The Modals Of Voting

Who should I vote for? I guess I take it as a compliment that I would be asked the question. If I give an answer, it is not couched in terms of "should". That implies a command. I would no more tell a foreign resident who he or she "should" vote for than tell him or her that he or she "should" be voting in the first place. Some people are too ready to command something of others. Who am I (or anyone) to issue such a command? If others do vote, they are interested in doing so. If others do not vote, they are not interested in doing so. That is their prerogative. 

I am in a way surprised at the level of interest, but only because it is said that foreign residents fail to heed the "should" modal, or rather the "will" modal. Being asked the question is an indication of this interest. But it isn't the only indication. Local politics, local politicians: in my experience there is an interest. There is a lack as well, but it was and will be ever thus regardless of where a vote might be cast. People's prerogative. There's no should, and in Spain the possibility of "should" - or rather "must" - appearing in the democratic lexicon was dismissed by the fathers of the Constitution. Post-Franco, there were to be no commands. Choice, even if it is abstention or lack of interest: so be it.

But to return to the question and perhaps modify the modal verb. Who might I vote for? You "might" vote for them, or them, or them, but what is that I would be voting for? This is perhaps a reason for not. The unknown. But the unknown is partly a function of lack of interest, of not seeking to know, but then why "should" anyone put him or herself out in pursuit of this knowledge? Each to their own.

In the absence of any other known, there is one: that of equating a political party here to a political party from somewhere else. This creates an assumption. Where someone is from will determine political sympathy or sympathies. It is an assumption which is perhaps made more by foreign residents of fellow foreigners than one made by local politicians. Of the latter, some do make assumptions and some do even try and exploit them for all their worth, provoking torrents of propaganda; well, I can think of one place where it does. This might be dubbed cynical, as in a sudden awareness of a latent electorate ready to propel a politician into office; an awareness that otherwise lies dormant or which is more one of theory than practice. Politicians will do anything to get elected - everyone knows this - and will then promptly offer little by way of thanks: your vote, when you get to the nub of the issue, that's all I'm interested in.

One thing you can't do when voting, unless you happen to be a citizen of Spain, is vote for the regional parliament and so for candidates of the eight parties represented in Mallorca. All you can do is vote in the election in whichever municipality you reside. Palma and its parliamentary and Council of Mallorca elections are not the same as the municipal elections. Sure, there can be the same parties, but for most of Mallorca, the municipalities are their own worlds, away from the pure and naked politics of regional government and the sharp definitions between right and left or points in between.

Political parties, political associations in the towns and villages can be as much social entities as they are actually political. They have supporters because of families, because of mates, because of business, because of favours past or favours future. Where these parties stand locally can be almost incidental to how they present themselves for the regional parliament. There can be and will be philosophies which bind them but they are philosophies manipulable because of local circumstances or just sheer distance from the seat of governmental power in Palma. I give an example from Alcúdia. I once asked the former mayor, Miquel Llompart, how all the corruption of his then party, the Unió Mallorquina (UM), affected things in Alcúdia. It didn't, was his answer. It was a Palma affair. And the fact is that he was right.

I can give another - from Pollensa - and a mass of foreign resident support for the Alternativa, a party with a distinctly left flavour. That bucked the assumption, you would think, and it did so because the Alternativa stood up for things important to a good number of foreign residents.

Right, left, in between, assumptions aren't always right. Who "might" you vote for? Who might genuinely want to work best for the interests of everyone? It's tricky to know, I accept, but assumption, a default assumption based on experience elsewhere, might just not give you the answer.

The Alcúdia Anti-All Inclusive Party

A new party in Alcúdia unveiled its programme of priorities at the Casa de Cultura earlier this week. One says new, but Ciudadanos Islas Baleares has basically added the Islas Baleares to the citizens it was in 2011 when its abbreviation was C's. It is now C'sib. A lot of people will know Francisco Baeza, its candidate for mayor; he was also the candidate in 2011. He is well-known in the bar world in around The Mile, having once run the Don Pedro in the Siestas, which is where I got to know him. 

In the summer of 2011, I got involved with a BBC investigation of all-inclusives in Majorca. The programme looked specifically at the situation on the bay of Alcudia. Among some other assistance being sought, the presenter, Rajan Datar, wanted to interview a bar owner who was affected by all-inclusives. Immediately, I thought of Paco. The Don Pedro may be in the Siestas but it is of course right next to Bellevue as well. What Rajan got from Paco was some pretty emotional footage. Essentially, it was to do with how the rapid increase of all-inclusive at Bellevue, which didn't offer any until 2006, had devastated the business. Within the space of five years, all-inclusive had gone from nothing to approximately 80% of the complex's business.

One can of course seek to assign other reasons as to why a bar might fail, but let's be generous and accept that the assault from all-inclusive was the biggest. And this assault, in its human terms, was something that shocked even an experienced and greatly travelled journalist like Rajan. When I took him for a tour of Bellevue one evening, ending up at the Show Garden, he was pretty much gobsmacked. There was this vast amount of humanity, much of it waiting in never-ending queues for beer in plastic glasses at the all-inclusive bars. The one that wasn't for all-inclusive, the one we used, was pleasant: quick service (there were no other customers), a proper glass and, doubtless, a superior grade of beer.

That's some of the past which is needed in order to inform us of the present. Paco had run for mayor on the C's ticket three months before the BBC turned up. He didn't, in all truth, do terribly well, but the party was hardly known about at the time of the election. It also faced, as did any other party, the force that was with Coloma Terrasa and the Partido Popular in May 2011. No, he didn't poll particularly well, but he had encouragement, as he still does, from a number of other bar owners in the area. And a key reason why is one of the priorities that is in the 2015 C'sib programme. You've guessed it - all-inclusives.

The problem, though, for any party in a municipality is what it can actually do. A town hall does not have competence for regulation of hotel accommodation; the regional government does. The most that could be done is to express opposition to all-inclusives in given resorts, offer some proposals for making the situation fairer and hope that the government listens. Which, right now, it almost certainly wouldn't.

But there is a breeze blowing which suggests a wind of change might yet gust in. It is a purely political breeze, one that has sprung up in Greece and might become the north-easterly "gregal" that habitually freshens the beaches of the bay of Alcudia on a summer's afternoon and bring with it more than just some cooling for sunbathers. It all seems remote and unlikely that anything comparable to Syriza's policies on all-inclusives would be adopted either in Mallorca or in Spain, but you never know.

There was also the business of the tourism decree issued before Christmas which referred to "analyses of each tourist area" in respect of the "incidence" of all-inclusive. What the purpose of these analyses is no one really knows, and whether they would be accurate might be questionable. In Alcúdia, it is now easier to identify hotels which definitely do not offer all-inclusive rather than all the ones which do in some form or another. In addition to the obvious hotels, like Lagomonte and Club Mac, there are all those which offer the AI option, and it is one found increasingly at the up-market hotels. The three Viva hotels all do (the Vanity Golf doesn't). The Iberostar has the option, the Club Pollentia Resort has the option, so does the Estrella-Coral de Mar Resort, and one could go on. If the incidence of actual AI occupancy was less than a minimum 75% of all hotel places in Alcúdia, I would be amazed.

Even armed with accurate information as to incidence, what then? The tourism ministry has spoken about tighter quality regulations, but they haven't been introduced. The ministry delayed them because it wanted to do its analyses. Nevertheless, the information would presumably be available to a new government and perhaps even to the public. Whether it's believable is a different matter, though. But, that slight breeze wafting over from Greece might signal something and so, for Paco and C'sib, the time to capture the moment may have arrived.

First Past The Post: Election of mayors

One of the first acts that Pedro Sánchez, the new leader of PSOE, undertook was to let Mariano Rajoy know that he was far from pleased with an electoral reform which the PP plans to push through in time for the municipal elections next spring. This reform would result in the candidate for mayor whose party polls the most votes being pretty much assured of becoming mayor. It is a reform which is being pushed through without the PP having sought cross-party consensus, which would make it the first reform to electoral laws (since democracy) to have been implemented without agreement. It is also a reform which contradicts what Rajoy said in 2013; that the PP would not use its parliamentary majority to change electoral legislation.

PSOE and other parties are claiming that the PP is doing exactly this and that the use of the parliamentary majority amounts to an abuse. Moreover, it is argued that the reform is all about seeking to ensure that the PP keeps hold of power in municipalities. With support having ebbed away, the PP is accused of manipulating the system in order to try and shore up its municipal positions.

At present, the electoral system does permit the selection of a mayor from a party which doesn't poll the highest. It is a system which might appear odd, but it reflects the nature of proportional representation and it gives rise to the types of coalition administrations which are far from uncommon or to what potentially could seem unjust. To give an example, consider the situation in Alcúdia at the 2011 elections. The PP polled 39.25% of the vote, 16 percentage points more than the second placed Convergencia (as then was). This gave the PP eight councillors, one short of a majority in a council of seventeen. Had Carme Garcia, who turned her back on her PSM Mallorcan socialists party, sided with opposition parties, the PP would not have become the ruling administration and Coloma Terrasa would not have become mayor. Whatever the arguments about Carme Garcia, had the PP and Terrasa been denied by a coalition of other parties, there would have been nothing electorally wrong, but morally there almost certainly would have been. 

The Rajoy reform proposal has yet to really be made clear - it is not due to go to Congress for approval until October - but it can count on the support of the PP in the  Balearics. Its secretary-general, Miquel Vidal, firmly believes that the reform should be effected and that it is one which carries the support of 90% of the electorate. It is not logical, he has said, that a gold medal winner should hand the medal over to the person in third place. The reform will give greater stability, he has suggested. But then, as a good PP man, you would expect him to say this.

What the reform is understood to entail is that a mayor would automatically be elected if his or her party polls 40% of the vote. There is also a stipulation for a lead of seven percentage points over the next party (though this is unclear as it has also been said that it would be five per cent). Reporting is therefore confused. It is being stated as 40% and a seven percentage point lead, when it is surely "or" not "and". This being so, a calculation has been made, based on 2011 results in the Balearics, which suggests that there wouldn't have been any substantial difference had this reformed system applied then. The PP would have gained the same number of mayors. The only advantage would have been that it would not have had to seek support from other parties in certain towns in order for its mayoral candidate to be selected.

In fact, 40% of the vote almost invariably means that a party gains a majority and so doesn't need to seek other parties' support. In this regard, the reform wouldn't make any difference. A seven percentage point lead stipulation might guarantee the selection of a mayor but it would not remove the need for a council to be made up of representatives of different parties. In Pollensa its mayor, Tomeu Cifre, would still have been mayor in 2011, but the PP didn't even manage 25% of the vote. In order to get a majority administration, it would still have had to have indulged in horse-trading with other parties.

And what would happen if there were no 40% and no clear lead? In this instance, apparently, there would be a run-off between the main candidates. Meaning what precisely?

The reform would almost certainly be prejudicial to smaller parties for which aspirations of getting a mayor into power would be dashed. But morally is it wrong to deny a candidate whose party polls the most votes? Perhaps so, but then such is the nature of proportional representation.