José María Aznar.

The two-party status quo, while it has endured for a generation in its current guise, is far less established than in certain other countries. Allied to this relative newness, there is, as revealed by all the survey's anxieties, a perpetuation of what existed before democracy and indeed well before Franco. It is a system which, in a sense, hasn't grown up, and as it hasn't matured, the potential to disrupt it is greater than might be the case elsewhere. And this, as evidenced by the rise of Podemos, is what is happening.

One way in which the established parties are trying to put the fear of God into the electorate is by referring to Podemos as a dangerous "experiment" which threatens democracy. Describing it as an experiment is reasonable enough, but then it might be said that the system which finally emerged with the PP in 1989 has also been an experiment, and if democracy is in such need of regeneration as it appears to be, then one conclude that the experiment has not succeeded. Can a different approach be described as a threat to democracy when the one it seeks to replace has been so discredited?

For all this and for all that Podemos has taken the lead in espousing regeneration, even it needs to look at what the survey finds. Yes, Podemos is considered to be more capable of democratic regeneration than other parties, but it trails by fifteen points the survey winner: no party will be capable.

What Do These People Want?

In a year's time Spain faces a Franco issue. "El Caudillo" died on 20 November, 1975. Does the fortieth anniversary merit some form of honour, if only an acknowledgment? It is doubtful that it will, but there will nevertheless be those who consider the anniversary worthy of more than a footnote to official business.

Franco may be long dead, but his memory lingers. The Amnesty Law which followed his death can be dubbed the amnesia law, as it assisted in creating the collective loss of memory decreed by the newly democratic but unreconciled Spain. But this memory loss didn't extend to the extinguishing of all Francoist sympathies or indeed the evidence of physical manifestations of the regime. It wasn't until the Zapatero administration sought to remove these concrete or symbolic reminders via its law of historic memory that the statues started to be pulled down. The current government reduced the budget for this to zero.

The shadow cast by this lingering memory is such that for some Franco never died. As with Elvis, who followed him a couple of years later, there is doubtless a guy working down the chip shop who swears he's Franco. The years of linger are reminiscent of the months of linger prior to his passing in 1975. These were such that US television news would make repeated reference to Franco still being alive. Chevy Chase on "Saturday Night", the comedy show which was to later become "live", adopted and rephrased this - "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead".

Those months of lingering death and indeed years of failing health represented a period of uncertainty not just to the future but also to the present. Who was in charge and what actually were they in charge of? It was also a period during which a dying regime and its fellow travellers would show their spite and attempt to assert their fading authority, and there were two incidents which occurred forty years ago this month which demonstrate this.

At around about a quarter past midnight on 22 November, 1974 a bomb exploded at the offices of the "Diario de Mallorca". There were no injuries, but it was the third attack of some description on the newspaper in less than a month, the second of which involved the daubing of graffiti that was reproduced elsewhere in Palma. It read: "Tácito. No. Falange". Tácito was a reference to a group of intellectuals, politicians and journalists who, as the death of Franco neared, sought democratic solutions and who took to print in espousing them. The Falange, Franco's one-time Thought Police, didn't take at all kindly to them.

The Falange was very much one of the regime's fellow travellers, but it had been on the death bed a lot longer than Franco. Its power had been diminishing from the early 1960s, but it also lingered. It is a mark, however, of the extent to which the Falange was distanced from the regime that the conservative "ABC" newspaper could openly report the bombing as the work of the Falange. As such, it was indicative of the extent to which the full apparatus of the Franco dictatorship had been undermined and had been crumbling from the 1960s when tourism and pressing economic needs had brought about new thinking. Yet, it was an element associated with the dictatorship which viewed the potential for democracy with horror and so made its desperate final attempts to assert itself.

The other incident concerns Mallorca's greatest folk singer, María del Mar Bonet. On 7 November, 1974 she was arrested in Barcelona, accused of having been spreading subversive propaganda. It was not the first time she had encountered problems. In 1971 she had been arrested after a concert in Zaragoza and had been subjected to, in her words, "an horrific interrogation". She was held overnight and no longer, and nothing was to really come of her detention three years later. But it was a reminder of how the regime, though in its death throes, could still not stomach any criticism. Her main crime was to have put the music to and have sung "Què volem aquesta gent?" (what do these people want?), a song dedicated to Enrique Ruano, a student, anti-Franco militant who had died in police custody in 1969.

But what the regime could stomach even less than the criticism was Bonet's popularity. She was by then nationally and internationally acclaimed. Her arrest in 1974 was proof of its desperation and of final displays of malice, which brought scorn from the international community and increasingly from a Spanish one as well.

Franco believed that Juan Carlos would carry his legacy forward. He was wrong. The spitefulness of the bombing and the arrest, the rise of Tácito were all evidence of a regime and ideology on the point of collapse. There was to be no other way than democracy.

Photo: Maria del Mar Bonet in her younger days.

Rambla: In the name of participation

In one of its not infrequent moments of translation comedy gold, the trilinguistically-correct Balearic Government recently pressed the click button on its machine translation system of choice and revealed - on its own website - that the minister for public administration had acquired a completely new name. Staggeringly, this was machine translation from Catalan to Castellano and thus Nuria Riera became Nuria Rambla. There is a fairly obvious question here. Why does a government with a firmly pro-Castellano policy in a land where Castellano is a co-official language supposedly spoken by everyone need to use Bing or Google to translate into Castellano? Catalan hasn't taken over that much, surely.

The machine-translation game is one with endless possibilities for amusement and entertainment, and it is one that the regional government has perfected. It has, just as one example, a form on its website in English that allows you to find out about activities of associations. It notes, however: "You can accede to the codes of the purposes and their activities doing click on the attached text document. We noticed to you that the data of the associations enrolled in this new computer science system come from the old application and some still are reviewing since they are updated periodically. By this, it is possible that some data still appear with the old code or information nonupdated. We worked with the objective to reach a complete information. You excuse the annoyances."

Strangely, when one clicks on "directori d'associacions", you get by default this English form. It is doubly strange given that there is virtually nothing else in English on this part of the public administration ministry's section of the government's website. It is a part of the website for "citizen participation" and in particular something called "Balear Opina". This is a new "virtual space", a press release has usefully informed us, to "enhance citizen participation" by bringing together "all resources and tools to enable (citizens') contributions". Just some of these contributions can be questions, suggestions and requests for information, but don't anyone go expecting that there is something approximating freedom of information, because there isn't, while these questions, suggestions and requests had better all be made in Catalan or Castellano. Try asking in English and God alone knows how Google will mangle the question. In fact, to be on the safe side, it would be best to ask in Catalan, as the government doesn't appear to understand Castellano either; hence, Nuria Rambla.

The Balear Opina and citizen participation thing are, so the website tells us, concepts to which the government is committed. As is normal for any government communication, it insists on citing laws and decrees which give credence to this commitment, and it starts by saying that "democracy is based on ... the plurality of ideas and opinions; it is necessary to create a mechanism for control and management (of elected representatives) by the public outside the election period".

Democracy is indeed based on the plurality of opinions, but some opinions become law whereas others remain simply opinions. Take, if you will, the language issue. As the majority of citizens reject the opinion of elected officials who have passed legislation which undermines Catalan, will the Balear Opina mechanism enable the citizens, through control and management, to have this legalised opinion changed? Of course it won't. You can read "mechanism for control and management" as meaning holding elected officials to account, and if they really were held to account, then they would alter legislation that is at variance with majority opinion. But government doesn't work like this. Here or anywhere. The participation thing is a grand illusion.

For Nuria Riera, no doubt, the Balear Opina is a fine creation of governmental openness, communication and explanation. As ever, though, there is a great difference between the practice of openness and its theory. Take another example, the Partido Popular's discount card for members. The hoo-hah over this was brought to an abrupt halt when Riera announced that the card was perfectly legal and that the government had nothing more to say on the matter. The correspondence was closed, so to speak.

Riera is relatively new to governmental circles. She clambered aboard the Good Ship Bauzá, listing because of the storms of Catalan, after the president sacked half his cabinet in May last year. She got the job at public administration, a ministry rarely under public scrutiny because no one is too sure what it does, and also took over the unenviable task of government spokesperson. She's the one, therefore, who has to try and explain what on earth it's up to. And now she can be conscious of what opinion the public has. Or ignore what opinion the public has. There is, if you play the Google-Bing game, a different translation of her name. From Castellano to English. Laugh. Having one.

Back To A 1930s Future

The world of showbiz is inhabited by those who consider themselves well positioned to make pronouncements on matters far removed from the stage, the cinema or the rock-concert stadium. How many showbiz celebrities can you think of who have adhered to the corruption of the maxim of all the world being a stage and it being one from which they intend to pontificate, often repeatedly? Jane Fonda, Bono, George Clooney, the list is very much longer than these three alone.

Spain has its own celebrity activists. You may not have heard of them, but they are there nevertheless, and one of them is a leading actor called Willy Toledo. If Willy were British, his thoughts would be the target for ridicule by the "Telegraph" or "Daily Mail". Leftist loony, in other words.

Willy Toledo took part recently in an act of solidarity in the city of Gijón organised by something known as the platform against repression and for liberties. He fulminated against the actions of the current national government, one that, he claims, has converted Spain into a "pre-fascist country, if not already fascist".

The fascist narrative is overplayed in Spain. It is the consequence of historical memory in people's lifetimes, a narrative that is nuanced and moulded by this recent memory. It is one that the country cannot break out of. It lives in a fascistic past/present because the counter-narrative, that of a European, democratic, monarchical, free market but ideally egalitarian and clean society and politics, has struggled to consign it once and for all to the cesspit of history.

Toledo supports this fascist groove thing by styling the government as ultranationalist-Catholic, a descriptive picture of government that is suffused with dark colours on a Francoist canvas. It is more than a slight exaggeration. If Spain were either already fascist or pre-fascist, I think we might be more aware of the fact.

Toledo has also mused on the question of the monarchy. He is far from alone in wondering what will happen when the King dies or becomes too infirm to rule; the monarch's health is a subject to which an increasing amount of attention is being paid. Toledo is pretty clear in believing that the King's passing would mean the end of the monarchy. In continuing the historical narrative, he argues that the country should be preparing itself for the reinstatement of "that of which we were robbed", namely the Republic.

So there you have it. In Willy world, Spain is locked in a perpetual battle between a socialist-worker Republicanism and über-Nationalism, with the monarchy somewhere between the two, as, lest we forget, Franco was quite content for the monarchy to be sidelined.

Nevertheless, there are anxieties about the monarchy, and they come from elements of both left and right who have no desire to pursue a return to Republicanism and who are equally disquieted by an overtly nationalist agenda, one that embraces two competing forms of nationalism, one in a neo-Francoist fashion and the other, the nationalist separatism of the Catalans and the Basques. This is the broad centre of both politics and society which doesn't wish to keep re-living the 1930s and wants the European, democratic and, yes, monarchical model to prevail.

The trouble is that the 1930s won't go away. For all that Spain has achieved some sort of democratic modernity, the strains are evident. The position of the monarchy is just one, and it is a position that has deteriorated and may deteriorate further now that the previously dismissed could actually happen, namely Princess Cristina, the wife of the commoner Urdangarin and the King's daughter, being indicted on corruption allegations. Democracy doesn't demand monarchy, but in Spain, a virtuous and benign monarchy helps.

And then there is the economy. The journalist Javier González has made the point that Spain's unemployment is equivalent to the combined populations of its four largest cities - Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Sevilla. It is a point that is designed for effect, but the effect is striking, and it becomes even more so given the context in which González has written and for which newspaper he writes - "El Mundo". Right-wing, it, or González at any rate, invokes the same period of history as Toledo in further invoking the Great Depression and what came next in Europe. We are back to the same fascistic narrative.

One cannot and should not neglect the past. One learns from the past. But in Spain, there are some who want that past to reappear and others who have convinced themselves that it will reappear. This is a country stuck in the time warp of its collective memory. God help us.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

A Circle Of Apathy: Mallorca's democracy

The Economy Circle is an organisation that through literal translation sounds slightly odd. In its original it is Cercle d'Economia de Mallorca, but in English it gives the impression of a group of prudent housewives swapping household tips while knitting. A different translation can be The Economy Society, which comes across as being careful with the pennies, but the society bit is rather more to the point as the circle or the society, which is made up of high-powered businesspeople and professionals, gets its teeth, from time to time, into matters of importance to local society. In the past, it has had its say on education, advocating regular assessment of teachers, greater autonomy in head teacher decision-making and improvements in the standard of English. It has also spoken about how a dependence on tourism will mean that the Balearics will be the last of the Spanish regions to get out of crisis.

It comes out with a great deal of common sense but it has now come out with a report that, while it might not surprise anyone, should shock Mallorca's politicians to their very cores. This is a report into the quality of democracy in the Balearics and its findings make for grim reading.

180 experts have considered fifty factors to do with local democracy and only eight of these factors warrant getting a pass mark. The worst aspects are an indictment of this democracy: the party system, government administration, political consensus, the transparency and examples of and set by political parties. But it is not only the politicians who get it in the neck, the report concludes by observing that a culture of democracy is lacking and that there is general apathy within civil society.

One could always argue that society's apathy is a product of a political system in which there is little trust. The same argument is made in the UK. But there is a different context in Mallorca. Apathy was something that Franco used to play on. He thought that the Spanish people were too thick to really understand democracy and he also believed that apathy legitimised his rule because the people weren't all that bothered.

It could indeed be that this old apathy prevails rather than it being a new one brought about the current political system. This might sound contradictory when one considers some of the more strident voices in Mallorca, but then are these only the voices of minorities, loud ones admittedly but of relative unimportance?

I'm not so sure that they are unimportant. The combination of a poor political system, in the view of the Economy Circle, economic crisis and increasing radicalism within younger sectors of society, provoked by those with a more radical agenda and by a government that seems intent on driving wedges into local society, is potentially pretty lethal. It is exacerbated by a fact that shouldn't be overlooked, which is that democracy is still only quite young (some thirty years or so). Is it strong enough to withstand tensions, therefore, when even politicians and political parties don't appear to really understand what it means?

The answer is probably yes, but it is a system of democracy that has yet to grow up and to shake off its obvious excesses, as evidenced by the corruption cases and by a party system which owes as much to personal loyalties, networks and indeed nepotism as it does to ideology.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

On Trial: The Spanish judiciary

Justice, administered and delivered by judges and magistrates in Spain, is administered and delivered in the name of the King. The King, in addressing a legal profession gathering in Barcelona, has reminded judges that it is they alone who impart justice. On Saturday, the King's son-in-law appears in a Palma court. The judge presiding over the "caso Nóos" is consulting with not just the prosecution but also the government and the Partido Popular as to whether they wish the King's daughter, Princess Cristina, to be indicted as part of this case.

Make of this little mix what you will, as there is an awful lot that can be made of it.

Under the Spanish Constitution, the judiciary is independent, and so of course it should be. But the extent to which it truly is independent or neutral is coming under increasing scrutiny. The Garzón affair has raised serious doubts, and the royal family having become embroiled in the wider investigation and trial of the former president of the Balearics, Jaume Matas, raises more doubts.

Let's be clear. If, and one stresses if, there is a case for the King's daughter to answer, then so be it. The royal household, from the outset of the investigation of the Duke of Palma, has made it clear that it respects the actions of the judiciary, but justice being administered and delivered in the name of King when it might involve the King's daughter, as opposed to a commoner (which the Duke is), highlights just how much of a dilemma has been created by the investigation.

For Judge Castro, the dilemma is enormous. By consulting with the government and a political party, he runs the risk of being seen to be subject to political influence. Should it not be his decision and his decision alone? Possibly. But by counselling the wishes of the political class, or a part of it, he is placing the dilemma in the hands of this political class.

In some respects, one could say he is playing a blinder, as he is handing responsibility elsewhere. But however the political class decides to play things, it will be criticised. Firstly, it will be criticised for getting involved at all. Secondly, if it says it does not wish the Princess to be indicted, it risks being accused of applying one rule for one and one rule for another (assuming, that is, there genuinely is a case to answer, and most noises have suggested not, as with the evidence of former Olympic sailing gold medallist, "Pepote" Ballester). Thirdly, if it says it does wish the Princess to be indicted, then it potentially opens up a massive can of worms.

The reason why this can of worms might be opened up is that a trap has been laid by the right-wing union Manos Limpias. In calling for the Princess to be indicted, if the government and the PP were to follow its demand, the union would, in effect, receive official backing. For the government to be perceived as acceding to the wishes of a union with the type of associations it has, i.e. Francoist, could be hugely damaging.

The government will be damned if it does and damned if it doesn't, and a further problem is that the Spanish people, generally speaking, are indifferent to many members of the royal family, with the definite exception of the King, who is held in such enormous regard, and rightly so.

The whole affair surrounding the Duke couldn't have come at a worse time for the Spanish judiciary. The world is having its say about a Spanish system that has tried, convicted and removed from office a leading judge at the behest of right-wing forces. Daniel Kaufmann, senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, has suggested that a travesty has been committed in respect of Judge Garzón, that judicial independence has been compromised, and, moreover, has presented evidence which indicates a decline in Spain's rule of law.

However much the Spanish judiciary is theoretically independent, there is a suspicion of politicisation and partiality. And it is caused not just by politics but also by professional rivalries within the judiciary (the Garzón affair is said to have been influenced by these). Garzón himself is not above charges of politicisation, and it is such charges, for the wider judiciary, which suggests that there needs to be some reform.

At the heart of all this, and a reason why it is all so important, is that the judiciary is a vital instrument of democracy. And in Spain, so is the monarchy. Both institutions, the legal system and the monarchy, are being placed or potentially being placed on trial.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Unravelling: Protests and opportunism

On one day, events come together that forge the impression of an unravelling. The word unravelling, in its literal sense, means an undoing or an unknitting of fabric. In an abstract sense, and as the word is often applied, it is an undoing of a different type of fabric, that of society for example.

The one day in question was Monday. The events that came together were a protest against non-payments to ambulance workers, a threat of legal action against the Balearic Government over non-payments to public transport operators, an announcement of sit-ins and a strike by university and secondary education students, and news of alleged over-reaction by police against protesting students in Valencia.

Charges of disproportionate measures being adopted by police in Valencia are not new. They were also made in respect of efforts to clear "indignado" demonstrators last year. The protests staged in many Spanish cities by the indignados and the responses by some police forces were, though, against a political backdrop that had yet to be properly coloured in. It now has been. And this is how it begins. Protests of different types. An unravelling.

At the weekend, there had been another protest, that against the national government's labour reforms. To the fore was Lorenzo Bravo, secretary-general in the Balearics of the UGT union, a Dereck Chisora-David Haye of industrial relations trash talk, upping the ante in publicising the fight with the government by labelling President Bauzá a fascist.

The allusion to Spain's history is a dark colour to be added to the swatch with which the political backdrop is suffused, one embellished by a legal system that permits a tarnishing of Spain's reputation. The actions of a right-wing union with undeniable Francoist sympathies, in forcing the pursuit of Judge Baltasar Garzón and in also seeking the subpoena of Princess Cristina, were born out of democratic sophism; the targets - Garzón's brand of legalistic independence and the royal family - are integral to Spain's democracy and they are being hounded.

The events of Monday and at the weekend and the manipulation of the legal system are not coincidental. They are an opportunistic and inevitable collision within the unravelling framework. Yet, the inevitability of, for example, the public transport operators' federation seeking legal redress might not become reality. Nor is it inevitable that individual bus companies might actually stop services, as they are threatening to.

There is always brinkmanship, and suspension of bus services by companies responsible for places such as Pollensa and Can Picafort, just as the tourism season starts to get underway, would be unlikely to happen. It is not as though we haven't been here before. Pharmacies threatened to pull down their shutters in protest at not being paid by the IB-Salut health service, but the threat didn't materialise, or at least, it hasn't materialised yet.

Things have moved on, though. Pharmacies not being paid was an issue soon after the change of regional government last June. The strains are far greater than they were and the roll call of services being cut or finding themselves without funds grows longer.

At some point, one of the threats will be realised. If it were that of the bus companies, notwithstanding the government's pre-emption by declaring a suspension of services illegal, the ramifications would be significant; in terms of tourism reputation if nothing else. And while the ambulance workers are protesting and the pharmacies remain unpaid, what of another element of the health service - hospital emergency units?

These units have become overstretched as it is, leading to resignations, such as that of the director of Son Espases' emergency department. When the units start to fill up with tourists who have either chucked themselves off balconies, had too much to drink or suffered a severe reaction to a mosquito bite, the last thing the hospitals (or the government) would want would be a "Sun, Sea and A&E" film crew hovering in the background, showing them struggling to cope.

The unions and the students are playing their expected roles as usual suspects when it comes to protest. Their actions will be easier for governments, nationally and regionally, to handle in terms of PR. But these actions are only beginning. Valencia for now, but over the next months?

When hospital directors, pharmacies, bus companies, ambulance workers - to name but a few - add their voices to those who might simply be dismissed as regular agitators, protest is less easy to handle. And all the while, lurking somewhere, is the opportunism of the non-governmental right and further right. On one day, events come together that forge the impression of an unravelling. How about 23 February? Do you know what anniversary this marks?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Voting Rights?: Go to New Zealand

One of the dangers with "burning issues" for the expatriate community is that we end up repeating ourselves, myself included. If not winter flights and tourism or all-inclusives, then voting rights. In addition to repetition, we might also not get a wholly accurate or complete picture.

"Brussels thinks Spain's stance on non-Spanish voters is undemocratic." ("The Bulletin", 15 October.) I'm not sure Brussels does think this. Brussels, or some bureaucrats or politicians lurking within its labyrinths may think, just possibly, that a new decree should be issued regarding voting rights for expatriates in national elections, but if they do, then they would have the whole of the EU in mind. The issue is not a Spanish one but a European one.

Just to remind you. Under terms of the Single Market, provision was made for expatriates (of whatever nationality within the EU) to be able to vote in European and local elections in the country in which they are resident. No provision was made for national elections. That was the agreement, and it still is.

The agreement doesn't prevent countries from granting a vote in general elections, if they so wish. But only two EU countries - Ireland and Portugal - have come anywhere near to doing so. In Ireland, a proposal to permit voting for the Dáil and for the President has been around for three years, but it remains only a proposal.

There are anomalies with voting rights for foreign nationals, such as Irish citizens (and Commonwealth subjects) being permitted to vote in a British general election and, in parts of the UK, a Spanish or any other EU resident being able to vote for a devolved parliament or assembly, while a Brit in Spain cannot vote in a regional election.

Anomalies aside, the undemocratic aspect of voting rights in the EU lies not with the current restrictions on foreign residents but with disenfranchisement from any national election. The UK 15-year rule is not the only such rule. If you are Danish and have permanently lived outside of Denmark for two years, you lose your right to vote.

Such disenfranchisement, unbalanced by a right to vote in the country of residence (i.e. Spain, for our purposes), is undemocratic, or appears to be, as it goes against the principle of universal suffrage. But suffrage itself is wrapped up in concepts of citizenship and national sovereignty. Limited suffrage can be granted, as with the provisions of the Single Market, but in the most important manifestation of suffrage - that of voting for national parliaments - unless you are a citizen of a country, you cannot vote.

There are countries in which foreigners can vote in national elections. Permanent residents in New Zealand can. In Uruguay, there is a fifteen-year qualification rule. But these are very much the exception. The principle is, overwhelmingly, citizenship equals the right to vote for a national parliament; a national parliament is a supreme expression of sovereignty; and sovereignty is enshrined in national constitutions.

The limited rights to voting within the EU have required constitutional amendments. To extend rights to national elections would require further changes and thus a huge political debate. In Spain, any constitutional amendment does, strictly speaking, require a referendum. The EU might mandate voting rights for foreigners in national elections (though I would personally doubt that it would, certainly not in the current climate with the problems with the Euro), but this would still necessitate constitutional changes.

Just think about it for a moment. Would the British Government go along with such a directive from Europe? Well, would it? Apart from anything else, the right-wing press would be in uproar. The same in Spain. While British residents might press their claims to vote, has anyone asked the Spanish what they would think? Politically, it would be a step too far, and for the EU to mandate such a move would probably signal its own collapse. And were it to, then the whole burning issue of voting rights would cease to be an issue.

I have no disagreement with citizenship being paramount in determining who should be allowed to vote (and please, let's not have any we're all Europeans speciousness). Where a change might be made is with respect to the length of time one has been resident, as in Uruguay, but there should also be strings attached, as contemplated by the Irish, one being to pass a language test. After all, if you can't command the language, how can you have true command of the issues, always assuming of course that you are interested? But that is a different matter entirely.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Spain celebrates 30th anniversary of 23-F

It was thirty years ago today that Spain's new democracy faced huge uncertainty. While Antonio Tejero was the public face of the failed coup attempt on 23 February, 1981, the more important figures were behind the scenes. People such as General Alfonso Armada. In today's "El Pais", there is a fascinating interview with Francisco Laína, the head of state security at the time, who has remained silent, until now. This is in English ...

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/english/The/last/man/standing/elpepueng/20110222elpeng_1/Ten

Saints And Sinners: The coup attempt of 1981

23-F. The Spanish love a number and a letter. Great events and not so great events become numerical and alphabetic abbreviations through which these events are afforded the cachet that is supposed to come from contraction. Some events, some dates are great, in that they are hugely significant. 23-F stands for 23 February ("febrero"). The year was 1981. The year of the last attempt at a coup d'état in western Europe.

Thirty years ago, a Guardia Civil lieutenant colonel by the name of Antonio Tejero stormed the Spanish parliament along with 200 or so Guardia officers. His aim, to overthrow the nascent democracy of post-Franco Spain. It was an inglorious failure. It collapsed the following day, 24-F, when King Juan Carlos went on television and, in a speech which cemented his place in the nation's affections, effectively put an end to the coup attempt.

Tejero was something of a comedic figure. He looked like Manuel from "Fawlty Towers". It's alright, the parliament deputies were doubtlessly reassuring each other - "he's from Barcelona". He wasn't from Barcelona, but one's recollections of the coup attempt were that it was all a bit of a farce; this waiter dressed up in military garb, waving a gun around and waiting for Basil to come along and smack him round the head.

It was a bit more serious than this, guns being fired in the parliament and so on, but it had the air of a British comedy cliché. Bumbling revolutionaries, talking in Spanglish "foreign", who put the coup on hold for a couple of hours while they took a siesta. All that was needed was Mr. Humphries declaring himself "free" and the staff of Grace Brothers cowering in the corner while Mrs. Slocombe bemused the revolutionaries with her pussy. Indeed, Captain Peacock and his department-store personnel had anticipated 23-F some four years previously, having found themselves in the midst of a revolution while on the Costa Plonka in the horror that was the "Are You Being Served" film, one that featured Andrew Sachs, typecast as a Spaniard.

Along with its letter and number, the 23 February coup attempt has been granted its own name - "el tejerazo", after the unfortunate and absurd Manuel-Tejero. What made the tejerazo seem even more ridiculous, from the distance of seeing television pictures in the UK, was that it seemed so utterly pointless and that it had come out of the blue. But this wasn't quite so.

The history of Spain's first few years of democracy was anything but smooth. The armed forces were still heavily Francoist and at the time, in 1981, there was economic crisis. The coup attempt was, to some extent, an expression of a widely held view - one that pre-dated Franco - that Spain was not capable of democracy.

Similar economic circumstances prevail at present, but it is most unlikely that a current-day Tejero would turn up at the Cortes lower house with a revolver. The armed forces' role has diminished, to the extent that when the general, José Mena, hinted in 2006 that the military would intervene were Catalonia to become more autonomous, he was promptly put under house arrest.

23-F, for all its laughable qualities, was hugely significant because the failure of the coup was confirmation of the supremacy of democratic principles and of the king as the standard-bearer for the new Spain. Nevertheless, great events tend also to attract the nutters who see conspiracy. So it is with 23-F. It was, so the conspiracy theorists would have it, a put-up job with the purpose of bolstering the king's position. What is unquestionably true is that there was a plan for a later coup d'état. It has not been honoured, if one can say this, with a number and letter, but 27-O (27 October, 1982) was the date, the day before a general election which was easily won by the socialist PSOE. The plot was uncovered and pretty much covered up.

24-F, apart from being the day when the 1981 coup was crushed, is also the day of the miracle of Sant Crist, in Alcúdia at any rate (bewilderingly celebrated in July every three years). In 1507, so legend has it, this was the day when the sweating of blood brought deliverance from drought and famine to the people of Alcúdia and the island. The modern 24-F was not a miracle and nor was it a fable, but it was a day of deliverance. From the past. It was the day when Spain stopped being a farce and started to grow up.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Here Come Da Judge: The Garzón affair

In a café - Spanish - the other afternoon, the television was on. Nothing unusual in this. What was, was what was on. There was a platform of serious-looking speakers. Sounds dull? A party conference maybe? No. It transfixed me. This was an event in support of a judge. It is difficult to imagine a conference either taking place, let alone being televised, in support of "m'lud" in England. But this is Spain.

The event was organised by two of the main unions. Those from the world of the arts and culture were on hand as well to show support for Baltasar Garzón, the most celebrated of Spain's investigating judges.

Back in October 2008, Garzón announced that he was ordering an investigation into crimes committed by the Franco regime. As part of this investigation, graves were due to be dug up. The Spanish attorney-general opposed the investigation, and ultimately Garzón was ordered to call it off. But it didn't stop there. He is now being investigated by the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (supreme court) in Madrid, accused of "prevaricación" (that word again), manipulating the course of justice and even of some financial wrongdoing. Under the terms of the amnesty of 1977, it is argued (with justification), that Garzón had no right to go around digging up the past.

That he may have exceeded his powers, for which a formal slap on the wrist might have been thought sufficient, has not stopped a process of bringing him to book, one inspired mainly by the far-right in Spain, including the Falange. Didn't know that the Falange still existed? Well they do. The leader of the centre-right Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, called the conference in support of Garzón "anti-democratic". The actions of the supreme court have been described, by the left, as "fascist". Forces across the political spectrum are adopting their positions in respect of a judge who, in theory at any rate, acts independently of politics.

For some, Garzón is getting his rightful comeuppance. Others will be revelling in the schadenfreude of a judge with such international celebrity being investigated. Yet more will see the case as an attack on judges' independence. Garzón has not exactly been reticent in courting his celebrity, which, in itself, may be a problem with the system of investigating judges. His attempt to extradite Pinochet was, and remains, his best-known moment in the international spotlight, and international is apt as he seems wedded to the notion of international jurisdiction, something that the Spanish Government has acted to limit.

There is a line of argument that Garzón, in seeking to investigate Franco's crimes, was acting in accordance with law on human rights. The amnesty of 1977 not only heralded a period of collective national amnesia it also undermined any attempt at indicting those who had committed atrocities. This may have suited the immediate post-Franco Spain, but it can also be argued that it left a festering sore, one that has been opened - politically - by the current administration's law on historic memory. An amnesty, so one view has it, cannot rule out a requirement to investigate when the issue of human rights is at stake.

But more than anything, and notwithstanding the accusations against Garzón that he exceeds his powers and is over-zealous, the current case against him highlights the hold that the Franco period still has over Spain. Additionally, one can set the Garzón affair within the context of the spate of corruption allegations. Despite claims that these have been politically motivated, independent investigators are crucial to the exercise of Spanish democracy. If politicians, by their indiscretions, cannot adequately support that democracy, then the judges have to do it for them. A curb on their powers, and this is how one can assess the Garzón affair, might be welcomed in certain quarters, but those powers have never been more important than at present in rooting out the malaise that weakens democratic institutions.

Garzón did go too far. That is the problem. Perhaps he felt emboldened by a political atmosphere, one created by the law on historic memory and not averse to rummaging through the Francoist past. This would have been his first mistake, as it would have politicised, albeit indirectly, his investigation. It may sound unpalatable to those who seek to right the wrongs of the Franco period, but his second mistake was in choosing the wrong investigation and in lining himself up against some still powerful, one might even say dark, forces. And for this, he may end up stripped of his powers. A question will be, will others?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Ken And Barbie

Matters of British politics are not my usual fare on this blog, but permit me this one blemish.

Boris Johnson. Even before Boris acquired national fame as a comedy turn, I was aware of his reputation for being somewhat shambolic, and once witnessed it first hand. Exiting Oxford Circus tube station, and this would have been in the mid 90s, his mobile went off. Boris was wearing a sort of brown trenchcoat affair, all yards of textile and pockets. There was a frantic effort to search for the phone which should have been easily located as, in those days, mobiles were the size of house bricks and weighed as much. But, with much muttering and cursing to say nothing of the thousands brushing past him and into him, the hunt lasted a considerable time, and a considerable comedic length of time at that. It was a striking image as Boris is a striking figure. Even among the bustle of Oxford Street, he stood out a mile, this rather eccentric figure with hair and tie skew-whiff apparently in blissful unawareness of the extent to which he instinctively advertised himself; it was to be a few years before he translated this into the successful pursuit of an image, a brand if you will, known by the name "Boris" .

Ken Livingstone. Ken ran a wacky and lunatic administration at the old Greater London Council in the 80s, and the only way he could be stopped was to abolish him and the authority, which Margaret Thatcher did. I was furious. Not only was Ken wonderfully mad, he was - in my opinion - a real figure of London. Campaigns like "fares fair" for cheaper public transport brought with it a sense of London identity that had been missing under the previous administrations. Ken was a good Trot, well versed in the Soviet art of the putsch, exiling Andrew McIntosh to Westminster Palace where some years later I met the by then Lord McIntosh but dared not to ask him about the whole period. Hindsight suggests that Ken's time at the GLC was one marked by recklessness; the "Evening Standard" made it out to be so at the time, Simon Jenkins continues to say so and, in truth, it probably was. But one had to have lived in London then to have appreciated the degree to which Livingstone created a purpose in and to the city; that his administration may have been barmy is beside the point. He was the obvious eventual choice as mayor, but he is no longer.

Boris and Ken, though cut from very different stone, are very similar. Both have the hint of the maverick, both are amusing, and both are generally pretty honest. They are both endearing in their contrasting ways. They made for ideal mayoral election fodder in that their fame and even notoriety placed the election firmly in front of what is otherwise an electorate suffering from ennui - the London electorate and indeed the whole British electorate. In that either can be said to truly represent Conservative or Labour values (whatever those are these days), they gave the two-party system a much-needed shot in the arm, or rather gave the voter the needle in the vein. There was something un-British about the whole election; it was quasi-presidential and it was, most obviously, an example of how direct democracy at a local level can inspire an otherwise moribund franchise.

It is a leap of some imagination to compare the London mayoral election to Mallorca, but there is a comparison in that here local democracy does operate, and the mayors are voted in or out. Neither of the two local mayors, Ferrer in Alcúdia or Cerdà in Pollensa, can claim much in the way of personality when set against a Johnson or a Livingstone, but - dull though they may well be - they are at least democratically elected. Spanish, Mallorcan democracy is devolved to the local level. People may not like their local mayors, but they have been given the chance to say yes or no to them. There are lessons for the UK in how local politics work here and in how it does engage the local community, and London has shown it can be done.


QUIZ
Yesterday's chain - Bob Marley to "I Shot The Sheriff" to Eric Clapton to Cream and therefore Jack Bruce. And today, how do you get from Jack Bruce to Bruce Springsteen (apart from the obvious name link)? Yesterday's title was Coldplay.

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)