MALLORCA TODAY - Fornes to continue as Muro mayor

A three-way pact between the Convergènica Democràtica Murera of current mayor Martí Fornes, the Partido Popular and La Lliga will see Fornes remain as mayor for the next four years.

Carme Chameleon: Alcúdia's coalitions

While there are many town halls whose administration, post-election, is clearcut, there are plenty where it is not. One, as mentioned previously, is Alcúdia.

The Partido Popular and its would-be mayor, Coloma Terrasa, have eight councillors, one short of a majority of nine. There are nine other councillors, split among the Convergència and PSOE (four apiece) and the PSM (Mallorcan socialists) with one.

It is the final one on this list, the PSM, which is the most interesting, as the party potentially holds the key to the future administration in the town and, if it were to prove to be so, would be evidence as to how bizarre Mallorca's politics can be. Bizarre and opportunistic.

The PSM is everything the PP is not. It is left-wing, nationalist (i.e. veering towards independence), Catalanist, and as green as a party can be without actually calling itself green. The twain of the PSM and the PP should never meet, except in darkened alleys when they encounter each other for an ideological punch-up, but the twain could yet meet in the corridors of Alcúdia town hall power.

The sole councillor that the PSM now has, Carme Garcia, is the first councillor the party has had in Alcúdia. Time to show some muscle, it would appear; time to be shown some respect. The PSM across the island has done fairly well out of the elections. Not that it fared any better at regional parliament level than it did in 2007. It has the same number of seats and its percentage of the vote went down fractionally. Yet, it can claim to now being the third force in the island.

A reason for this was the collapse of the Convergència. While it maintains pockets of resistance in town halls, such as Alcúdia, generally it has been consigned to the political dustbin, taking with it its own nationalism of the right. The PSM is now the third force and now the main voice for Mallorcan aspirations.

It is against this background that Garcia has said that she would consider an agreement with the PP whereby an alliance would create the nine councillors required. It would be the most unholy of alliances. More than this, it would be a complete sell-out of political credibility. Not of course that this stops parties combining with others when they have their eye on the main chance; think Liberal Democrats, for example. But a tie-up between the PP and the PSM would be utterly absurd.

Garcia, though she says that she would be capable of being mayor, doesn't have the brassneck to suggest that a pact with the PP would mean that she should be mayor. Thank heavens for such humility. The people of Alcúdia might have granted the PSM the opportunity of town hall representation, but there should be some context in all of this.

The PP obtained almost 40% of the vote. The Convergència and PSOE were virtually identical - in the low 20s. The PSM got just over 6% from a turnout of 55%, which is its own story as it was by far the lowest among the five largest northern municipalities. I don't know how many people this equates to, but from a population of some 19,000 and bearing in mind how many might actually be on the electoral census, an estimate might be around 300.

On any moral grounds, the PP's right to administer the town hall and Coloma Terrasa's right to be mayor should be givens. But they are not. The Convergència and PSOE formed the previous coalition. They might yet do so again, if Garcia could be persuaded. Such a scenario says much about the proportional system and much also about how local town politics are not always about political ideology. In the case of the PP and the PSM, they most certainly are, but the Convergència and PSOE are different.

Though ostensibly of the right and the left, they are chummy. This chumminess can be a virtue, and it worked well enough for most of the last administration, but it can equally be seen as being divisive, especially if it denies the PP its place in the town hall sun.

I make no bones. I don't much care for the PP, but the electoral system can be held open to ridicule. The PP deserves to be installed, but there would be no thing more ridiculous than for it to be installed with the aid of the PSM.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

ELECTION RESULTS - Mallorca

Regional Parliament (four leading groupings)
Partido Popular:
35 seats (increase of 7 seats compared with 2007), 46.48% of the vote (swing of + 0.98% on 2007)
PSOE: 14 seats (down 2); 21.41% (down from 27.6%)
PSM and others: 4 seats (no change); 8.61% (down from 8.98%)
PSOE - Pacte: 4 seats (down 2); 3.06% (down from 4.56%)

Council of Mallorca
Partido Popular: 7 seats; 46.34% of the vote
PSOE: 4 seats; 25.46%
PSM-EN: 2 seats; 12.14%

Alcúdia:
Partido Popular: 8 councillors (up 2); 39.25% of the vote (up from 31.82%)
CxI: 4 councillors (down 3 as the UM in 2007); 23.15% (down from 34.69%)
PSOE: 4 councillors (no change); 22.37% (up from 22.26%)
PSM and others: 1 councillor (up one); 6.35%

Pollensa:
Partido Popular: 5 councillors (no change); 24.29%
La Lliga: 3 councillors (N/A); 15.83%
Alternativa: 2 councillors (N/A); 12.24%
PSOE: 2 councillors (down 2); 11.78%
CiU: 2 councillors; 9.48%
UMP: 1 councillor; 9.07%
PSM and others: 1 councillor; 7.98%
ERAM: 1 councillor; 5.46%
PSIP: 0 councillors; 1.77%


Comment:
The situations in Alcúdia and Pollensa are far from clear. In Alcúdia, the PP is one councillor short of a majority, but its options for pacts are limited. The CxI and PSOE were partners in the previous administration and if they were to being in the new PSM councillor, this would give them control of the town hall and could well see Miguel Llompart staying on as mayor. There is a possibility that the CxI could go with the PP, but the relationship has been uneasy till now. PSOE, interestingly, hae actually managed to increase their share of the Alcúdia vote.

In Pollensa, it is completely confused. The obvious pact would be PP with UMP (as before) plus La Lliga, which was formed as a breakaway from the PP. This would give them the nine councillors needed and, at a guess, would see Malena Estrany of the Lliga installed as mayor. But whether La Lliga would go with the PP, given the acrimony that led to its creation, must be open to question. Whatever emerges, Pollensa's town hall is likely to remain as confused as the election result.

On Election Day - 2: The polling station

"Surname." Out come the ID cards, or not as the case may be. The local policeman, organising the queues, confirms who is in the right or wrong line. "Fornes," some chime. Fornes? I'm not voting for Fornes, yet I appear to be in his queue. It is of course a joke, or maybe it isn't. F is part of the A-M line. The policeman, one of the local plod at loggerheads with the mayor, smiles at the joke. He'll be tired of it later in the day no doubt. He's extremely efficient, ushering with a gentle shove the oldsters who would tarry to enquire after someone's hip operation as they are exiting the polling station.

I am in a quandary. Who actually do I vote for? I haven't got my envelopes, so disappear behind a curtain as though I'm meant to undress and get into one of those hospital gowns that they've forgotten to make with a back. I go into default mode. PSOE. The habit of a lifetime. It won't make a scrap of difference, but I do anyway.

A pink voting slip, a blue voting slip; will you vote for me one day? One day maybe. If there is iniquity in the voting system, it is that you don't actually get the opportunity not to vote directly for Count Dracula of the PP. As for the Council of Mallorca, why would you anyway? It's a pointless institution.

The Fornes gag is, though, revealing. Why are the locals voting? Yes, they'll vote for the regional parliament, but it is the mayor that interests them more. This is really why they are here.

The two queues, A-M and N-Z (not many Z's you'd imagine) are unevenly distributed. There is not so much a quiet mumbling and muttering as a general and loud chit-chat about the length of the A-M queue. Why the unevenness, I wonder? All heavily loaded in favour of Cifres, I conclude. The name-checking against the lists of the electorate must be a thankless task for the party faithful who have been assigned the task. The name is called out, and ... It could be any one of hundreds. It's a problem when everyone in Mallorca has the same name.

You begin to appreciate why there are all the various surnames. No one would have a clue who they were without them. And we go through the surname routine when it's my turn. No, it's one surname and two Christian names. One of the chaps moving the white, pink and blue sheets back and forth on the ballot boxes to permit the depositing of the envelopes seems to find this quite amusing. Not as amusing as I find the fact that Mallorcans and Spaniards have that many names they could individually be a football team.

Once the deed is done, I do some more wondering. It has taken around 45 minutes to get to the ballot box. It's a pleasant, sunny day. There are other things one could be doing. I've voted, but what for? And I am meant to be one of those who is quite well-informed. I know well enough the issues as they affect Muro, but by the same token I don't know them. And you feel like an outsider, which, in truth, is what you are, intruding on someone's party to which they have reluctantly invited you.

The social gathering of the polling station, entire families swelling the numbers in the queues, the very ancient being wheeled in and being greeted from all quarters, the yap of impenetrable, rural Mallorquín with its sound of a mouth full of potatoes being consumed by a startled cat; these all add to a feeling of being distant, of not really knowing the issues. Because how can you when you are not a part of the networks, the families, the old ties?

There is very little reaching-out. Muro, like so many places in Mallorca, is a closed community. And the local elections reflect this. Fornes, for whom I've not voted, contradicts the traditional ruralism of the town. A modern man who did a modern job with a modern company, a representative of a town's transformation, but one that remains somehow hidden because of the distance between the town itself and the resort of Playa de Muro. But he, for all his modernity, is still a son of this old world.

As I leave the polling station and turn the corner, there is Martí Fornes. He is dressed casually but smartly. His wife, or a woman I take to be his wife, is darkish blonde with some bling. She is rummaging in her handbag. Fornes has stopped to talk to someone. An old farmer-type character on a moped with a box of vegetables strapped to the back. In this one scene, you see everything you need to see.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Bauzá new president of the Balearics

José Bauzá's PP has won a comfortable victory in the elections for the three most important institutions in the Balearics - the regional parliament, the Council of Mallorca and Palma town hall.

José Bauzá will become the new president of the Balearics, María Salom, the new president of the Council and Mateo Isern, the new mayor of Palma.

The PP has secured 34 seats in the regional parliament, an overall majority of three. With 19 councillors, it has also won the Council and, and with 17 it has secured Palma.

MALLORCA TODAY - PP wins Balearics election

The Partido Popular appears to have won the regional election in the Balearics, with an absolute majority. More will follow.

The PP would seem to have also secured the Council of Mallorca and Palma council with overall majorities.


The PP would appear to have 33 seats in the regional government parliament, thus giving the party overall majority. This would represent an increase of five seats, but the percentage of the vote, compared with 2007, is virtually unaltered. PSOE, the socialist party of now former President Antich has lost two seats and a drop in the percentage of the vote of nearly 5%. The third most popular party grouping is the left led by the PSM, Mallorcan socialists, but they will stick with four seats and a similar percentage of the vote (down slightly in fact), Other parties, such as the old Unió Mallorquina, now the Convergència, seem to have been wiped out.

ALCUDIA: The PP has secured eight seats in the local council and 39% of the votes, but this doesn't secure the mayor's post for Coloma Terrasa. The CxI of Miguel Llompart has four seats and just under 23%. Llompart could well hang on.

POLLENSA: The PP has the most votes, the highest percentage of the vote and five seats in the town hall, but the mayoral position is wide open. La Lliga and the Alternativa have three seats and respective percentages of 17 and 13%.


Updating ...
POLLENSA: The Alternativa has two councillors with a 12% share. La Lliga has three with 16%. PSOE and the Convergència have two councillors apiece. Wide open for the mayor's job.

REGIONAL PARLIAMENT: PP has 34 seats, a majority of three. PSOE has 14 seats. The PP will form the new government, and José Bauzá is the new president of the Balearics.


Updating ...
SANTA MARGALIDA: The CPU (Can Picafort Unit) has increased the number of its councillors by two to six in all. The PP has lost one, down to four, and a share of the vote, which doesn't bode well for Martí Torres, the mayor prior to the election, but in association with the CPU, he may well hang on. The independents and PSOE alliance has five councillors, but this is down one on their combined totals in 2007.

MURO: The Convergència Democràtica Murera has four councillors, half the number needed for an absolute majority. With its PP allies, for which there are two councillors, Martí Fornes is likely to stay on as mayor, but the CxI (the former Unió Mallorquina) and a combination of other parties could draw this into question.

ALCUDIA: The CxI of Miguel Llompart has seen its number of councillors cut by three from 2007 when, as the UM, it had seven councillors, more than any other party. A combination of CxI, PSOE and PSM should see Llompart pushed over the line as, between them, they have nine councillors to the PP's eight. The absolute majority required was ten.

COUNCIL OF MALLORCA: María Salom will be the new president of the Council, the PP having obtained an absolute majority with 19 councillors.


Bauzá, Salom, Isern all win for the PP
The Partido Popular, as expected, has won a convincing victory in elections for the regional parliament of the Balearics, the Council of Mallorca and Palma town hall. José Bauzá will become the new president of the Balearics, María Salom, the new president of the Council and Mateo Isern, the new mayor of Palma.

The PP has secured 34 seats in the regional parliament, an overall majority of three. With 19 councillors, it has also won the Council and, and with 17 it has secured Palma.


Updating ...
The PP has 35 seats in the regional parliament. PSOE has 14 and others together amount to 10.

ALCUDIA: The PP, which has won the election in Alcúdia with eight councillors, may now pact with the CxI, which would mean the CxI dropping its previous association with PSOE. Were this new coalition to be formed, it could still mean that Miguel Llompart stays as mayor, though the odds must be on Coloma Terrasa taking over.

On Election Day

There is still something of the Sunday finery about the Mallorcan towns and villages. You notice it less in the resorts, but in the "pueblos" they put on best bib 'n' tucker on a Sunday. It's snobbishness in truth.

There are lady wives of the old farmers or landowners who made good and got lucky by selling out to the tourism shilling or who found themselves, Forrest Gump-like when he was sent his share certificate for Apple Computer, part owners of some tourism empire, thanks to whatever force - family, friendship or something dark - was at work.

Now summer is nearly here, the Sunday firs have been put into mothballs and the dehumidifier will be raging twenty-four hours in their vicinity. The cashmere cardy assumes shoulder position instead, a few inches below a face that permanently betrays the presence of something that smells less than pleasant. It is the face of many an older Mallorcan woman whose man was once showered by all his Christmases in one go: a face contorted in contempt.

On election day, on a Sunday, the finery is finer than ever. The old, got-lucky farmers and even the not so lucky old men don that long-forgotten adornment - the hat. They head first to the polling station, then to church to pray for what they have just done and then argue about what they have done over a luncheon of pork and cabbage.

In Muro town, election day is Sunday and also market day. The unholy trinity of finery days and of making it nigh on impossible to find a parking space.

Of the elderly, especially the farmers, you wonder as to their allegiances. A great nephew may have become the black sheep of some obscure leftist tendency. They will probably assure the parents that their vote is secure, but opt instead for something more conservative. Some of these farmers were part of the old co-operative, the one of the Generalisimo's era; they did alright by Franco.

The contrast is the "joven" clan, the youth element. Not so much the middle-of-the-road bank workers or hotel employees, but the dreadlocked, art and artisan, fervently Catalan-speaking, wish-they-could-have-been-part-of-the-protests brigade. Muro, like other pueblos, has this clan, graphic or web designers all, some who are teachers and others who are ... well, they just are. There is little doubt where they stand. Or for whom they might vote.

At the polling station. The old Guardia building. Alerts have been put out that there will be heightened security. The police hang around, the local police that is. They are a strangely potent symbol of the town's elections, having fallen out with the mayor and having threatened to denounce him. Their numbers are not great, but you suspect they will have voted for anyone other than Martí Fornes.

The more ancient "murers" tackle the process of voting as they do an encounter in a chemists. The explanation needs to be given several times, and there are still further questions, while the whole encounter is prolonged by dutiful enquiries as to the health and welfare of the polling station personnel's family, extended family, extended family's friends ... .

Bars and restaurants become temporary HQs for the political parties. This is a phenomenon you can witness on other occasions. I did so during the cuttlefish fair in Puerto Alcúdia. One restaurant was the mayor's, his supporters, his family's and his extended family's, his extended family's friends and their friends - and relatives.

The mayor's party, the Convergència Democràtica Murera, might be thought to be reeling from the announcement, two days before the election, that the order to protect birds had been officially adopted. It extends the area of protection from the Albufera nature park to parts of the Son Bosc finca. As such, it makes the golf course untenable for a party which might as easily be called the Golf Union of Grupotel.

But the local election is not solely about a golf course. It's not really about anything much, other than the day itself. In the town, in the finery. Like all events in Mallorca, it is a social occasion. The result? Well, it does matter, but there are more important things to worry about, such as getting a table for the pork and cabbage.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Reflections Of The Way Life Used To Be

Back in the days when The Supremes were singing about reflections, things were very different politically in Spain. They didn't have to worry much about mass demonstrations and they didn't have to worry much about such demonstrations intruding into days of reflection before elections, as there were neither reflections nor elections.

Today is the day of reflection. What it means is that all political campaigning and indeed comment about the elections should cease prior to tomorrow's elections. As a result, I shall not be talking about the elections. Indeed, I hadn't intended talking about the day of reflection until the demonstrations across Spain began to gather momentum and it occurred to me that this day of reflection is archaic.

Let me make it clear. I think a day of reflection, one in which there is an abstinence from campaigning and comment is a very good idea. The trouble is that its practicality has been lost. While the mainstream press will observe the day and while the political parties will be silent, there will be a whole other world chattering away like fury: the Twitter and Blogospheres.

The social networks have been at least partially instrumental in garnering support for the protests that are and have been taking place across Spain. Together with what will continue to be said today on the internet, the power of the social networks is proving to another government, this time Spain's, that when people feel strongly enough about something, the rules can be ripped up and chucked away.

For it is the rule about the day of reflection, sound in principle but outmoded in reality, that is creating a rod for the government's back. As the protests have a political dimension, they have to cease as they break the rule. But try breaking the protests and the day of reflection will cause there to be a far greater political dimension. The government is in an intolerable situation, but it is one that shows how impotent or potentially reactionary governments can actually be, despite the best of intentions as encapsulated in the day of reflection.

The protests, camps in squares around the country, including Palma, and led by a movement called 15-M, have drawn comparison with events in other countries, most obviously Egypt, but such comparisons are pretty fanciful. Nevertheless, they are being taken seriously enough for President Zapatero to have acknowledged that there are reasons for discontent.

Though it is the national government that is taking the brunt of the protests in that it has to decide how to respond, as do the police, the protests are clearly directed at the whole political system. These are not protests against unemployment, cuts in wages or such; they are against the system and against corruption. "The New York Times" has, as an example, drawn comparisons between Silvio Berlusconi and the head of the Valencia regional government, Francisco Camps, who is likely to be re-elected but still faces the probability of being called to account in a court of law.

In the Palma protest, one of the demands made has been that the protesters want governments which deliver obedience: the governments' own. The disobedience of the protesters, crossing into the day of reflection, will unravel in terms of what reaction there is from these different governments and police; the regional electoral commission in the Balearics has backed the central one in declaring protests today illegal.

And that's all I'm going to say. Has this article broken the day of reflection rule? I don't know. But you can't have protests going on without there being comment. If one thing is to come of the protests, it may well be that it is decided that the day of reflection is more trouble than it's worth. Which would be a shame, but these are modern times, and not those of the past.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Not Just A Single Issue: Local elections

(My apologies if the following is seemingly only directed at a Mallorcan audience.)


Will you be voting? If yes, it's probably because you are interested and know what and for whom you will be voting. But you might also vote according to how it was and is in Britain. Traditionally Conservative, and you go PP; traditionally Labour, and you opt for PSOE. As for the other parties, well what are they about anyway?

Much has been made in the lead-up to the elections, except by the Spanish media of course, about issues as they affect the foreign community (and for our purposes, this means Brits) and the need for this community to vote as a way of registering an interest that would demand a vote in national elections.

I simply don't get it. Yes, I understand full well the arguments about you pays your taxes, you should have your vote, and I understand the ruling (by Britain) which ultimately excludes British nationals in Mallorca from voting in British elections. But a national election is, and should be, for citizens of a specific country. It is an expression of nationhood and is for its citizens, not for others; the Single Market agreement in 1992 made it clear enough where the lines were drawn in respect of voting rights.

Then you have these so-called issues. The residence certificate, in other words. Again, I don't get it. Yes, it's an inconvenience, but there is more than a smattering of double standards about the demand for getting the card back. The brouhaha regarding the British ID card, whipped up not by the left but by the libertarian right, and especially David Davis, was perfectly legitimate in the objections raised. The British card did not have anything like overwhelming public support, so why should it be different here?

As an issue, for the local elections, it is a non-issue. For any party, i.e. the PP, to make it one by suggesting they will somehow bring pressure to bear for a change is cynical opportunism; the PP are playing to a British audience they suspect, rightly probably, will support them anyway.

On both these matters, national voting and the residence card, turn it around. Uppity Spaniards in Britain demanding the vote in a British national election and suggesting that they will vote locally for a party which might grant them the wish for an ID card. How would you react? The card issue, in the great scheme of things here in Mallorca, is an irrelevance. A single issue for a minority; the age-old tyranny of democracy.

Setting aside these matters, though, should you be interested enough to vote? That's up to you. There are those who are interested, and I am one of them, but my interest is more in a role as an observer of the social phenomenon of Mallorca's politics, of its more than occasional battiness, of the enduring strength of networks, tribalism and communities in influencing voter support. It is, if you like, the culture that interests, as much as if not more than the issues and whether so-or-so politician has been caught with his fingers in the till.

Will I vote? Probably. If, that is, I can be bothered to drive the ten kilometres and back to Muro town in order to do so. Who will I vote for? I really don't know. In the town, I could vote for the current mayor and for maintaining Grupotel's hold on the town hall, or maybe I'll vote for Entesa, purely because they've hung a poster up on the lamppost outside.

It is what happens in Palma and in the Consulat de Mar, though, that will hold the greatest interest. The PP and José Bauzá should walk the regional election. If they don't, something very odd will have happened; perhaps because the British had seen through their promises.

Bauzá may prove to be any good as president, but it is not the economy, employment, tourism, transport, health and all the rest that concern me about Bauzá; it is the social and cultural aspect. He has already proven himself capable of being divisive within his own party, and it is the wider divisions that he might cause which worry me.

Mallorcans aren't a naturally radical people. They are conservative. There is a reassurance in this, in that it would prevail over what could be unleashed, namely a rejection of Bauzá's anti-Catalanism in favour of a growth in radicalism and even extremism. But there again, it might not.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Ciudadanos - Alcúdia Political Party

Oops. A bit of an oversight in "Talk Of The North" when listing the candidates for Alcúdia mayor. Missed out none other than Francisco of Don Pedro and the "Ciudadanos". So here's the poster.

Quackers In Can Picafort

It is the fate of certain places that they get lumped in with larger ones nearby or are thought to be a part of these neighbours. So it is with Can Picafort. It's part of Alcúdia, isn't it? No, it isn't. It isn't even a direct neighbour. Playa de Muro intervenes. But that's part of Alcúdia, isn't it? Wrong again.

Can Picafort suffers a fate twice over when it comes to what it is a part of. "It's part of Santa Margalida!?" ask some, incredulously, who do nonetheless know that it isn't part of Alcúdia. "Well, I never knew that. I always thought it was its own place."

It's a simple mistake to make, though. Can Picafort. Santa Margalida. Where's the name link? There isn't one. The resort is several kilometres away from the town that owns it: a once wealthy town, birthplace of Franco's banker, Joan March, he of the Banca March. Its one-time affluence was what led a poor boy of the town to up sticks and find some then more or less worthless coastal land on which to build a home. Mr. Picafort. How he would be laughing nowadays.

The reversal in fortunes of town and resort is not dramatic, however. Can Picafort is, with the greatest respect, the poor man of the tourism-centre trinity of the bay of Alcúdia (you can pretty much discard Artà as a fourth member). Santa Margalida, if not a poor man's town by any means, is not wealthy in the way that Alcúdia is.

Arguably, Santa Margalida should be better off than it is, if only because of the sheer volume of hotels in Can Picafort. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the benefits of the resort's tourism have never quite rubbed off on the municipality. It could all simply be down to two quite different cultures that have never found a way to work with each other.

The meeting of these cultures was a feature of the town's mayoral candidate debate. At present, the Partido Popular (PP) holds the whip-hand in the town. It governs in alliance with something called the CPU. Not a computer's central processing unit, but the Can Picafort Unit.

One of the candidates, representing an amalgamation of the PSOE socialists and independents under an umbrella party called Suma pel Canvi, lambasted the CPU. It was responsible for "nonsenses" and "sins of management", said Miguel Cifre. (How many Miguel Cifres are there, do you suppose, in Mallorca? But that's a side issue.)

The PP and CPU are not responsible for all the sins of Can Picafort. One, the quite appalling state of the marina, has required a judge to arbitrate, giving the company which is meant to look after and develop the marina its marching orders. But the marina is symptomatic, despite an upgrading of the resort's promenade, of what is widely felt to be neglect.

The bad blood between opposition and town hall government has never been far from the surface over the past four years. At times, it has come pouring out of the wounds inflicted on the PP, such as when the what is now the Convergència published a news-sheet with a front cover showing mocked-up 500 euro notes with an image of mayor Martí Torres. The squandering of public money was the accusation, which you might think was a bit rich coming from what was then the pre-corruption-charges Unió Mallorquina (UM).

The sheer pettiness of Santa Margalida's politics was no better summed up than by what appeared to be a retaliatory gesture. The CPU's Can Picafort delegate vetoed the handing out of trophies donated by the UM for a football tournament a day after the news-sheet appeared.

Back at the election debate, though, there was one issue which didn't get a proper airing. It should have, because in the bizarre world of local politics, there is little more bizarre than the row that has been going on over Can Picafort and its August duck-throwing fiesta.

Can Picafort may be mistaken for being a part of somewhere else or for being a town in its own right, but its greatest claim to fame is that it's the place where the burning issue is whether live or rubber ducks should be lobbed into the sea. If you think local politics and issues are mad elsewhere, they are positively sensible compared with those of Can Picafort. Absolutely quackers.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Poster Boys: Local elections

Mallorcans have a thing about posters. They are more than mere means of communication. They are their own events. Come a fiesta and the grand launch of the poster is made. It gets star billing in advance of the fiesta programme being published and can appear to be more important than the programme or indeed the fiesta itself. Such prominence can occasionally backfire, like it did in Palma when it was discovered that the poster design for this year's San Sebastian fiesta had been ripped off.

As much as posters keep the legions of Mallorca's graphic designers in gainful or plagiaristic employment, so they also keep the machines of the island's printers whirring away. Try getting anything printed when it's election time, and you may be unlucky to have chosen one of the print firms that has been given the parties' poster and publicity gigs. Back of the queue you go.

The election posters suddenly appeared. One day there were none; the next day you couldn't move for them. At just past twelve on Thursday night, the posters miraculously emerged. There they were. On lamp-posts and stuck into grassy roundabouts. They'd been watering and fertilising the seeds of politicians and so up sprouted all manner of election candidate flora: a PP plant or a socialist on a stick.

Taking to the road on Friday, one was confronted by repeated visions of José Bauzá and Maria Salom. The Partido Popular had commandeered every available surface and non-surface. A vast banner hung outside the Playa de Muro municipal building. "Vota!"

At the witching-hour of the day of the start of the official election campaign, the broomsticks were out, plastering the posters onto billboards. It's bad enough that the face of Count Dracula Bauzá is leering at us. Mistake Salom's name for Salem and you have both a vampire and a witch. The Balearic Government and the Council of Mallorca will soon be the bailiwicks of the underworld, and the electorate will be hauled, kicking and screaming, to a "Wicker Man".

One thing you can say about Bauzá though is that he is, even before he becomes president, acquiring a healthy number of nicknames. He is "yuppie", according to one newspaper. The way he's going on, he will out-nickname the also-known-as champion, i.e. Zapatero.

But back to posters. It was the prevalence of them outside the municipal building that made me wonder. Muro is sort of PP, in that its mayor is part of some local PP progeny, but who gets to decide which posters and banners go where? No one, it would seem.

A friendly PSOE socialist acquaintance of mine in Alcúdia - and there is such a thing - has a restaurant. Why, I asked, was there a PP poster outside his gaff? He muttered something about removing it in the dead of night and then let on what happens. It's all a bit of a party. Any old excuse, I suppose. The politicos' armies of supporters are on the starting-grid, waiting for the clock to turn midnight and off they go. It's like the doors of Harrods being flung open to the nutters who camp outside in readiness for the start of the sale. First ones to the optimum spots get the prize.

It is true that the poster run when the starter's pistol is fired on the election campaign is a bit of a "fiesta". In both Inca and Manacor, for instance, the tradition of hanging the posters is taken seriously enough for mayoral incumbents to be out on the streets with their glue or hammers.

It seems like a recipe for chaos though. Are there squabbling sets of supporters, fighting over specific lamp-posts as though they were trying to grab some knockdown-price knickers from another sales-goer?

Chaos or not, the PP managed to nab some of the best specks, the posters shouting out "canvi". Vote for change. How original. Not at all of course. It was, for example, a John Kerry slogan for the 2004 American presidential election. How ironic though that Bauzá's PP should use the Catalan "canvi" when it seems intent on change that will see the language downgraded.

But vote for change it is, which just goes to prove, as with the San Sebastian poster, that slogans as well as designs can be ripped off. And you wonder how many of the posters are ripped down. Outside one restaurant they may well be.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Sitting Pretty Vacant: Pollensa

It was like the awards ceremony when the winner doesn't show up, or the dinner when the guest of honour cries off. This might be over-egging things, but Joan Cerdà's absence from the ranks of mayoral candidate in the Club Pollença deprived the occasion of some fun. No more will Joan be the pig in a poke** of a public haranguing. But he will remain; a Banquo's ghost, haunting Pollensa for years to come.

How many mayoral candidates does it take to change a light bulb? As many as you want, and they will still manage to get the lights of Puerto Pollensa's bypass and church square the wrong way up or simply wrong. How many mayoral candidates does any town need? It is quicker to name those residents of Pollensa who are not standing for mayor than to name those who are.

Even without Joan to liven up proceedings and to be the target of metaphorical rotten eggs and tomatoes lobbed in his general direction, the malcontents of Pollensa opposition politics were only too happy to try and generate the normal fun and games that surround Pollensa town hall. The collective slagging-off was just like old times. In fact, just like any time over the past four years of Cerdàdom.

The one candidate currently warming a seat in the town hall, PSOE's Maria Sastre, was asked about the value of her sinecure - sorry, sorry, size of her salary. Only 1900 euros a month, she retaliated. But salary is not what is important. It's all about effectiveness. Cue chortling.

The naughty boys of the opposition, Garcia of the Alternativa, Sureda of the Esquerra and Cifre of the Mallorcan socialists, have been the ones who have habitually been caught sniggering at the back of the room during council meetings.

One of them, Cifre, questioned the amounts paid on town hall staff - 40% of the entire budget, always assuming you know which budget is being referred to; the town hall has only recently signed off on the 2009 accounts. Or were they 2008's? Everyone seems to have lost track.

What do these staff members and councillors do precisely? Garcia reckoned a full-time fiestas councillor was unnecessary. A full-time post would be better reserved for tourism.

Ah yes, tourism, and Puerto Pollensa. Remarkably, someone (Cifre) made the point that it is up to the town hall to make the place look pretty. It is the tour operators and hoteliers who should be attracting the tourists. Hallelujah. When all the talk is made about local authorities doing this and doing that in order to promote to tourists, the obvious point is overlooked; that it is not the local authorities that really matter, but the tour operators. Cifre should be given the job as tourism minister.

Puerto Pollensa has its own party, the Unió Mollera Pollencina, and it naturally enough has its own mayoral candidate. Nadal Moragues deplored the pathetic image of the port and called for the Moll to have its own budget and responsibilities. It's not the first time the suggestion has been made, but the rumblings of potential UDI are growing louder.

The new chico on the block, the virtual unknown, mini-Cerdà of the Convergència Whatever They're Called Nowadays said that he would give out his mobile number so that citizens could call him. It sounds like a dangerous thing to do, but as no one knows who he is, he'll probably be ok. And I'm not telling you his name, just in case. He won't win anyway. Surely he can't? Not AC - after Cerdà.

Such openness had already been trumped by Pepe Garcia. His Alternativa could just as easily be called the Transparencia. So clear and clean is Pepe, you can see right through him. Which is not meant to sound as it does. He's a thoroughly decent bloke, and he has published his full financial and earnings situation as a way of demonstrating his transparency.

And that was about it. The candidates for the self-styled worst town hall in Mallorca will wait a few days to discover their fate. Oh, but there was one I've not mentioned. Malena Estrany of La Lliga. She is the best-looking of the lot. But given the vast numbers standing for office, she, as with all the others, cannot be said to be sitting pretty. The job's vacant, and the race is wide open.

(** For those of you not up to speed with the Spanish, "cerda" is a female pig - a sow.)


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The New Orthodoxy: Tourism

Today marks the first day of official campaigning for the local Mallorcan elections. Underwhelmed by the news? You're forgiven.

Around and about, the candidates for mayor and for higher office have already been having their say. And what they have had to say is all very similar. When it comes to one topic in particular. Tourism.

From the hinterland and from the coastal regions, candidates for mayoral office have been reaching for the little red book of tourism orthodoxy, mugging up on the subject as though they were heading off to a pub quiz night rather than to meetings with electorates desperate to hear something original.

In Sineu, something needs to be done about increasing tourism potential. Historic routes and itineraries, they say, as they also say cycling tourism, gastronomy and culture. In Ses Salines, they say there should be sustainable cycling tourism, more tourism promotion and complements to just sun and beach. In Capdepera, they want alternatives - gastronomy and sports tourism. In Alcúdia, there must be more promotion of culture and gastronomy.

You can be forgiven for being underwhelmed by the election campaign having started, as you can also be forgiven for despairing of any grain of new thinking.

It is not just the mayoral candidates (and one imagines the lack of wisdom is the same in whichever municipality you care to name), it is also those with their eyes on the regional doors of power. Jaume Font, he of La Lliga, wants to get rid of up to 35,000 obsolete hotel places. And why does he want to do this? Because this old hotel stock is responsible for low prices.

Font wants to modernise the hotels, but his idea is not in the least bit original. The Mallorcan hotel federation has been banging on about it for ages, so long as some arrangements can be found whereby the hotels can guarantee a good earner for themselves by either changing hotels' status or upgrading them. Whisper it quietly, but behind Font's idea lurks the "quality tourist". Modernise the hotels and, bingo, suddenly Mallorca is awash with millions of tourists brandishing American Express Platinums.

The poverty of thought suggests what is widely believed to be the case; that, when it comes to tourism, they really haven't got a clue. This isn't entirely true. They do have a clue, but they look for it in that little red book of orthodoxy. You will enjoy our gastronomy, you will ride a bicycle, you will take photos of some old ruin.

This orthodoxy is now being complemented by a different one. Tourism needs to be run by professionals, those who know about the industry. What an extraordinary idea. There is just one problem. Unless I am very much mistaken, you get mayors and councillors at town hall level and presidents and ministers at regional governmental level who require electing. If any of them happen to be professionals in whatever sphere, then this is a bonus.

There must be a tourism minister who is a professional, so the new orthodoxy demands. Tony Blair may have sidestepped the inconvenience of the democratic system by appointing those who had not actually been elected, but that was Blair for you. José Ramón Bauzá, and we may as well already name him President Bauzá, is unlikely to become a Blairite and install an Alastair Campbell-style tourism minister. Instead, there will be some Tory Boy meets Nice-But-Dim character at tourism after 22 May. Or, be very afraid (if you are the hoteliers who can't stand him), Carlos Delgado.

The fact is that behind a succession of tourism ministers there have been professionals. But look what happens to them. Mar Guerrero, arguably the best of the lot, resigned as director of the tourism agency because she didn't want to pull the wool over people's eyes; in other words, she walked because she wasn't allowed to do her job properly. Susanna Sciacovelli, another former director, was caught up in the purge of the Unió Mallorquina and went off to Italy to land a plum job with Air Berlin.

The campaign for the elections will be underwhelming, as will be what is said about tourism. But there is someone who doesn't suffer from the same old orthodoxy. And that's Delgado. He may be disliked for different reasons, but put him at tourism and wait for it ... Mallorca's politics and tourism would suddenly get a whole lot more interesting. And you know something? It won't happen.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

War: What Is It Good For?

If you are looking to start a war, then who better than someone who bears the name.

The Guerra Un-Civil of the elections has started, and a Guerra has entered the fray, limp howitzers of bile being volleyed over the current opposition and dripping from them like trails of blood from the corners of a Count Dracula mouth. This, the Dracula one, is an image that is increasingly disturbing me. It is as a result of a worryingly euphoriant eureka moment when I suddenly realised that José Ramón Bauzá has more than just a hint of the cape and high collar of a Transylvanian about him.

While Count Bauzá is drawing on the blood of the body Catalan, PSOE has appointed a witchfinder-general, its one-time central government vice-president. His name? Guerra. Mr. War. Alfonso of this ilk.

In war, there are the dispensable. Into the battle, therefore, cast an OAP politician everyone had forgotten was still with us. If he takes the flak, it doesn't much matter. Mr. War has come out all guns misfiring from a prosthetic hip. He has taken aim and his pop-gun has let out a pantomime sheetlet with a corruption bang scrawled on it.

The Balearics wing of the PSOE socialist party met in Palma on Friday for a pre-election powwow at which Sr. Guerra launched into the Partido Popular and suggested that, far from having reformed themselves, its leaders should be banged up in chokey.

This meeting was more a pre-voting day wake than a call to arms for the battles that await in government after 22 May. The local PSOE knows that it's going to be completely mullered at the polls. It's why Sr. Guerra was dragged out of his bath chair and unleashed his rallying cry to the troops. The cry of a desperate party that already knows its fate.

There is nothing left for PSOE to cling onto than the lifeboat of corruption. Sr. Guerra reiterated the still malodorous charges and cases that waft from the rotten-egg fertiliser in the corner of José Bauzá's new PP perfumed garden. But why bother?

It may be accurate to remind the electorate of the PP's sleazy past, but does the electorate take much notice? Were it to, and were corruption as significant an issue as it is made out to be, then it would not be the PP which is currently set to secure a 30-seat majority in the local elections. It would, instead, be PSOE; its collective nose is relatively clean and has not had to breathe in the whiff of political impropriety.

PSOE has gone on the corruption offensive not just because it's losing and because of the trial spectaculars of former PP president Jaume Matas, but also because it accuses Bauzá of hypocrisy. His grand clean-up of the PP was meant to have excluded any politician tainted by scandal from the runners and riders on 22 May.

Another PSOE grandee, Rosamaria Alberdi, the party's Balearics secretary, has claimed that Bauzá is duping the electorate, pointing to both Maria Salom, the candidate for the presidency of the Council of Mallorca, and Antoni Pastor, the mayor of Manacor, as two who have been implicated in the past.

The problem for Sr. Guerra, Sra. Alberdi and PSOE is that the electorate has more pressing matters to consider. It was unfortunate for President Antich that global economic crisis should have consumed his period in office, but it did not help with any ambition to secure a second term, when the PP is historically the natural party of Balearics government. Since 2007, Antich has effectively been a dead man walking, given the near certainty that the status quo of PP dominance would be restored.

Corruption once did influence an election. The Sóller tunnel affair of the mid-1990s did have an impact and led to PSOE and Antich taking power for the first time. But, and despite all the publicity the various cases attract, it has lost its power to shock. The electorate is not stupid. It knows or suspects that all the parties are up to no good or have the potential to get up to no good. Consequently, making corruption a key issue, the issue, is limp. It is the dying call of a party that knows that it is losing the war. It's not good for anything.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Ordinary People: Muro

How many of you know the town of Muro? Not the Playa de Muro resort that is mistakenly believed by many to be part of Alcúdia, but the town itself, some ten kilometres inland.

In common with other old towns in Mallorca, Muro is distinctly old. Roman in origin, its name (the wall) dates back to this time. The Moors, strangely for them, didn't re-name it, but instead monikered the vast wetlands to one side of the town as Al Buhayra - Albufera. The town church is one of the most impressive and forbidding of all the island's religious colossi. It is the imposing focal point for a town centre to which relatively few tourists venture. One reason for this is that there is no bus route that connects town to resort. The lack of direct public transport is symptomatic of an affliction that Playa de Muro shares with some other resorts, that of distance from the centre of local power, the town hall, and of perceived and possibly even real neglect.

Like other towns on the island, Muro's past was one of agriculture. Its ruralism is re-created in the fine museum in the town, and the role of its co-operative during the earlier years of Franco has been assiduously documented by the town's archivist in creating an outstanding source of original, historical material. Current-day Muro retains its association with the land. Together with its neighbour, Sa Pobla, it is the centre of much of the island's vegetable growing.

The growth of Playa de Muro and a process of economic diversification away from agriculture owes much to one hotel chain. Grupotel. The chain is identifiable with the town, and so it is also identifiable with the town hall. Grupotel's president is a former mayor. The current mayor, Martí Fornes, is a former director.

The accusation that is made regarding the apparent neglect of the resort doesn't quite square with this town hall representation, while the one big tourism issue for the resort, the building of the golf course on the Son Bosc finca, is one in which Grupotel is a significant player; in fact, the most significant. It is the major shareholder, along with other hotel groups, of the development company.

Inevitably, given the opposing camps and controversy that surrounds Son Bosc, the golf course was a matter up for discussion when the town's mayoral candidates gathered in the municipal theatre for their public grilling on Wednesday. There were seven of them in all, including Fornes. His party is the Convergència Democrática Murera, essentially an offshoot of the Partido Popular, and one founded by ... the president of Grupotel.

Fornes has not enjoyed the smoothest of rides since replacing Jaume Perelló, he who has been obliged to take a holiday on account of vote-rigging in the late 1990s. While Son Bosc has dominated the headlines, he has been confronted, in addition to a parlous financial position that has left town hall suppliers unpaid, with the threat of being denounced by the local police for alleged harassment, with consternation at the decision to acquire the town's bullring at a cost of some 450,000 euros and with the threat to property on the coast under new demarcation plans emanating from the Costas authority.

The most public example of this threat to coastal property has been the case of the bizarre enclave of Ses Casetes des Capellans, an urbanisation of former church cottages that reach into forest land and which sit right on land that has clearly been influenced by the sea, a key determinant where the Costas are concerned for sending in the bulldozers.

For reasons of sheer oddness and uniqueness, Ses Casetes must be preserved. And there is another reason. The cottages, for the most part, belong to ordinary people of the town who use them as holiday and weekending homes. It is the clash between ordinariness and the long march of tourism development that goes to the heart of the Muro debate, both politically and socially. There was no clearer an expression of this than a banner that was unfurled during a protest against demolition. "A golf course is for the rich, Capellans is for the people."

It is the obsessing over the golf course that has created the town's divisions. Not because it's widely unwanted, because it isn't, but because of what is seen as being a wrong priority.

Whoever wins the election in Muro, and perhaps more importantly who wins the regional election, will determine the fate not just of the ordinary people and their "casetes" but also that - finally - of Son Bosc. And the outcome is unlikely to be one that sits easily with many of those ordinary people.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Every Day People: Mallorca-ism

Politicians always say the right things. Or try to. Ahead of elections, they try particularly hard. They also have a tendency to repeat what has been said before. María Salom, the Partido Popular's candidate for the presidency of the Council of Mallorca, is no exception.

"I wish that Mallorca could live from tourism 365 days a year." Amen to that. We all wish the same thing. Incumbents of various political posts have wished the same thing in the past, and will doubtless continue to do so. They, and we, can wish all manner of things. Like Roy Wood and wishing every day were Christmas, so we might wish tourism brought Christmas gifts every day of the year. Sadly, it doesn't.

Salom is ticking the right boxes. She has even suggested the creation of "fiesta routes", such as for Sant Antoni in January. It's not a novel idea, as it has been suggested on many occasions, not least by myself. But for it to be given a political airing verges on that rarest of political attributes, some creative thinking.

Unfortunately for María Salom, she might not have much influence on a 365-days-a-year tourism. It seems to have escaped her attention that her own party, quite rightly, has said that it will do away with a tourism department at the Council. It's unnecessary when there is already one along the corridors of the regional government. Ditto, of course, much of what has been grabbed as an irrelevant duplication of responsibility by the island's Council. She herself has pretty much set out a blueprint for trimming the Council. It seems strange, therefore, that she should pronounce on something that is not hers to pronounce on.

Yet, it isn't all that strange when you consider what else she has been saying. The dream, the wishful thinking of every day being a tourism day, is purely political froth. As also are her declarations in favour of preserving the countryside and of defending "Mallorca-ism". It is just possible that she personally believes all this, but her party has shown little evidence that it does.

Or possibly she has been put up to fire a shot across the ambitious bows of would-be tourism minister, Carlos Delgado, who has made it clear enough in the past that he would give tourism needs priority over those of land and environment. Equally possible is that she has been allocated the role of portraying a cuddly, feminine face of the PP and of encroaching upon the virgin, untouched land of the island's left wing along with its own avowed Mallorca-ism, the dual domains of the government's current environment minister, the Mallorcan socialists' Gabriel Vicens.

It doesn't really wash, though. As sure as it was that when Vicens clambered aboard the environmental horse and cart and sought to kill off developments such as the Muro golf course, so the PP, newly restored to office, will take to its fleet of gas-guzzlers and flatten the finca. If they don't, it will be a surprise and a reversal of a reputation as the life and soul of the 19th hole and the eighteen before it.

The right and left of the island are poles apart. Vicens once committed an act of "disobedience" by being one of those who went off for a trek along the camí (way) of Ternelles in Pollensa when he shouldn't have done. In his other capacity as transport minister, you can be pretty certain that he hadn't gone on a reccy to eye up the way as the site of a new motorway. Had it been a PP politician, he or she wouldn't of course have been disobedient but instead would have been on the phone to place the purchase order for the tarmac.

It is this polarity that underpins the upcoming elections. While the diversions of corruption and the pressing need for economic growth will be two of the battlegrounds, it is the philosophical differences in terms of what Mallorca should be that are at the heart of the elections. They can be nuanced as a type of quasi-Luddite romanticism on the left and an industrial pragmatism on the right.

Campaigning for the elections is not meant to be occurring at present. The official date for the start of campaigning is 6 May, but it isn't stopping the unofficial hustings taking place. Hence María Salom's pronouncement and indeed the words of other politicians.

The Mallorca-ism to which Salom refers may, for a PP population, sound like an attempt at mollification of the more left-inclined who have been alarmed by some of the strident noises coming out of the party, but it is a central theme of what these elections are about; indeed what they should be about. As for tourism 365 days a year, where does this fit in with Mallorca-ism? There are some who, and I leave it to you to decide who, would rather this were never the case.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Our Honourable Friends: Mallorca's mayors

How many are likely to mourn the decision of Pollensa's mayor, Joan Cerdà, not to seek re-selection? He himself is probably not mourning the decision. On Thursday, he walked past me, talking into his mobile. He was actually smiling, rather than wearing his usual care-worn expression. The burden has been lifted. You wonder why he ever subjected himself to the post and to the vilification that has been directed towards him and which has characterised his term in office.

The chances of Cerdà's party, newly named with the mouthful that is the Convergènica i Unió de Pollença, securing a further term must, you would think, be low. Transformed it may have been by name, it remains tarnished by its previous incarnation as the discredited Unió Mallorquina. From the less than good ship that was the UM has jumped the odd defector, such as the mayoral candidate for Jaume Font's La Lliga, the not unappealing Malena Estrany. If the selection of Pollensa's mayor were simply a beauty parade, then Estrany would cat-walk it. But it isn't, as Joan Cerdà proved.

Who would be a mayor in Mallorca? Why would anyone wish to be? The honourable view is that it is an expression of civic duty, of doing the right thing. The honourable view is not one that is widely held; among the citizenship, at any rate. There may well be paragons of public virtue in Mallorca, but for every one that there is, there is also an Hidalgo or a Perelló, respectively former mayors of Andratx and Muro, and both languishing at the citizens' pleasure.

The theory of very local democracy is one that should be unquestioned because of the closeness of the people to the people in authority. It is a fine theory, but the very closeness is what makes the mayoral office both difficult and open to abuse. Difficult because of the endless criticism that is likely to arise and which can rarely be avoided in the day-to-day of such small communities. Open to abuse because. Well, because you know why.

The politics of Mallorca's towns, the positions of mayors in these towns, are reflections not of politics so much as of tribalism. Of networks, of families, of business association, of old scores that can go back to schooldays. Those who used once to fight in the playground now fight in plenary sessions, and the level of sophistication is not always greatly advanced from the days of the playground.

The political parties in the towns and villages are more social and tribal clubs than they are necessarily ideological. Mayors become mayors partly because of who they know, and their selection still owes something to the old system of the "cacique", the local political chiefs, the fixers of the towns and villages of the nineteenth century. It is a current-day system that, for all the good intentions and of what is honour among some, retains the suspicion of favours.

Why is it that in many Mallorcan towns there are local variants of the main parties or simply "other" parties? Are these an expression of dissatisfaction, or is there another reason? The party political clubs have more than a hint of the self-serving.

The people who most matter when it comes to the election of parties and the selection of mayors are the Mallorcan people themselves, the majority of whom, of those to whom I have spoken about the elections, damn each and every party equally. It is not the recent corruption that colours their views and releases their damnation, it is the unspoken body language of a raised eyebrow or a shrug of a shoulder. It matters not which party is elected, nor which mayor is selected. Favours will arise, and everyone knows it, or suspects it.

But can anything other than this be expected? It should be expected, but how difficult must it be to refuse an uncle or cousin, to be immune to a parent's longstanding friendship with someone who was the one who did, after all, give the old man the job that paid for the family finca? How difficult must it be to not be influenced by your wife's suggestion that her brother's business might be an excellent choice for such or such a contract?

Added to these conflicts of interest, mayors and councillors have to contend also with the demands of those largely disbarred from the grace and favour of the network - the foreigners. Those such as the British with their own agendas. Candidates may smile and say the right words, but what are they really thinking? Do they honestly care about whether someone has or hasn't got a residency card? About whether someone has or has not to hold a piece of paper instead? Why should they? It doesn't matter. Sorry, but it doesn't matter. Inconvenience is not or should not be a political issue. Discrimination is, but it goes a lot deeper than a piece of paper.

Ultimately, what does matter is that a mayor presides over what his or her town or village is meant to be responsible for. Nothing more and nothing less. Waste collection, street lighting and cleaning, police. The stuff of the everyday plus the less than everyday, such as the fiestas. Should it really matter that just because someone is a relative that his business secures the contract for certain services? Of course it should matter, but until now it has been the unwritten rule. What is changing, though, is the impulse towards greater transparency, something which the island's town halls have preferred to obscure. The impulse is also towards citizen participation and involvement, a movement that should assist in this transparency. The problem then, though, is who has the loudest and most important voices among the participating citizens.

Being a mayor in Mallorca. Who on earth would want to be one? Even for the honourable.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

This Fascist Groove Thing: Political insults

The parliamentarians of the Balearics will be breaking up soon. Their spring holidays will be a time for preparing for government - the next one - or for looking around for gainful employment if and when the elections on 22 May add them to the statistics of the unemployed. A dozen deputies will be given a little bonus, six grand's worth of payment to tide them over between parliament's dissolution on 28 March and the results of the elections being announced. Not exactly huge parachute payments, but nice work if you can get it.

One among the parliamentary ranks, finance minister Carles Manera, has been making plans. He will, assuming he is no longer in charge of the islands' coffers come the end of May, be dividing his time between the universities of Palma, Barcelona and the LSE. He may not be Milton Friedman, but future economists of Britain will be able to say that they were once taught by the chap at the helm when the Balearics' economy went into meltdown.

At the penultimate session of parliament, Manera has been doing his best to play down charges regarding irregularities with the islands' public companies, by which are meant organisations that are in effect government agencies. Hey ho, always an irregularity or several to keep local politicians occupied.

Manera will be just one of the jolly figures who has kept us entertained over the past four years to duck out of local politics. Some have already said that they are calling it a day, opportunely perhaps. Catalina Julve, she of the waste-collection scandal, is to quit politics. Presumably, she won't be emptying the bins anywhere near you soon.

Miguel Grimalt, our old friend "Enviro Man", is to be recycled into business somewhere. How much we once enjoyed him. We saw him here, we saw him there, we saw Enviro Man everywhere; one day planting a tree, the next reclaiming a dune, always immaculately turned out, even when he put on some wellies to go and dig to save the planet.

The dying days of the current parliament are a time for politicians to make hay while the sun sets. If not the finance minister and his attempts at regularising the allegedly irregular, then any number of the honourable gentlemen and ladies having their acerbic centimo's worth. Peculiarly, you might be interested to know, there is an insistence that decorum prevails and deputies are afforded the respect of being referred to as "honourable", just as in Westminster. Rarely has an adjective become so abused.

And abuse has been flying in the parliamentary chamber, as warring politicos engage in last-minute recriminations and pitch for the electorate's affections. Parliamentary speeches, Balearics-style, are with the aid of microphones, making the deputies like karaoke politicians, reading from a monitor of insults. Ravens, crows or vultures, the word "cuervos" can mean them all, and is but one affront to be traded as predatory Partido Popular politicos circle to pick over the carrion of the decaying body of the Antich administration.

Another insult is "fascist", an expression of contempt loaded with historical resonance, and one coming from the Partido Popular's Antoni Pastor in the direction of the Antich socialists. Why fascist? It doesn't much matter why, and it doesn't really hold much weight when the one using the insult is seated next to his party leader (José Bauzá) who, one suspects, he dislikes more than he does the opposition.

"Fascist" may count more as an insult in a country that was once so, but it is still an easy term to toss around, rather as it used to be in my days of student politics when everyone was a fascist. Unless you know someone to be the genuine article, and it was my misfortune to have known one (a key strategist with the BNP, though it wasn't realised that he was at the time), then it's an insult best left on the grooves in the political karaoke database.

But maybe this fascist thing is appropriate. As spring beckons, and some politicians (the Partido Popular's probably) will look forward to the darling buds of a return to power in May, we might remember Mel Brooks' song from "The Producers". "Springtime For Hitler" ... (substitute as and if you feel appropriate).


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Jobs For The Boys: Local councillors

Local elections take place in May, and there will be more posts to vote for in Mallorca than ever before. The law on elections allows for specific numbers of town hall councillors depending on the size of municipalities' populations. Towns which have broken through different thresholds include Calvia. Now with over 50,000 registered inhabitants, it can increase its councillors from 21 to 25. Good for it. At the same time that it's adding politicians, it's cutting budgets for promoting tourism and looking after the beaches. Three towns close to upping their councillors to 21 are Alcúdia, Pollensa and Felanitx, but none has yet acquired the 20,000 residents to permit this. So they are stuck with 17.

Town halls, again depending on the size of the population, are obliged to assume responsibility for a range of minimum services. All of them have to look after basic services, such as refuse collection and street maintenance, and only as the number of people increases do these minimum services also increase.

Councillors' jobs do not, however, correspond with these services. For starters, there are councillors who have no responsibilities as such, as they are members of the opposition. Broad responsibilities are often combined and given to one councillor, while there are plenty of "jobs" that are not included in the list of minimum services. Oddly enough, I can find no reference to police in this list, yet this is a town hall service (where it applies) that falls directly under the mayor.

The system of local government is still evolving. Until relatively recently, the precise role of town halls was not that well defined within what is a four-tier scheme of central and regional government, insular government (in the case of the Council of Mallorca) and the municipalities. But a progressive system of decentralisation has granted the town halls increased responsibilities and autonomy; all part of a political philosophy to bring democracy as close as possible to the people.

The philosophy is laudable, but it has not been and still is not without its problems. One is to do with financing. The divvying up of public money has tended to prioritise regional governments even to the extent of denying central government, while local government has been the poor relation, despite assuming more responsibilities. A second is that the philosophy has not been put into practice. Only now is "citizen participation", be it through neighbourhood associations or public consultations, really starting to catch on. Certain councillors have had the responsibility added to their portfolios.

A third problem is a structural one: the sheer abundance of local authorities. This structure brings with it potential inefficiency. The populations of a half of Mallorca's municipalities are under 5,000. It has been argued, with good reason, that expecting them to be efficient is unrealistic. The call has gone out, therefore, for mergers or to at least share services. One academic study reckons that spending needs for a town of 1,000 people is 23% higher (relatively, I assume this means) than one for 5,000 people. Merger, and you don't have to be an economist to figure this out, would achieve some economies of scale.

Public spending bodies have been making similar calls to those coming from academia. The Sindicatura de Cuentas (like the Audit Commission) argues that there has to be a rationalisation of resources. The calls are not falling on deaf ears, as local politicians understand there are difficulties with the current system, but the president of the Balearics' local authorities federation maintains that the system is the best. There again, he probably would; he's also the mayor of Puigpunyent which has only around 2,000 residents.

The fourth problem, and this brings us back to the increasing numbers of councillors, has to do with these councillors themselves and issues of professionalism, qualification and the old-boys (and girls) network. One of the greatest drawbacks with localism, especially in Mallorca where everyone seems to be related to everyone else, is that of nepotism. In itself, it probably isn't often viewed as being questionable or corrupt; just how it is. But with increased responsibilities come other ones, those of transparency and ethical behaviour.

The old-boys network is such that creating new councillors can simply mean adding more jobs for the boys, while the network is also at play even between different political parties. Most of the local politicians will have grown up with each other. Political differences don't count for much when favours can still be granted. And grants are a further facet of the network. The same academic study which pointed to that 23% higher spend also considered what can happen with grants that are made to municipalities from higher levels of government. They can go to subsidising things that are not priorities or needed. And you therefore end up wondering who actually benefits and to whom the grants go.

For all its failings though, the system of local government has much to be said for it in terms of community and identity. Rationalisation would undoubtedly make sense, but just think for a moment about how passions can rise in England when boundaries are changed, new counties formed. The system is still evolving. It may be that rationalisation has to occur, but for the time being the number of councillors will increase. Whether they are needed though; well, that's another matter.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.