"I have no idea." As statements from politicians go, you couldn't ask for a better one than this, and who better to deliver it than the Partido Popular gift who keeps on giving, Mabel At The Table Cabrer? Never normally lost for a word or several - calling the opposition Nazis, for instance - the PP parliamentary goatherd was for once reduced to four-word cluelessness (actually there are five words in both Spanish and Catalan). Yet earlier in the week, Mabel had been vocalising in shouty spokesperson mode when condemning the "crusade" being led by the opposition against her own crusader, the Dracula-caped one, battling corruption wherever it may lurk. Be amazed as José Ramón fights the fraudulent. Gasp as he despatches the deceitful and expels the embezzlers. But Mabel would have been sore afeared at the sight of Judge Dredd roaring towards the courts on his Harley steel horse. The judge who should be dreaded, the OAP oath taker José Castro had been hearing from an axe-grinder.
Javier Rodrigo de Santos, the newly saintly Rodrigo, released from the penance of his misuse of his Palma town hall credit card and rent boys, was twisting the knife. Beans were spilling from His Holiness Rod (dismissed as a "confessed and convicted offender" by another spokesperson, Miguel Ramis) and they amounted to a great deal more than a hill. A mountain was built, and Rodrigo was music to the ears of the judge and subsequently of the anti-corruption prosecutors. Construction businesses had benefited from having been given public works contracts in exchange for which they had been handing 3% commissions to the Jaume Matas-era PP.
It was these commissions that Mabel had no idea about. She could proudly proclaim that she was now part of a PP that was totally new and which had nothing to do with the old Matas model PP. In Bauzá's new model PP army, things are different. Oh, by the way, Mabel had been the minister for public works under Matas.
The blood freshly dripping from the jugular of the revenge of Rodrigo, the vultures swooped. Biel Barceló of Més: Bauzá was "chained to the past" of the corruption of the PP. Fina Santiago, also Més: Rodrigo had confirmed the existence of a "mafia structure and generalised corruption within the PP". For PSOE, Rodrigo's evidence pointed to "systematic corruption" in the Matas government. The Caped Crusader retaliated by stating that his was a profile without corruption, an announcement that lacked a real sense of zap or pow, just as Bauzá the video did. What do you mean you haven't seen it? José Ramón wants to talk to you, so long as it is in Castellano or Catalan. No mention of any trilingual dialogue in giving "sufficient reasons for you to trust us again".
There were those who suggested that the talk-talk video showed signs of desperation. I prefer to think that it showed where linguistic preferences lay. By Friday, four days after having been posted, the Castellano version was beating the Catalan one by 370 views (3,385 versus 3,015). The combined total would, were they all to trust them again, fail to make much inroad into the lost support in the opinion polls. Anyway, if you wish to, you can talk to the president: Email, joseramon@gestionbauza.com; Whatsapp, 610 176 291; Twitter, @JRBauza; Facebook, José Ramón Bauzá.
Index for February 2015
AENA privatisation - 13 February 2015
Alcúdia anti-all inclusive party - 7 February 2015
All-inclusive control - 26 February 2015
Andratx, mayors and corruption - 11 February 2015
Balearics stand at Fitur and King Felipe - 5 February 2015
Canary Islands versus AENA privatisation - 24 February 2015
Eco-tax - 25 February 2015, 27 February 2015
Electoral pacts by Mallorca's left - 22 February 2015
Felanitx Theory: Columbus - 10 February 2015
Fitur tourism fair - 6 February 2015
Flu and hospital emergencies - 4 February 2015
Mallorca's hoteliers: unloved - 9 February 2015
Més and Balearics' own airline - 16 February 2015
Palma fiesta planning - 2 February 2015
Partido Popular corruption - 28 February 2015
Podemos power struggles - 3 February 2015
Podemos versus hoteliers - 18 February 2015
Police corruption in Palma - 1 February 2015
Pollensa: Day of destruction - 14 February 2015
Pope in Mallorca - 12 February 2015
PSOE and participation - 8 February 2015
Regional elections opinion poll - 23 February 2015
Sardine burial and Lent - 15 February 2015
Simplicity and Mallorcan winter marketing - 19 February 2015
Tourism ministry and a feeling for tourism - 20 February 2015
Town hall reduction - 17 February 2015
Virgen del Carmen fiesta and Saint Simon Stock - 21 February 2015
Showing posts with label Mabel Cabrer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mabel Cabrer. Show all posts
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Insults Are Not What They Were
One of Balearic president Bauzá's Babes, Partido Popular parliamentary spokesperson Mabel Cabrer, admitted last week that the party might lose its majority at the next regional elections, an observation that the electorate, with even a cursory glance at the latest opinion polls, would itself already have made. High on the parliamentary hill, Cabrer, the lonely goatherd, yodelled a lament which demonstrated that she and the party are genuinely rattled, and the ones who have been doing the rattling are Podemos. Mabel from her table warned of the dire consequences of Podemosism. "It represents a very dangerous alternative." "It would cause a total break with the model .. of Spanish democracy." Which, Mabel may not have noticed, is what Podemos are all about: a new model, one that would prefer to see the back of the discredited two-party model of which she is a member.
Alarmed by the prospect that she will almost certainly be out of a job after May, Mabel called for the election debate to be "high", which would make for something of a change for most current political debate in Mallorca. She also demanded that this debate was not sullied by insults and defamations. Ah yes, insults, something Mabel knows all about, as in when she called opponents of the Partido Popular's discount card Nazis and was later forced to apologise.
Insults, however, aren't what they used to be, as Bauzá discovered when he took Lorenzo Bravo, the general secretary of the UGT union, to court for having called him a fascist, among other things. The courts found in Bravo's favour, and these were courts. Bauzá took the matter to the Balearics High Court, having not got satisfaction from lower courts, but the decision remained the same: freedom of expression outweighed apparent impugning of honour. And now, a court in Palma has concluded that the "hijo de puta" insult has lost its meaning and is not injurious. The court reached its decision in a case involving two workers at an unnamed organisation who got into an argument. One called the other a "hijo de puta", so he was denounced.
With all this in mind, therefore, let the election campaign be full of insults. Nazis, anyone?
Alarmed by the prospect that she will almost certainly be out of a job after May, Mabel called for the election debate to be "high", which would make for something of a change for most current political debate in Mallorca. She also demanded that this debate was not sullied by insults and defamations. Ah yes, insults, something Mabel knows all about, as in when she called opponents of the Partido Popular's discount card Nazis and was later forced to apologise.
Insults, however, aren't what they used to be, as Bauzá discovered when he took Lorenzo Bravo, the general secretary of the UGT union, to court for having called him a fascist, among other things. The courts found in Bravo's favour, and these were courts. Bauzá took the matter to the Balearics High Court, having not got satisfaction from lower courts, but the decision remained the same: freedom of expression outweighed apparent impugning of honour. And now, a court in Palma has concluded that the "hijo de puta" insult has lost its meaning and is not injurious. The court reached its decision in a case involving two workers at an unnamed organisation who got into an argument. One called the other a "hijo de puta", so he was denounced.
With all this in mind, therefore, let the election campaign be full of insults. Nazis, anyone?
Saturday, May 17, 2014
The Language Of Discount Cards
A while ago, I drew attention to what was then only a moderate row over the Partido Popular having launched a discount card for members that could be used at some 300 businesses which had signed up to the scheme. During the week, what had been moderate went very immoderate. Language-wise that is. The row went ballistic, kicked off by a call for a boycott of the businesses launched by the opposition PSOE and Més parties.
The chronology of events is worth itemising. Firstly, Dani Ruano of Foto Ruano, one of the businesses, released a video in which he apologised for having become involved with the scheme. He said that it had been an error but one made in good faith. He had thought he was helping (by offering some customers a discount) and would have done the same regardless of which political party it was. He went on to say that he was taking measures to disassociate the business from the "blue card".
Ruano was indirectly echoing a point that the small to medium-sized business organisation PIMEM was making, namely that businesses were likely to be harmed by associating themselves with the card. PIMEM, for its part, said that it did not support the card. Another business organisation, the Confederation of Balearics Businesses, weighed into the argument, suggesting that it would be wise were the card to be withdrawn, that it shouldn't have been launched but that the damage (to businesses) was already done.
It was then that the debate got totally out of hand and the language became immoderate. In the Balearic parliament, the PP's spokesperson, Mabel Cabrer, launched an attack on the opposition, comparing them to Nazis and the hounding of businesses linked to the scheme to the Nazi practice of placing the Star of David in Jewish shops. This, unsurprisingly, led to the whole matter kicking off big time. Francina Armengol, the leader of PSOE, filed a complaint, stating that Cabrer's words had been "unworthy of the victims of the Holocaust". The Més leader, Biel Barceló, was outraged, and even Baltasar Garzón, the esteemed ex-judge (but also a PSOE sympathiser), got involved, calling the card an "electoral fraud".
President Bauzá then stepped into the fray, defending the card and accusing the opposition of not understanding the notion of "freedom", as in free choice. He managed to drag the language argument in by comparing attitudes against the cards to those against the free selection of teaching language. And that argument, the teaching one, was further brought into an increasingly absurd debate when Cabrer said that she was seeking an apology from the opposition for having released an image of Bauzá as Hitler when the government had issued its infamous trilingual teaching decree in September last year.
All the while, and in the background, there was the more technical issue of whether the card was legal or not. But such mundane matters as legal ones were being forgotten because of the Nazi blitz that Cabrer had unleashed. Eventually, she apologised.
The legality of the card in terms of political party funding is, in a way, a separate issue, though PSOE, which is investigating whether businesses in the scheme are also contractors to the government, may well be digging up a hornet's nest that could make life even more difficult for the government. But the card itself, as I said before, seems fair enough. Plenty of organisations, including political parties and unions, have such schemes in other countries (Britain, for instance). This is Mallorca though, and so the PP's card has been styled as a means of, in effect, seeking to buy electoral support. It has, as things have turned out, been a mistake. One has to ask if the PP consulted business associations before the scheme was launched, as they were making it clear that they didn't think it was wise. More than this, though, has been the language. The Nazi reference was cheap and ridiculous, but it was symptomatic of the often puerile way in which politics are conducted in Mallorca. If Bauzá had the guts, he would sack Cabrer.
The chronology of events is worth itemising. Firstly, Dani Ruano of Foto Ruano, one of the businesses, released a video in which he apologised for having become involved with the scheme. He said that it had been an error but one made in good faith. He had thought he was helping (by offering some customers a discount) and would have done the same regardless of which political party it was. He went on to say that he was taking measures to disassociate the business from the "blue card".
Ruano was indirectly echoing a point that the small to medium-sized business organisation PIMEM was making, namely that businesses were likely to be harmed by associating themselves with the card. PIMEM, for its part, said that it did not support the card. Another business organisation, the Confederation of Balearics Businesses, weighed into the argument, suggesting that it would be wise were the card to be withdrawn, that it shouldn't have been launched but that the damage (to businesses) was already done.
It was then that the debate got totally out of hand and the language became immoderate. In the Balearic parliament, the PP's spokesperson, Mabel Cabrer, launched an attack on the opposition, comparing them to Nazis and the hounding of businesses linked to the scheme to the Nazi practice of placing the Star of David in Jewish shops. This, unsurprisingly, led to the whole matter kicking off big time. Francina Armengol, the leader of PSOE, filed a complaint, stating that Cabrer's words had been "unworthy of the victims of the Holocaust". The Més leader, Biel Barceló, was outraged, and even Baltasar Garzón, the esteemed ex-judge (but also a PSOE sympathiser), got involved, calling the card an "electoral fraud".
President Bauzá then stepped into the fray, defending the card and accusing the opposition of not understanding the notion of "freedom", as in free choice. He managed to drag the language argument in by comparing attitudes against the cards to those against the free selection of teaching language. And that argument, the teaching one, was further brought into an increasingly absurd debate when Cabrer said that she was seeking an apology from the opposition for having released an image of Bauzá as Hitler when the government had issued its infamous trilingual teaching decree in September last year.
All the while, and in the background, there was the more technical issue of whether the card was legal or not. But such mundane matters as legal ones were being forgotten because of the Nazi blitz that Cabrer had unleashed. Eventually, she apologised.
The legality of the card in terms of political party funding is, in a way, a separate issue, though PSOE, which is investigating whether businesses in the scheme are also contractors to the government, may well be digging up a hornet's nest that could make life even more difficult for the government. But the card itself, as I said before, seems fair enough. Plenty of organisations, including political parties and unions, have such schemes in other countries (Britain, for instance). This is Mallorca though, and so the PP's card has been styled as a means of, in effect, seeking to buy electoral support. It has, as things have turned out, been a mistake. One has to ask if the PP consulted business associations before the scheme was launched, as they were making it clear that they didn't think it was wise. More than this, though, has been the language. The Nazi reference was cheap and ridiculous, but it was symptomatic of the often puerile way in which politics are conducted in Mallorca. If Bauzá had the guts, he would sack Cabrer.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Persona Non Grata: Persona nonsensical
Can you name any well-known people who were declared persona non grata? If not, then let me offer you a few (well, three anyway): Kurt Waldheim (allegations of Nazi war crimes and so given persona non grata status in the US among other countries); Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain (the Italians booted her out in 1942 because she had sympathies with the Allies); Jörg Haider (the Israelis declared him non grata for fairly obvious reasons).
Persona non grata is used in diplomatic circles. The Vienna Convention says that a state may "at any time and without having to explain its decision" declare a member of diplomatic staff persona non grata, a declaration that usually leads to expulsion from a country. Persona non grata, by definition (diplomatic definition at any rate), has to apply to someone from another country. It cannot apply to someone from one's own country. Except in Spain, or specifically the Balearics, where it does.
When countries engage in a spot of non-grata-ing, there is usually a tit-for-tat response. You make our chap persona non grata, we'll make your chap persona non grata. So there. The Balearic Parliament has managed to introduce the same principle, substituting left and right for country X and country Y. Even by its pretty low standards, the parliament has plumbed even greater depths of stupidity by entering into a tit-for-tat non-grata-ing carry-on.
The background is of course oil, the subject which dare not speak its name with any modicum of measured debate, and the last place you will get any measured debate is the parliamentary playground. David Abril is the leader of the merged Iniciativa d'Esquerres (initiative of the lefts) and Els Verds de Mallorca (greens). This merged entity forms part of the Més per Mallorca coalition. Eco-socalism is an ideology to which David is partial and as such you would imagine - and you would be right - that he isn't overly keen on oil companies drilling ruddy great holes in the seabed near to the Balearics. As part of the parliamentary debate (if one can call it that) about oil exploration, David called for national energy minister José Manuel Soria to be declared persona non grata.
Having done so, the tit-for-tat started, the Partido Popular's spokesperson, Mabel Cabrer, calling for not one, not two, but three politicians from the left to also be declared persona non grata. They were, in descending order of importance, former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich, and ex-minister for the environment in the Balearics, Gabriel Vicens. Why was she picking on this triumvirate? Because it's all their fault, this oil malarkey. Nasty, horrid socialists that they are. Nothing to do with us in the PP or with nice Sr. Soria. And in fingering Vicens, Mabel struck a deep wound in David's eco-socialist heart, as Gabriel is of a similar bent and a member of the PSM Mallorcan socialists, one part of the Més fraternity.
What neither David nor Mabel was able to explain was quite how persona non grata status might work in practice, especially where Antich and Vicens are concerned. As they both live in Mallorca, would it be the intention to force them into exile to Benidorm or somewhere? But of course, silly me, persona non grata doesn't really mean what it normally means (at least I don't think it does). It is a yah-boo, sucks to you, we're going to ignore you type of persona non grata; a sending to Coventry persona non grata, always assuming that Coventry doesn't invoke the Vienna Convention.
In fact, the resort to the non-grata mechanism is pretty common; so common that it is utterly meaningless. Just as an example, President Bauzá and agriculture/environment/transport ministerial supremo Gabriel Company both copped for some non-grata-ing from the train platform in Mallorca's Llevant region last year. This wasn't an actual platform because there are no platforms and there are no trains, which was the whole point; a group (the platform) in favour of the train that will not run from Manacor to Artà wanted Bauzá and Company to be declared personas non gratas, which presumably meant that they would get a frosty reception were they to set foot in Son Servera, Sant Llorenç or Artà ever again.
The calls in parliament were, as with other similar demands for persona non grata, pretty puerile and they also obscured whatever sensible discussion there may have been on the oil business. But as we know, there is very little that is sensible, just name-calling and tit-for-tat posturing in what - the parliament - is supposed to be the islands' premier debating chamber. That it is not, and so lamentable is its attempts at debate that perhaps the whole lot of them should be declared persona non grata.
Persona non grata is used in diplomatic circles. The Vienna Convention says that a state may "at any time and without having to explain its decision" declare a member of diplomatic staff persona non grata, a declaration that usually leads to expulsion from a country. Persona non grata, by definition (diplomatic definition at any rate), has to apply to someone from another country. It cannot apply to someone from one's own country. Except in Spain, or specifically the Balearics, where it does.
When countries engage in a spot of non-grata-ing, there is usually a tit-for-tat response. You make our chap persona non grata, we'll make your chap persona non grata. So there. The Balearic Parliament has managed to introduce the same principle, substituting left and right for country X and country Y. Even by its pretty low standards, the parliament has plumbed even greater depths of stupidity by entering into a tit-for-tat non-grata-ing carry-on.
The background is of course oil, the subject which dare not speak its name with any modicum of measured debate, and the last place you will get any measured debate is the parliamentary playground. David Abril is the leader of the merged Iniciativa d'Esquerres (initiative of the lefts) and Els Verds de Mallorca (greens). This merged entity forms part of the Més per Mallorca coalition. Eco-socalism is an ideology to which David is partial and as such you would imagine - and you would be right - that he isn't overly keen on oil companies drilling ruddy great holes in the seabed near to the Balearics. As part of the parliamentary debate (if one can call it that) about oil exploration, David called for national energy minister José Manuel Soria to be declared persona non grata.
Having done so, the tit-for-tat started, the Partido Popular's spokesperson, Mabel Cabrer, calling for not one, not two, but three politicians from the left to also be declared persona non grata. They were, in descending order of importance, former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich, and ex-minister for the environment in the Balearics, Gabriel Vicens. Why was she picking on this triumvirate? Because it's all their fault, this oil malarkey. Nasty, horrid socialists that they are. Nothing to do with us in the PP or with nice Sr. Soria. And in fingering Vicens, Mabel struck a deep wound in David's eco-socialist heart, as Gabriel is of a similar bent and a member of the PSM Mallorcan socialists, one part of the Més fraternity.
What neither David nor Mabel was able to explain was quite how persona non grata status might work in practice, especially where Antich and Vicens are concerned. As they both live in Mallorca, would it be the intention to force them into exile to Benidorm or somewhere? But of course, silly me, persona non grata doesn't really mean what it normally means (at least I don't think it does). It is a yah-boo, sucks to you, we're going to ignore you type of persona non grata; a sending to Coventry persona non grata, always assuming that Coventry doesn't invoke the Vienna Convention.
In fact, the resort to the non-grata mechanism is pretty common; so common that it is utterly meaningless. Just as an example, President Bauzá and agriculture/environment/transport ministerial supremo Gabriel Company both copped for some non-grata-ing from the train platform in Mallorca's Llevant region last year. This wasn't an actual platform because there are no platforms and there are no trains, which was the whole point; a group (the platform) in favour of the train that will not run from Manacor to Artà wanted Bauzá and Company to be declared personas non gratas, which presumably meant that they would get a frosty reception were they to set foot in Son Servera, Sant Llorenç or Artà ever again.
The calls in parliament were, as with other similar demands for persona non grata, pretty puerile and they also obscured whatever sensible discussion there may have been on the oil business. But as we know, there is very little that is sensible, just name-calling and tit-for-tat posturing in what - the parliament - is supposed to be the islands' premier debating chamber. That it is not, and so lamentable is its attempts at debate that perhaps the whole lot of them should be declared persona non grata.
Friday, June 29, 2012
The Lonely Goatherd
Here's a quiz question for you. Which long-running radio quiz show featured "Mabel at the table" (and also Violet Carson, aka Ena Sharples, on piano)? The answer is "Have A Go" and it was presented by Wilfred Pickles.
Mallorca has a Mabel who is unlikely to be invited to a particular table and who is in a bit of a pickle. Uninvited, this Mabel will be a lonely goatherd, for her surname (Cabrer) means just this - goatherd. High on a hill she will be left, not beckoned down unless she says sorry.
The table to which Mabel may well not be invited would be one reserved for political worthies of the island attending the La Beata fiesta in Santa Margalida in September. Goat isn't eaten as much as it used to be, but La Beata being about the most traditional of the fiestas, it may well be served up. Mabel will not, however, be on hand to provide the goat.
In a pickle, Mabel has also made a bit of a goat of herself. Or at least this is a conclusion one can draw from some of the facts surrounding the protests against President Bauzá last month, which form the background to Mabel being in a pickle. In Artà, for example, there was nary an incident worthy of note, yet Mabel seemed to suggest during a parliamentary session (she is the Partido Popular's spokesperson) that there were violent attacks with batteries, coins, iron balls, pigs' tongues, insults and aggression. Actually, she didn't suggest; this is pretty much word for word what she said. Artà town hall is scandalized. As also is Santa Margalida's.
There were more obvious acts of aggression in Santa Margalida, but there was also a very heavy police presence, one that prevented residents from moving around normally in the centre of the town. Mabel's charges of violence by protesters have implied that Santa Margalida is a violent town full of hooligans.
Talk about a red rag to a bull or the utterances of a goatherd to a veteran socialist. Mayor Miguel Cifre is most definitely not a happy bunny. A previous demand that Mabel apologises for her implication, one echoed in Artà, has now become a demand that she asks to be pardoned. So, they might be prepared to excuse her, if she asks very nicely, or they might not be. Either way, if this request for a pardon is not forthcoming, Mabel will truly be a lonely goatherd on the evening of the La Beata procession because she will not have been invited. So there.
Because of La Beata's importance in the fiesta scheme of things, it is traditional to invite political leaders to this most traditional of fiestas and in particular to the La Beata procession. This is the one where the Saint Catalina rejects the advances of and temptation by the devil. Right now, the PP is being cast in the role of the devil, and the unfortunate Mabel is copping for the full trident treatment.
What should she do? Beg for mercy and she might get an invite. Ignore the demand and she definitely won't. She might be best advised to let it be known that she won't be able to attend anyway; washing her hair or something like that. Were she to attend, apology or no apology, there's almost bound to be a bit of bother. The town hall is minded to not invite the president either, as it doesn't want a repeat of the police presence. If Mabel were to attend, with or without Bauzá, the Guardia would probably feel obliged to have to make its presence felt, which is hardly in keeping with a traditional fiesta procession.
What all the rumpus in Artà and Santa Margalida confirms is the degree to which division is occurring in Mallorca. The regions are none too happy with the PP, support for which resides most obviously in the capital Palma. In Manacor, Antoni Pastor (the Shepherd to Mabel's Goatherd) has formed an alliance with various groups in establishing a virtual independent state, one in which the PP has caused disaffection. In Pollensa, the fines for protesters continue to cause discontent. Goatherds or not, some PP representatives in the regions might well be feeling increasingly lonely.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Mallorca has a Mabel who is unlikely to be invited to a particular table and who is in a bit of a pickle. Uninvited, this Mabel will be a lonely goatherd, for her surname (Cabrer) means just this - goatherd. High on a hill she will be left, not beckoned down unless she says sorry.
The table to which Mabel may well not be invited would be one reserved for political worthies of the island attending the La Beata fiesta in Santa Margalida in September. Goat isn't eaten as much as it used to be, but La Beata being about the most traditional of the fiestas, it may well be served up. Mabel will not, however, be on hand to provide the goat.
In a pickle, Mabel has also made a bit of a goat of herself. Or at least this is a conclusion one can draw from some of the facts surrounding the protests against President Bauzá last month, which form the background to Mabel being in a pickle. In Artà, for example, there was nary an incident worthy of note, yet Mabel seemed to suggest during a parliamentary session (she is the Partido Popular's spokesperson) that there were violent attacks with batteries, coins, iron balls, pigs' tongues, insults and aggression. Actually, she didn't suggest; this is pretty much word for word what she said. Artà town hall is scandalized. As also is Santa Margalida's.
There were more obvious acts of aggression in Santa Margalida, but there was also a very heavy police presence, one that prevented residents from moving around normally in the centre of the town. Mabel's charges of violence by protesters have implied that Santa Margalida is a violent town full of hooligans.
Talk about a red rag to a bull or the utterances of a goatherd to a veteran socialist. Mayor Miguel Cifre is most definitely not a happy bunny. A previous demand that Mabel apologises for her implication, one echoed in Artà, has now become a demand that she asks to be pardoned. So, they might be prepared to excuse her, if she asks very nicely, or they might not be. Either way, if this request for a pardon is not forthcoming, Mabel will truly be a lonely goatherd on the evening of the La Beata procession because she will not have been invited. So there.
Because of La Beata's importance in the fiesta scheme of things, it is traditional to invite political leaders to this most traditional of fiestas and in particular to the La Beata procession. This is the one where the Saint Catalina rejects the advances of and temptation by the devil. Right now, the PP is being cast in the role of the devil, and the unfortunate Mabel is copping for the full trident treatment.
What should she do? Beg for mercy and she might get an invite. Ignore the demand and she definitely won't. She might be best advised to let it be known that she won't be able to attend anyway; washing her hair or something like that. Were she to attend, apology or no apology, there's almost bound to be a bit of bother. The town hall is minded to not invite the president either, as it doesn't want a repeat of the police presence. If Mabel were to attend, with or without Bauzá, the Guardia would probably feel obliged to have to make its presence felt, which is hardly in keeping with a traditional fiesta procession.
What all the rumpus in Artà and Santa Margalida confirms is the degree to which division is occurring in Mallorca. The regions are none too happy with the PP, support for which resides most obviously in the capital Palma. In Manacor, Antoni Pastor (the Shepherd to Mabel's Goatherd) has formed an alliance with various groups in establishing a virtual independent state, one in which the PP has caused disaffection. In Pollensa, the fines for protesters continue to cause discontent. Goatherds or not, some PP representatives in the regions might well be feeling increasingly lonely.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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