So, 231 days after resigning as the general secretary of the party, Pedro Sánchez swept back to power with a landslide victory. He is PSOE's Theresa May (as will no doubt be), though whether he proves to be anything more than a Corbyn will be discovered. One thing is for sure - possibly, perhaps even probably - is that Pedro will take a Jezza jump to the left. That's why he was elected. Wasn't it?
Actually, it wasn't as much of a landslide as Thezza can anticipate in Referendum Mark II, but land slid sufficiently from beneath Susana Díaz that she was hurled backwards from Madrid all the way to her Andalusian homeland and landed with a bump, together with the bruising of only having gained 39.94% of the vote (pity about the 0.6%; round numbers are so much more satisfying).
Pedro won the day with 50.21%. The other candidate, Patxi López, came nowhere, except in his native Basque Country. Once the recipient of the dubious backing of Francina Armengol, even that evaporated as the Balearic president sensed the direction in which the tide was flowing. It was dragging Patxi well offshore. He duly drowned in the depths of the more than 133,000 combined votes for Pedro and Susana. His own tally? 14,571, most of them marked Basque.
An odd thing to note is that Pedro won in every region of Spain except for two - Susana's Andalusia and Patxi's Basque Country. It is odd insofar as Susana got as close as she did: some 15,000 votes fewer. It is less odd when you appreciate that PSOE militants are heavily weighted way down south. Andalusia is socialist land and always has been since democracy arrived in Spain.
One needs to explain that the militants are not necessarily militants of a Derek Hatton type. It's the word the Spanish use for members. And it is, I would suggest, important to understand that, of the nearly 75,000 who voted for Pedro, only a certain (and small) percentage might truly fall into the category of rabid left-wingers. Yes, there was discontent with the cosying up to the Partido Popular, i.e having enabled Rajoy's last-minute investiture in October, but that doesn't mean that all those thousands are like-minded descendants of the nineteenth-century founder of PSOE, the original Pablo Iglesias. The current-day Pablo Iglesias of Podemos might be considered a more appropriate descendant.
It is true that the rank and file felt that they had been sold out. Sánchez got a drubbing at the federal committee and had no option but to stand down. The issue was whether or not to break the electoral impasse and facilitate Rajoy's passage back to the premiership. Sánchez lost. The militants have now had their revenge. Moreover, they have ensured that they will not be delivered into the hands of Diazistas and the Andalusian socialist mafia.
She had former premiers on her side, but the support of González and Zapatero counted for too little in the face of that discontent. For many, once a socialist (even a moderate one), always a socialist: deals with the PP don't comply with this legacy. And deals with Díaz don't comply with how many of the militants feel. Take those in Catalonia, for instance. Recently, I wrote about the longstanding animosity between the two regions (which owes only something to politics). It was there for all to see in the Catalonia vote: 82% for Sánchez, 11% for Díaz. Crushing, one might say.
For Francina in the Balearics, having thrown Patxi overboard and clambered on board the good ship Pedro, 71% of the Balearic vote in his favour will enable her to express solidarity with the militant citizenship of Balearic PSOE. Her good judgement (opportunism) in abandoning Patxi might yet lead her to national government. In her dreams. But with Pedro's win, we return to the uncharted territory in which Spain has been adrift since the end of 2015 and the first of the inconclusive elections. Is another election looming?
Podemos, i.e. Pablo Iglesias, would prefer that there wasn't an election. Preparing to present a vote of no confidence in Rajoy, Iglesias is also preparing to ask Congress that he should be invested as prime minister. He really knows how to stir the pot and how also to try and grasp power at a time when electorally Podemos appear to have plateaued and may only have one future way to go. Sánchez will be cajoled by the likes of Francina into a pact for "progressive" government, citing how good the relationship with Podemos in the Balearics has been. At which point, any sensible observer will burst out laughing.
Pedro, though, will not himself be laughing. He was unpersuaded by Iglesias before. Why should he be any different now, especially if a grasp on the premiership were to be denied him? The good ship Pedro has set sail again, but PSOE remain all at sea.
Showing posts with label Pedro Sánchez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pedro Sánchez. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Tuesday, October 04, 2016
Whither PSOE? Whither Armengol?
So, what now? President Armengol was one of a group of five PSOE delegates from the Balearics who were humbled along with Pedro Sánchez on Saturday. Armengol, the only regional leader to have backed Sánchez, is even more out on a limb than before. She will have been thankful for the reassuring presence among the five of former president Francesc Antich. He is to join the "management" committee that will now attempt to sort out the mess of the vote against Sánchez and his resignation. Antich is saying the same things as Armengol. The "militants", i.e. the party's grassroots, need to vote on the future. He couldn't say anything else. Nor could Armengol.
He is also saying, as indeed are others, that it isn't a foregone conclusion that there will be a PSOE abstention which allows the investiture of Mariano Rajoy. The Partido Popular has not, according to some in PSOE, done anything to make PSOE confident in abstaining or creating a most unlikely coalition. The federal committee will decide whether there is to be an abstention, and it has so far said "no" to Rajoy.
If this continues to be the case, then one wonders quite what getting rid of Sánchez will have achieved. The party may have been suffering poor results under him, but the impression was that this wasn't the sole reason for his having been given a vote of no confidence. The talk had been of the committee moving in favour of an abstention. Because of all that happened, no such debate took place, and the committee seems unlikely to reconvene until after the middle of the month.
The situation is now even more confused than it was. If there were to be a decision in favour of abstention, things would then need to move extremely quickly so that there could be an as yet hypothetical second attempt at a Rajoy investiture. The deadline is 31 October. No government by then, and the King will dissolve parliament and there will be another election. For PSOE, given its turmoil, this would be the last thing it wants. Or you would think so. There might be a hope that with a different person at the top, there will be a bounce in the polls. Equally, there could be even greater carnage. Would that mean Podemos benefiting? Possibly, but Podemos has its own division. The electorate may decide in any event to put an end to all the nonsense and turn to the PP in far greater number.
Given all this confusion, it's hard to really say how the Balearic government will be affected in the short term. On the face of things, Armengol finds herself in a weaker position than the already weak one that she was in prior to Sanchez's resignation. Everything, as far as the "pact" for her government is concerned, would seem to hinge on the abstention decision. If Rajoy is allowed in by PSOE, all bets might well be off. By having aligned herself firmly with Sánchez and against the abstention decision, Armengol will be hoping that the pact doesn't rupture.
Meanwhile, she is faced by the thorny issue of the 2017 budget. Questions have been raised, not least by the Balearic PP, about the willingness of Podemos to support it. The government is obliged to keep within deficit limits and so therefore not overspend or over borrow, but with the ongoing chaos at national level - now made even more chaotic - Podemos (and Més) might press for a deficit-busting budget, something that Armengol and her finance minister Catalina Cladera would surely not sanction: there are consequences to consider.
If Podemos were to decide to break the pact, life would obviously become even more difficult for Armengol. And then there's Més, with only one seat fewer (nine) than Podemos. PSOE with fourteen of the 59 seats would be unable to do anything, unless there was a pact with the PP. Armengol would never countenance that. Would she? The situation in Castile-La Mancha, where the PP offered support to PSOE after Podemos broke a pact of government there, hardly offers a precedent. The PP's leader in Castile-La Mancha has lamented the fact that the offer was greeted with insult and discrediting. Forget the PP coming to the aid of Armengol in the Balearics; it simply won't happen.
The possibility exists, therefore, for an almost total state of stasis taking hold with the Balearic government. But there is another scenario. Podemos might just decide that the time will have come for it to formally join the government. God knows what that might mean for ministerial positions, but if it were the best chance that Armengol has for carrying on, then who knows - maybe a Podemos finance minister.
If you thought that things were complicated before, they are about to become even more complicated.
He is also saying, as indeed are others, that it isn't a foregone conclusion that there will be a PSOE abstention which allows the investiture of Mariano Rajoy. The Partido Popular has not, according to some in PSOE, done anything to make PSOE confident in abstaining or creating a most unlikely coalition. The federal committee will decide whether there is to be an abstention, and it has so far said "no" to Rajoy.
If this continues to be the case, then one wonders quite what getting rid of Sánchez will have achieved. The party may have been suffering poor results under him, but the impression was that this wasn't the sole reason for his having been given a vote of no confidence. The talk had been of the committee moving in favour of an abstention. Because of all that happened, no such debate took place, and the committee seems unlikely to reconvene until after the middle of the month.
The situation is now even more confused than it was. If there were to be a decision in favour of abstention, things would then need to move extremely quickly so that there could be an as yet hypothetical second attempt at a Rajoy investiture. The deadline is 31 October. No government by then, and the King will dissolve parliament and there will be another election. For PSOE, given its turmoil, this would be the last thing it wants. Or you would think so. There might be a hope that with a different person at the top, there will be a bounce in the polls. Equally, there could be even greater carnage. Would that mean Podemos benefiting? Possibly, but Podemos has its own division. The electorate may decide in any event to put an end to all the nonsense and turn to the PP in far greater number.
Given all this confusion, it's hard to really say how the Balearic government will be affected in the short term. On the face of things, Armengol finds herself in a weaker position than the already weak one that she was in prior to Sanchez's resignation. Everything, as far as the "pact" for her government is concerned, would seem to hinge on the abstention decision. If Rajoy is allowed in by PSOE, all bets might well be off. By having aligned herself firmly with Sánchez and against the abstention decision, Armengol will be hoping that the pact doesn't rupture.
Meanwhile, she is faced by the thorny issue of the 2017 budget. Questions have been raised, not least by the Balearic PP, about the willingness of Podemos to support it. The government is obliged to keep within deficit limits and so therefore not overspend or over borrow, but with the ongoing chaos at national level - now made even more chaotic - Podemos (and Més) might press for a deficit-busting budget, something that Armengol and her finance minister Catalina Cladera would surely not sanction: there are consequences to consider.
If Podemos were to decide to break the pact, life would obviously become even more difficult for Armengol. And then there's Més, with only one seat fewer (nine) than Podemos. PSOE with fourteen of the 59 seats would be unable to do anything, unless there was a pact with the PP. Armengol would never countenance that. Would she? The situation in Castile-La Mancha, where the PP offered support to PSOE after Podemos broke a pact of government there, hardly offers a precedent. The PP's leader in Castile-La Mancha has lamented the fact that the offer was greeted with insult and discrediting. Forget the PP coming to the aid of Armengol in the Balearics; it simply won't happen.
The possibility exists, therefore, for an almost total state of stasis taking hold with the Balearic government. But there is another scenario. Podemos might just decide that the time will have come for it to formally join the government. God knows what that might mean for ministerial positions, but if it were the best chance that Armengol has for carrying on, then who knows - maybe a Podemos finance minister.
If you thought that things were complicated before, they are about to become even more complicated.
Sunday, October 02, 2016
The Party That Was Taken Over
Spain knows a thing or two about the coup d'État. The country knows it as a "golpe de Estado". It knows about failed ones, too. 1981 was the famous one. That of 1982 was less famous. They swept it under the carpet. The failure had occurred on the eve of the general election. It was designed to prevent a socialist government coming to power. Everyone knew that Felipe González would win. Some were determined that he wouldn't.
González duly won the election. He was president (prime minister) for fourteen years. For the most part, these were the glory years for PSOE. They were the glory years for all of Spain's post-1975 democracy. A charismatic leader gave the country hope and pride. It clambered aboard the European gravy train; largesse flowed south in shoring up this nascent, socialist-led democracy - a country undergoing a renaissance.
It ended, as it tends to, in scandal and acrimony. The Partido Popular came to power. When it failed to win in 2004 - a result widely attributed to its mishandling of the Madrid bombs - in came Mister Bean: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Everyone, including himself, was surprised. ZP, a decent, honourable man in a John Major-ineffectual sort of way, was no González, and he was to have his Jim Callaghan moment. Crisis, what crisis. The PSOE government poured money it didn't have into building its way out of the crash. This just made the eventual wreckage worse. ZP departed, to be replaced by Mr. Greybeard, Uncle Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. He never stood a chance. The Rajoy era was to begin.
This background is important in understanding what has been happening over the past few days. Susana Díaz, the Andalusian president, is said to have launched a coup d'État, one designed to bring down Pedro Sánchez. There are different reasons for her having done so, of which her own ambition is just one. The crisis that has engulfed PSOE is attributed to two key factors - its disastrous election results while under Sánchez's watch and its stance over a future government. There are others.
PSOE has never recaptured the glory years. It remains a hostage to the González era. He was the party's figurehead, the national figurehead. It was PSOE who really effected the "transition" in Spain. A coup attempt could not derail that movement. It was a party of its time, but scandal, complacency and uninspiring leadership were to make it a party identified with a corrupt two-party system. The "casta" of PSOE and the PP was all that Podemos really needed. Enter, therefore, the charismatic Pablo Iglesias.
PSOE's polling has been massively affected by the emergence of Podemos and Ciudadanos. The same can be said of the PP, but the PP has remained comparatively strong where PSOE has been enfeebled. But there has been a more fundamental dynamic. PSOE has become a party directed by another - Podemos. Not directly, but its whole thinking is now determined by the factions who are for or against Podemos. It has been taken over by an outside influence. It has become a shell of a party in which even the pro-Podemos faction is uncertain. Sánchez is one of them.
He has vacillated greatly. But at the heart of his latest apparent shift - one in a Podemos direction - is the accusation that enabling the PP to govern would be evidence of the perpetuation of the "casta". He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, because this is where PSOE has ended up: a party no longer in control of its destiny and suffering the collateral damage of ebbing electoral support.
Sánchez threw down the gauntlet last week. There would be "primaries", ostensibly to determine who will lead the party into a third election but manifestly a vote of confidence (or not). Moreover, were Sánchez to carry the day, the quirks of the system might enable him to magic up a pact that would not require an election. The cut-off point, when the King dissolves parliament, is the end of this month. Prime Minister Sánchez might step forward, Pablo Iglesias with his hands on the strings and God alone knows whatever other parties coming along for the ride.
The gauntlet thrown, and executive committee members resigned en masse, their support for him gone. Díaz declared her coup. "Barons" in the party lined up against Sánchez, and the party's past - that hostage - caught up with Sánchez. Felipe González, still exercising great influence, declared that he had been "fooled" by Sánchez. The knife was being twisted and it was being turned in the direction of the "casta".
In the end, it wasn't a vote to abstain to allow Rajoy's investiture that did it. There was to be a show of hands on the holding of a congress, in effect a vote of confidence in Sánchez. He lost. He walked. Whichever way it had gone, Podemos would have succeeded. The party founded by one Pablo Iglesias had been infiltrated by another Pablo Iglesias. Its future has been determined not by it but by an outside force: it was Iglesias who launched the coup. Whether it has a future will be seen. The past week was monumental in deciding its fate.
González duly won the election. He was president (prime minister) for fourteen years. For the most part, these were the glory years for PSOE. They were the glory years for all of Spain's post-1975 democracy. A charismatic leader gave the country hope and pride. It clambered aboard the European gravy train; largesse flowed south in shoring up this nascent, socialist-led democracy - a country undergoing a renaissance.
It ended, as it tends to, in scandal and acrimony. The Partido Popular came to power. When it failed to win in 2004 - a result widely attributed to its mishandling of the Madrid bombs - in came Mister Bean: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Everyone, including himself, was surprised. ZP, a decent, honourable man in a John Major-ineffectual sort of way, was no González, and he was to have his Jim Callaghan moment. Crisis, what crisis. The PSOE government poured money it didn't have into building its way out of the crash. This just made the eventual wreckage worse. ZP departed, to be replaced by Mr. Greybeard, Uncle Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. He never stood a chance. The Rajoy era was to begin.
This background is important in understanding what has been happening over the past few days. Susana Díaz, the Andalusian president, is said to have launched a coup d'État, one designed to bring down Pedro Sánchez. There are different reasons for her having done so, of which her own ambition is just one. The crisis that has engulfed PSOE is attributed to two key factors - its disastrous election results while under Sánchez's watch and its stance over a future government. There are others.
PSOE has never recaptured the glory years. It remains a hostage to the González era. He was the party's figurehead, the national figurehead. It was PSOE who really effected the "transition" in Spain. A coup attempt could not derail that movement. It was a party of its time, but scandal, complacency and uninspiring leadership were to make it a party identified with a corrupt two-party system. The "casta" of PSOE and the PP was all that Podemos really needed. Enter, therefore, the charismatic Pablo Iglesias.
PSOE's polling has been massively affected by the emergence of Podemos and Ciudadanos. The same can be said of the PP, but the PP has remained comparatively strong where PSOE has been enfeebled. But there has been a more fundamental dynamic. PSOE has become a party directed by another - Podemos. Not directly, but its whole thinking is now determined by the factions who are for or against Podemos. It has been taken over by an outside influence. It has become a shell of a party in which even the pro-Podemos faction is uncertain. Sánchez is one of them.
He has vacillated greatly. But at the heart of his latest apparent shift - one in a Podemos direction - is the accusation that enabling the PP to govern would be evidence of the perpetuation of the "casta". He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, because this is where PSOE has ended up: a party no longer in control of its destiny and suffering the collateral damage of ebbing electoral support.
Sánchez threw down the gauntlet last week. There would be "primaries", ostensibly to determine who will lead the party into a third election but manifestly a vote of confidence (or not). Moreover, were Sánchez to carry the day, the quirks of the system might enable him to magic up a pact that would not require an election. The cut-off point, when the King dissolves parliament, is the end of this month. Prime Minister Sánchez might step forward, Pablo Iglesias with his hands on the strings and God alone knows whatever other parties coming along for the ride.
The gauntlet thrown, and executive committee members resigned en masse, their support for him gone. Díaz declared her coup. "Barons" in the party lined up against Sánchez, and the party's past - that hostage - caught up with Sánchez. Felipe González, still exercising great influence, declared that he had been "fooled" by Sánchez. The knife was being twisted and it was being turned in the direction of the "casta".
In the end, it wasn't a vote to abstain to allow Rajoy's investiture that did it. There was to be a show of hands on the holding of a congress, in effect a vote of confidence in Sánchez. He lost. He walked. Whichever way it had gone, Podemos would have succeeded. The party founded by one Pablo Iglesias had been infiltrated by another Pablo Iglesias. Its future has been determined not by it but by an outside force: it was Iglesias who launched the coup. Whether it has a future will be seen. The past week was monumental in deciding its fate.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Galicia Lessons: The End For Sánchez?
Regional elections in Spain, because they are not all held at the same time, can be viewed as a test of a public opinion about the national government. In Spain at present, however, there is only a national government by default, one that is nine months on from when it should either have been confirmed as re-elected or ousted. Are, in these circumstances, the elections in the Basque Country and Galicia relevant? Do they say anything about the national government?
They most certainly do. More importantly, they say a great deal about the pretenders, one of whom is PSOE; the PSOE that Pedro Sánchez leads. This is not the PSOE of the whole country, however, and the results loosen his grip - already tenuous - ever more. The knives of Andalusia, in the hands of Susana Díaz, are being sharpened on the stone. How long can Sánchez carry on?
Consider the numbers. In Galicia the regional version of PSOE suffered its worst ever result. It ended up with fourteen seats in the regional parliament with slightly less than 18% of the vote in a four-way fight. En Marea, effectively Podemos by another name, also gained fourteen seats but with a higher share of the vote - just over 19%. Both were eclipsed by the Partido Popular. Alberto Núñez Feijóo will continue to govern with an absolute majority.
In the Basque Country, the socialists suffered major losses - seven seats gone, leaving them with nine. The PNV, habitual leaders in the region, have insufficient seats for an overall majority, but could hook up with the PP (or PSOE) and establish a parliamentary majority.
While Feijóo's win in Galicia will be taken as enhancing Mariano Rajoy's moral right to remain as national prime minister, it needs reminding that Galicia is very firm PP territory - and Feijóo territory. The loss of one PP seat in the Basque Country places a rather different spin on things. Perhaps the strongest message to come from the elections, where the PP is concerned, is that Feijóo has strengthened his case for replacing Rajoy.
Rather than a test of public opinion for Rajoy, the elections were a poll on the ambitions of Sánchez and PSOE to attempt to form an "alternative" government of the left. These are surely dashed, if indeed they have ever truly been realistic. Díaz had made it clear that they weren't, given the fact that PSOE have only 85 seats in the national Congress.
A surprise with Sánchez is the fact that he's still in charge. Reflect on the charge sheet. A failed attempt, an awfully failed attempt at investiture, followed by a second election at which PSOE lost more seats in Congress. Yet he still believes he can form a government, seemingly egged on by the likes of Balearic president Francina Armengol into adopting a model of government akin to that in the Balearics - one that quite plainly isn't functioning. Armengol is deluded and so is Sánchez. With the batterings in the Basque Country and Galicia, his time must surely be up.
If this proves to be the case, the PSOE "barons", marshalled by Díaz, will manoeuvre a situation whereby there is a pact with Rajoy and the PP (or possibly with Feijóo and the PP; this may be the price Rajoy has to pay). For Francina Armengol, who must have been observing the results coming in with increasing horror and alarm, such a national manouevre would be terminal. Podemos wouldn't stand for it, while Més seem ever increasingly alienated from Armengol.
If PSOE were the big losers in these two elections, what about Cuidadanos? This party is more and more like an annoying terrier, snapping at the heels of others. It is shooed away but keeps coming back, yapping and yapping but never getting its way. Its leader, Albert Rivera, had been looking at the prospect of a post-election alliance with the PP in Galicia. They failed to gain a single seat. A share of the vote that was little more than three per cent ensured that they would fail, just as they also did in the Basque Country.
What may now dawn on the C's, whose support has been eroding, is that their aspirations to be a national party run up against nationalist interests in specific regions. Even the conservative nationalist instincts in Galicia and the Basque Country appear disinclined to embrace a party which started as a regional Catalonian organisation (with avowed anti-nationalist sentiments) and has attempted to become a national force. Regional parties aren't supposed to behave like this. The C's have got above their station. They are liked less and less. Their time may well have come and gone, leaving Podemos, with its internal divisions, as the genuine "alternative".
Díaz, Feijóo and others will make damn sure it never is.
* This article was written before Sánchez announced that there are to be "primaries" for electing the secretary general, i.e. that he is putting his position to the test.
They most certainly do. More importantly, they say a great deal about the pretenders, one of whom is PSOE; the PSOE that Pedro Sánchez leads. This is not the PSOE of the whole country, however, and the results loosen his grip - already tenuous - ever more. The knives of Andalusia, in the hands of Susana Díaz, are being sharpened on the stone. How long can Sánchez carry on?
Consider the numbers. In Galicia the regional version of PSOE suffered its worst ever result. It ended up with fourteen seats in the regional parliament with slightly less than 18% of the vote in a four-way fight. En Marea, effectively Podemos by another name, also gained fourteen seats but with a higher share of the vote - just over 19%. Both were eclipsed by the Partido Popular. Alberto Núñez Feijóo will continue to govern with an absolute majority.
In the Basque Country, the socialists suffered major losses - seven seats gone, leaving them with nine. The PNV, habitual leaders in the region, have insufficient seats for an overall majority, but could hook up with the PP (or PSOE) and establish a parliamentary majority.
While Feijóo's win in Galicia will be taken as enhancing Mariano Rajoy's moral right to remain as national prime minister, it needs reminding that Galicia is very firm PP territory - and Feijóo territory. The loss of one PP seat in the Basque Country places a rather different spin on things. Perhaps the strongest message to come from the elections, where the PP is concerned, is that Feijóo has strengthened his case for replacing Rajoy.
Rather than a test of public opinion for Rajoy, the elections were a poll on the ambitions of Sánchez and PSOE to attempt to form an "alternative" government of the left. These are surely dashed, if indeed they have ever truly been realistic. Díaz had made it clear that they weren't, given the fact that PSOE have only 85 seats in the national Congress.
A surprise with Sánchez is the fact that he's still in charge. Reflect on the charge sheet. A failed attempt, an awfully failed attempt at investiture, followed by a second election at which PSOE lost more seats in Congress. Yet he still believes he can form a government, seemingly egged on by the likes of Balearic president Francina Armengol into adopting a model of government akin to that in the Balearics - one that quite plainly isn't functioning. Armengol is deluded and so is Sánchez. With the batterings in the Basque Country and Galicia, his time must surely be up.
If this proves to be the case, the PSOE "barons", marshalled by Díaz, will manoeuvre a situation whereby there is a pact with Rajoy and the PP (or possibly with Feijóo and the PP; this may be the price Rajoy has to pay). For Francina Armengol, who must have been observing the results coming in with increasing horror and alarm, such a national manouevre would be terminal. Podemos wouldn't stand for it, while Més seem ever increasingly alienated from Armengol.
If PSOE were the big losers in these two elections, what about Cuidadanos? This party is more and more like an annoying terrier, snapping at the heels of others. It is shooed away but keeps coming back, yapping and yapping but never getting its way. Its leader, Albert Rivera, had been looking at the prospect of a post-election alliance with the PP in Galicia. They failed to gain a single seat. A share of the vote that was little more than three per cent ensured that they would fail, just as they also did in the Basque Country.
What may now dawn on the C's, whose support has been eroding, is that their aspirations to be a national party run up against nationalist interests in specific regions. Even the conservative nationalist instincts in Galicia and the Basque Country appear disinclined to embrace a party which started as a regional Catalonian organisation (with avowed anti-nationalist sentiments) and has attempted to become a national force. Regional parties aren't supposed to behave like this. The C's have got above their station. They are liked less and less. Their time may well have come and gone, leaving Podemos, with its internal divisions, as the genuine "alternative".
Díaz, Feijóo and others will make damn sure it never is.
* This article was written before Sánchez announced that there are to be "primaries" for electing the secretary general, i.e. that he is putting his position to the test.
Monday, May 30, 2016
Breakfast With Francina
The breakfast meeting is, one is inclined to suspect, a device to convey to the citizens that politicians are ultra-hard-working. We never stop. That's the sort of message. Never stop to have a hearty breakfast, that's for sure. And so the full English wasn't on the menu when Francina met Pedro in Madrid for their breakfasting chat, followed swiftly by their breakfasting news conference (one much to the annoyance, one imagines, of the gathered and hungover members of the media). Instead, Francina could have taken the opportunity to promote Mallorcan products. Off she would have gone on the low-cost hop with her ensaimada in its box: Mallorcan pastry, as endorsed by the president.
Of course it was a Balearic promotional drive insofar as Francina was there to promote the desperate need for her and her political chums to manage the airports and also to inform the assembled and bored media how marvellously well her government of change in the Balearics is working. So marvellously well that two components thereof - the Més-ites and the Podemistas - have melded to create Podemés and squeeze PSOE even more on 26-J. However, such minor detail should not and did not get in the way of the Balearics being championed as the model for the whole of Spain to follow in government: unworkable, in other words.
Pedro held the Balearics aloft as the template for "progressive politics" but having observed, only a couple of weeks previously, that Podemos represents the extreme left, it is as clear as a fine spring morning in Mallorca that such progressiveness excludes Podemos; at least where Pedro's concerned. Francina appears to look out and see only cloud: that created by the hodge-podge, fudge government that isn't entirely a government over which she presides. But Francina has not been cast as sweet and friendly for nothing. She does not categorise anyone as "extremist" or "radical". See no evil. They all have their own points of view and see how well these have been combining in the Balearics.
If only one could believe her, and it is evident that Pedro doesn't. His progressiveness still involves the other half of his Ant and Dec act, Al Rivera of the C's, who for some mysterious reason was in Venezuela. Had he gone there in search of money in a Podemos sort of a way? Quite the contrary. He was seemingly there to highlight the Venezuela-Podemos link.
Of course it was a Balearic promotional drive insofar as Francina was there to promote the desperate need for her and her political chums to manage the airports and also to inform the assembled and bored media how marvellously well her government of change in the Balearics is working. So marvellously well that two components thereof - the Més-ites and the Podemistas - have melded to create Podemés and squeeze PSOE even more on 26-J. However, such minor detail should not and did not get in the way of the Balearics being championed as the model for the whole of Spain to follow in government: unworkable, in other words.
Pedro held the Balearics aloft as the template for "progressive politics" but having observed, only a couple of weeks previously, that Podemos represents the extreme left, it is as clear as a fine spring morning in Mallorca that such progressiveness excludes Podemos; at least where Pedro's concerned. Francina appears to look out and see only cloud: that created by the hodge-podge, fudge government that isn't entirely a government over which she presides. But Francina has not been cast as sweet and friendly for nothing. She does not categorise anyone as "extremist" or "radical". See no evil. They all have their own points of view and see how well these have been combining in the Balearics.
If only one could believe her, and it is evident that Pedro doesn't. His progressiveness still involves the other half of his Ant and Dec act, Al Rivera of the C's, who for some mysterious reason was in Venezuela. Had he gone there in search of money in a Podemos sort of a way? Quite the contrary. He was seemingly there to highlight the Venezuela-Podemos link.
Friday, March 04, 2016
Spain In A Day: Insults and tedium
Multi-tasking you could call it, were it not for the fact that the task was singular. Multi-single tasking, if that isn't an oxymoron, which it probably is. The task was writing. So, nothing unusual in that regard. But it was a day - Wednesday - that demanded simultaneous tasking, a day that was unusual in that it projected onto screens, Twitter and multimedia for the multi-tasking the coalescing of great institutions. Parliament, not one but two, the judiciary and the monarchy. All that was missing was the church, though it, buried within the bile that was being belched in Congress, was a bystander on this day of multi-institutional exposure.
The tasks were these: keeping across debate in the Balearic parliament; keeping across the interrogation of the one-time Duke of Palma; keeping across the debate (the wrong word) on the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. Of these, the first was uncommonly civilised and meaningful in that a key subject was of broad interest. On too many occasions, the Balearic parliament peers deep into its rectum and plucks out arguments that are of no interest other than to parliament itself.
The subject was holiday rentals. For once, parliament was capable of arriving at unanimity - consensus in today's politically correct parlance. It agreed that regulation should be introduced within six months. The unstated message was why it had been taking the government so long to pull its finger out on a subject of infinitely greater importance than the wretched tourist tax. There are times, perhaps, when messages need not to be stated. Let's just all agree to agree and get on with it.
The normal state of dysfunctionality of the Balearic parliament - puerile debate, childish remarks, egotistical posturing - was momentarily cast into the background. It was the national parliament, the Congress of the Cortes, that was to borrow what is usually the normality of Palma's institution. Borrow and graft on insults and observations that should play no part in the most important of institutional processes - the confirmation or otherwise of His Majesty's principal political officer.
It has occurred on more than one occasion that current-day Spain is in a constant state of historical regurgitation. And here was an occasion which confirmed this. While minor parties had their digs, and these included aspirations of independence for Catalonia and the Basques, there was Pablo Iglesias of Podemos, a party that is highly contemporary and yet a relic of the past. How can it be anything other than when references can be made to the Civil War and to the dark fight with ETA terrorism in the early 1980s? Iglesias's dredging up of the murder of two ETA terrorists in 1983 was reprehensible, an utterly uncalled-for stick with which to beat Pedro Sánchez. The murders were themselves appalling, but Iglesias should remember the context. Spain was still in turmoil, with ETA at the centre of this. A year before there had been another coup attempt (covered up) which had sought to deprive Felipe Gónzalez and PSOE the government it deserved. All that Iglesias succeeded in doing was to trigger suspicions that Podemos is not wholly without ETA sympathies.
The debate, which wasn't a debate just an excuse for pathetic trading in insults, was always destined to be a charade. Sánchez had no hope of winning. I had written the introductory paragraph long before the vote was taken; all that was needed was slight tweaking. Mariano Rajoy, as malicious and small-minded as Iglesias in his abuse, suggested that the King hadn't been fooled, and thus managed to suggest that the King had been fooled. The monarch should have been left out of this disgraceful exercise in his name, but this couldn't have been avoided. The King had given Sánchez his blessing to attempt to form a government. Well, someone has to try.
Inadvertently, Wednesday became a bad day for the monarchy. In the court in Palma, the ex-Duke of Palma was subject to the questioning of Pedro Horrach. Of the three tasks this was by far the most tedious. Listening to Horrach deliver questions as though he is an aloof maths teacher, listening to Urdangarin's monotonous replies, the best that one could say that it was at least civilised, albeit that the presiding judge had to rebuke Horrach for constantly asking about invoices. Rebuke? What for? Aren't the invoices crucial to the whole case?
But it was the fact that the Royal Household was supposedly overseeing all that went on at Nóos made it a bad day for the monarchy: Congress and its antics just confirmed this.
It was a curious day of multi-single tasking. A day when the institutions of Congress and monarchy seemed to be unravelling and yet when the judiciary, with its prosecutor's forensic obsessions, and - most surprisingly of all - the Balearic parliament with its consensus came to the rescue. It was Spain in a day. Contrary and exhausting.
The tasks were these: keeping across debate in the Balearic parliament; keeping across the interrogation of the one-time Duke of Palma; keeping across the debate (the wrong word) on the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. Of these, the first was uncommonly civilised and meaningful in that a key subject was of broad interest. On too many occasions, the Balearic parliament peers deep into its rectum and plucks out arguments that are of no interest other than to parliament itself.
The subject was holiday rentals. For once, parliament was capable of arriving at unanimity - consensus in today's politically correct parlance. It agreed that regulation should be introduced within six months. The unstated message was why it had been taking the government so long to pull its finger out on a subject of infinitely greater importance than the wretched tourist tax. There are times, perhaps, when messages need not to be stated. Let's just all agree to agree and get on with it.
The normal state of dysfunctionality of the Balearic parliament - puerile debate, childish remarks, egotistical posturing - was momentarily cast into the background. It was the national parliament, the Congress of the Cortes, that was to borrow what is usually the normality of Palma's institution. Borrow and graft on insults and observations that should play no part in the most important of institutional processes - the confirmation or otherwise of His Majesty's principal political officer.
It has occurred on more than one occasion that current-day Spain is in a constant state of historical regurgitation. And here was an occasion which confirmed this. While minor parties had their digs, and these included aspirations of independence for Catalonia and the Basques, there was Pablo Iglesias of Podemos, a party that is highly contemporary and yet a relic of the past. How can it be anything other than when references can be made to the Civil War and to the dark fight with ETA terrorism in the early 1980s? Iglesias's dredging up of the murder of two ETA terrorists in 1983 was reprehensible, an utterly uncalled-for stick with which to beat Pedro Sánchez. The murders were themselves appalling, but Iglesias should remember the context. Spain was still in turmoil, with ETA at the centre of this. A year before there had been another coup attempt (covered up) which had sought to deprive Felipe Gónzalez and PSOE the government it deserved. All that Iglesias succeeded in doing was to trigger suspicions that Podemos is not wholly without ETA sympathies.
The debate, which wasn't a debate just an excuse for pathetic trading in insults, was always destined to be a charade. Sánchez had no hope of winning. I had written the introductory paragraph long before the vote was taken; all that was needed was slight tweaking. Mariano Rajoy, as malicious and small-minded as Iglesias in his abuse, suggested that the King hadn't been fooled, and thus managed to suggest that the King had been fooled. The monarch should have been left out of this disgraceful exercise in his name, but this couldn't have been avoided. The King had given Sánchez his blessing to attempt to form a government. Well, someone has to try.
Inadvertently, Wednesday became a bad day for the monarchy. In the court in Palma, the ex-Duke of Palma was subject to the questioning of Pedro Horrach. Of the three tasks this was by far the most tedious. Listening to Horrach deliver questions as though he is an aloof maths teacher, listening to Urdangarin's monotonous replies, the best that one could say that it was at least civilised, albeit that the presiding judge had to rebuke Horrach for constantly asking about invoices. Rebuke? What for? Aren't the invoices crucial to the whole case?
But it was the fact that the Royal Household was supposedly overseeing all that went on at Nóos made it a bad day for the monarchy: Congress and its antics just confirmed this.
It was a curious day of multi-single tasking. A day when the institutions of Congress and monarchy seemed to be unravelling and yet when the judiciary, with its prosecutor's forensic obsessions, and - most surprisingly of all - the Balearic parliament with its consensus came to the rescue. It was Spain in a day. Contrary and exhausting.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Panto Season In Spain
"He's behind you!" "Oh no he isn't!" "Oh yes he is!" It's panto season in Spain. We know this because one of the great dames has decreed it thus. Mariano Rajoy has said there's a panto. Oh yes there is. It was a peculiar observation by Mazza. The Spanish, as with most of the rest of the non-British world, doesn't get panto. For the Spanish it's doubly confusing. Why would you actively seek out audience participation? Ah, you see, times they are a-changing and even Mazza has got the citizen participation bug. Which part of the pantomime horse should he be? The question needs to be posted on to the Official Bulletin. At present, Mazza is firmly in the rear. But who knows? The pantomime is such that he could become the front and double up as Widow Twankey.
Mariano's panto will take place this week when the boy Pedro Sánchez of PSOE attempts to get himself voted in as prime minister (president). There are other words and expressions that one could call on to describe the current state of non-government in Spain, but Mazza has opted for pantomime. How about total farce? Here's any one of the Brian Rix-style leaders of the four parties racing around the stage of the Whitehall Theatre with his trousers round his ankles. More tea, vicar?
Just to remind you, it is now over two months since there was an election. This coming week, there is the remote possibility that the boy Pedro might actually become prime minister (president). But it is only remote on account of the pantomime nature of the whole farrago. He's tied a pre-nuptial agreement with Ciudadanos, a party with two many syllables that is referred to more easily as the C's, and a right bunch of C's they are in some politicians' estimation (Pablo Iglesias of Podemos for one). Its leader is Albert Rivera, a youthful politician who, were he to trim his name down to Al Rivera, would sound like some dreadful crooning act from the 1970s appearing for the summer season on Hastings pier under the Al moniker but in reality being Les Reeves from Warrington.
But back at the panto, and who was it that the boy Pedro chose to reveal was behind him in a YouTube video designed to persuade the party membership that Al would make a suitable partner for a progressive and reforming government with Pedro at the helm? Yes, it was none other than Pablo Iglesias. But not that Pablo Iglesias. The Hairy One from Podemos may be able to boast facial hair and a great deal of hair full stop, but the Pablo behind Pedro was the one who founded PSOE in the days when socialists really were socialists, sported frightening moustaches, lectured everyone on Karl Marx and sang "The Internationale" and actually meant it.
Mariano, meanwhile, was sending a sort of love letter to Al. Convinced that the panto will descend into high farce, he was proposing a meeting after the boy Pedro fails to garner sufficient support in either of the upcoming Congress votes this week. "You know that I am always available," said Mazza, meaning that he is quite prepared (only prepared) to countenance any sort of link with the C's and PSOE if he's still prime minister (president). "A big hug," the letter concluded in the chummy way that letters are concluded in a Spanish style.
So, what can we expect this week? Well, let's ask the audience. Will Pedro become prime minister (president)? Oh yes he will. Oh no he won't.
Mariano's panto will take place this week when the boy Pedro Sánchez of PSOE attempts to get himself voted in as prime minister (president). There are other words and expressions that one could call on to describe the current state of non-government in Spain, but Mazza has opted for pantomime. How about total farce? Here's any one of the Brian Rix-style leaders of the four parties racing around the stage of the Whitehall Theatre with his trousers round his ankles. More tea, vicar?
Just to remind you, it is now over two months since there was an election. This coming week, there is the remote possibility that the boy Pedro might actually become prime minister (president). But it is only remote on account of the pantomime nature of the whole farrago. He's tied a pre-nuptial agreement with Ciudadanos, a party with two many syllables that is referred to more easily as the C's, and a right bunch of C's they are in some politicians' estimation (Pablo Iglesias of Podemos for one). Its leader is Albert Rivera, a youthful politician who, were he to trim his name down to Al Rivera, would sound like some dreadful crooning act from the 1970s appearing for the summer season on Hastings pier under the Al moniker but in reality being Les Reeves from Warrington.
But back at the panto, and who was it that the boy Pedro chose to reveal was behind him in a YouTube video designed to persuade the party membership that Al would make a suitable partner for a progressive and reforming government with Pedro at the helm? Yes, it was none other than Pablo Iglesias. But not that Pablo Iglesias. The Hairy One from Podemos may be able to boast facial hair and a great deal of hair full stop, but the Pablo behind Pedro was the one who founded PSOE in the days when socialists really were socialists, sported frightening moustaches, lectured everyone on Karl Marx and sang "The Internationale" and actually meant it.
Mariano, meanwhile, was sending a sort of love letter to Al. Convinced that the panto will descend into high farce, he was proposing a meeting after the boy Pedro fails to garner sufficient support in either of the upcoming Congress votes this week. "You know that I am always available," said Mazza, meaning that he is quite prepared (only prepared) to countenance any sort of link with the C's and PSOE if he's still prime minister (president). "A big hug," the letter concluded in the chummy way that letters are concluded in a Spanish style.
So, what can we expect this week? Well, let's ask the audience. Will Pedro become prime minister (president)? Oh yes he will. Oh no he won't.
Sunday, February 14, 2016
When Mariano Met Pedro
Oh how the sports pages love it when Arsene Wenger fails to shake the hand of Jose Mourinho / Sir Alex Ferguson / Sam Allardyce (choose as applicable). Come on, Arsene, stop arsin' about and shake the bloke's hand. It's only a game after all. Football is, and some might disagree, not that important in the general scheme of living. It might be better were football managers to become prime ministers or presidents, but with one notable exception, this is unlikely to ever transpire. There is, though, Pep Guardiola, the footballing world's champion of Catalonian independence. One day Pep will be president. The man walks on water as it is, apparently, so why not?
The general scheme of things means that politicians are raised to greater levels of significance than mere to-become managers (head coaches or whatever) of Manchester City. Accordingly, a Wenger-like snub of the hand acquires a correspondingly greater level of significance. Mariano Rajoy, being a good patriot and former member of the Alianza Popular, the party hewn from the wreckage of Francoism, is naturally enough a Real Madrid supporter: Real Madrid, Spain's national team. The good patriot thus delivered an Arsene avoidance. For when Mazza met Pedro, in the full glare of the media, Pedro offered his hand, Mazza sold him a dummy and assertively buttoned up his suit jacket.
Body language gurus would have been salivating. Rajoy was defiantly shielding himself in that brief buttoning act and announcing that he was still the man. Pedro's reaction, a frustrated tap of a thigh and a grim countenance, spoke of being absolutely bloody furious. Not only had he been snubbed, the world had captured the non-accepted hand for all time: Sánchez was being humiliated.
This preposterous lack of respect from Rajoy must surely mark the final moment, the final moment of his ever less likely retention of the presidency. If the meeting between the two had been intended to be the occasion for the good patriot to extend the hand of fraternal Spanishness and to walk hand-in-hand to a promised land (replete with Catalonia) in the pursuit of national salvation (minus Podemos), then it failed utterly. What was Rajoy thinking? Has he stopped thinking? Is he so totally blind to realities that he seriously believes he can remain president? Seemingly, he does. When the two actually started talking, this was the Rajoy red line. It was Margaret Thatcher, Paris, 1990. Mariano fighting on, when all the evidence tells him to quit.
But even worse was what it told us of the speciousness of the dialogue and consensus narrative that has been blurted out of every politician's mouth since Podemos became more than a mere irritant. Consensus? When they can't even shake hands? Rajoy, rather than acting in a grand statesman-like fashion and in, as he would insist, the interests of the country above all, provided Sánchez with all the ammunition and justification (if he did really need it) to phone The Hairy One and propose marriage. Rajoy has been criticised for his irresponsibility in having not put himself before parliament and sought investiture, but now his irresponsibility was greater still.
The general scheme of things means that politicians are raised to greater levels of significance than mere to-become managers (head coaches or whatever) of Manchester City. Accordingly, a Wenger-like snub of the hand acquires a correspondingly greater level of significance. Mariano Rajoy, being a good patriot and former member of the Alianza Popular, the party hewn from the wreckage of Francoism, is naturally enough a Real Madrid supporter: Real Madrid, Spain's national team. The good patriot thus delivered an Arsene avoidance. For when Mazza met Pedro, in the full glare of the media, Pedro offered his hand, Mazza sold him a dummy and assertively buttoned up his suit jacket.
Body language gurus would have been salivating. Rajoy was defiantly shielding himself in that brief buttoning act and announcing that he was still the man. Pedro's reaction, a frustrated tap of a thigh and a grim countenance, spoke of being absolutely bloody furious. Not only had he been snubbed, the world had captured the non-accepted hand for all time: Sánchez was being humiliated.
This preposterous lack of respect from Rajoy must surely mark the final moment, the final moment of his ever less likely retention of the presidency. If the meeting between the two had been intended to be the occasion for the good patriot to extend the hand of fraternal Spanishness and to walk hand-in-hand to a promised land (replete with Catalonia) in the pursuit of national salvation (minus Podemos), then it failed utterly. What was Rajoy thinking? Has he stopped thinking? Is he so totally blind to realities that he seriously believes he can remain president? Seemingly, he does. When the two actually started talking, this was the Rajoy red line. It was Margaret Thatcher, Paris, 1990. Mariano fighting on, when all the evidence tells him to quit.
But even worse was what it told us of the speciousness of the dialogue and consensus narrative that has been blurted out of every politician's mouth since Podemos became more than a mere irritant. Consensus? When they can't even shake hands? Rajoy, rather than acting in a grand statesman-like fashion and in, as he would insist, the interests of the country above all, provided Sánchez with all the ammunition and justification (if he did really need it) to phone The Hairy One and propose marriage. Rajoy has been criticised for his irresponsibility in having not put himself before parliament and sought investiture, but now his irresponsibility was greater still.
Tuesday, February 02, 2016
PSOE And The Puppet Masters
"Podemos is not advocating a government of coalition but a coalition of government." These were the words of the PSOE president of Extremadura, Guillermo Fernández-Vara, speaking at the party's federal committee at the weekend. They might sound like gobbledegook but their meaning was clear. A government of coalition means a government in which individual parties' agendas are subordinate to the will of the government as a whole. A coalition of government refers to individual parties having their separate responsibilities and agendas. There is not the same collective will or anything approaching it.
Vara went onto to say that under a PSOE government arrangement with Podemos, the party (his party) would be judged by what it does and what it is responsible for, while Podemos would be judged on what it does and its responsibilities. The semantics of his message might seem confusing, but what he was driving at was the potential to create what would be parallel governments. There may, ostensibly, be a coalition, but its paths would diverge, with one signposted PSOE, the other Podemos (together with its associates and, in all likelihood, the IU - United Left).
The Extremadura president is far from being alone in opposing any governmental tie-up with Podemos. PSOE leaders might want a government of the left, but it depends on what style of left. Javier Fernández, the president of Asturias, has branded Podemos bullies. Miquel Iceta, the secretary-general of PSOE in Catalonia (known as PSC), has spoken of Pablo Iglesias wishing to humiliate him. The bullies and the humiliation are things that PSOE should already be aware of: its members need only take a look at the Balearics.
The Vara argument is of course disputed by the present voguishness for everything apparently being agreed through dialogue and consensus, with component parts of pacts walking hand-in-hand in harmonious accord. This is fictitious dissembling. Had Francina Armengol's PSOE in the Balearics been in a position to, it would have repelled any half-thought of a pact involving Podemos. Why? Because of its disruptive capacity as much as any policies. Biel Barceló's Més on its own would have received houseroom in just the same way as one of the Més elements, the PSM Mallorcan socialists, had been by Francesc Antich. Left to their twosome devices, the dialogue and consensus spin might have some credibility. The ménage à trois leaves it incredible.
Yet even with Més, Armengol has been forced into giving up areas of responsibility. Tourism is most certainly one. It is now hypothetical what might have happened had PSOE been in a stronger position, but it was well known that PSOE had not been wholehearted in wishing there to be a tourist tax. This is a Més measure (with Podemos's full backing). The words of Armengol, her government spokesperson, Marc Pons, and her finance minister, Catalina Cladera - each of them from PSOE - in now supporting it are shallow.
The Balearic model of government is precisely what Vara was alluding to. The notion of consensus has the feeling of a sham, one perpetrated by Armengol and others as a means of justification for a government which could unravel under the tensions it has brought upon itself. Podemos, not even actually in the government (though it may reconsider this, with all the complications this would cause for responsibilities), has made play of the fact that it is now - based on general election results - the second force in the Balearics (behind the most-voted-for party, the PP). Armengol and PSOE were forced into having to accept an arrangement with Podemos, which has subsequently drawn greater strength from the national election. And with this force and strength, there is humiliation. The PP's accusations of Armengol being a Podemos puppet cut to the bone, and it is this that certain PSOE leaders want to avoid at all costs for national government.
Moreover, they want to avoid acceding to Podemos demands for control of, for example, defence and the economy. They most certainly want to avoid any referendum on Catalonia. Armengol seeks to soothe their nerves by saying that all is working well in government with nationalists. But which nationalists? Més has a nationalist agenda (for both the Balearics and Catalonia), but Més is irrelevant in the national government context: Podemos isn't.
Podemos backs a referendum but not because it is nationalist. It promotes the will of the people in deciding, to an extent that it can be described as anti-nationalist, which might be said to include Spain. This is its own spin. Podemos may be able to keep it up. It may even be sincere. But even allowing for a veneer of the popular will, there are precedents for subordinating the state to party interests, those of Podemos. You don't need me to tell you which ones. There are plenty in PSOE who will never forgive Sánchez if he prostrates himself in front of Podemos.
Vara went onto to say that under a PSOE government arrangement with Podemos, the party (his party) would be judged by what it does and what it is responsible for, while Podemos would be judged on what it does and its responsibilities. The semantics of his message might seem confusing, but what he was driving at was the potential to create what would be parallel governments. There may, ostensibly, be a coalition, but its paths would diverge, with one signposted PSOE, the other Podemos (together with its associates and, in all likelihood, the IU - United Left).
The Extremadura president is far from being alone in opposing any governmental tie-up with Podemos. PSOE leaders might want a government of the left, but it depends on what style of left. Javier Fernández, the president of Asturias, has branded Podemos bullies. Miquel Iceta, the secretary-general of PSOE in Catalonia (known as PSC), has spoken of Pablo Iglesias wishing to humiliate him. The bullies and the humiliation are things that PSOE should already be aware of: its members need only take a look at the Balearics.
The Vara argument is of course disputed by the present voguishness for everything apparently being agreed through dialogue and consensus, with component parts of pacts walking hand-in-hand in harmonious accord. This is fictitious dissembling. Had Francina Armengol's PSOE in the Balearics been in a position to, it would have repelled any half-thought of a pact involving Podemos. Why? Because of its disruptive capacity as much as any policies. Biel Barceló's Més on its own would have received houseroom in just the same way as one of the Més elements, the PSM Mallorcan socialists, had been by Francesc Antich. Left to their twosome devices, the dialogue and consensus spin might have some credibility. The ménage à trois leaves it incredible.
Yet even with Més, Armengol has been forced into giving up areas of responsibility. Tourism is most certainly one. It is now hypothetical what might have happened had PSOE been in a stronger position, but it was well known that PSOE had not been wholehearted in wishing there to be a tourist tax. This is a Més measure (with Podemos's full backing). The words of Armengol, her government spokesperson, Marc Pons, and her finance minister, Catalina Cladera - each of them from PSOE - in now supporting it are shallow.
The Balearic model of government is precisely what Vara was alluding to. The notion of consensus has the feeling of a sham, one perpetrated by Armengol and others as a means of justification for a government which could unravel under the tensions it has brought upon itself. Podemos, not even actually in the government (though it may reconsider this, with all the complications this would cause for responsibilities), has made play of the fact that it is now - based on general election results - the second force in the Balearics (behind the most-voted-for party, the PP). Armengol and PSOE were forced into having to accept an arrangement with Podemos, which has subsequently drawn greater strength from the national election. And with this force and strength, there is humiliation. The PP's accusations of Armengol being a Podemos puppet cut to the bone, and it is this that certain PSOE leaders want to avoid at all costs for national government.
Moreover, they want to avoid acceding to Podemos demands for control of, for example, defence and the economy. They most certainly want to avoid any referendum on Catalonia. Armengol seeks to soothe their nerves by saying that all is working well in government with nationalists. But which nationalists? Més has a nationalist agenda (for both the Balearics and Catalonia), but Més is irrelevant in the national government context: Podemos isn't.
Podemos backs a referendum but not because it is nationalist. It promotes the will of the people in deciding, to an extent that it can be described as anti-nationalist, which might be said to include Spain. This is its own spin. Podemos may be able to keep it up. It may even be sincere. But even allowing for a veneer of the popular will, there are precedents for subordinating the state to party interests, those of Podemos. You don't need me to tell you which ones. There are plenty in PSOE who will never forgive Sánchez if he prostrates himself in front of Podemos.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
The Awkwardness Of Government
If there is one certainty to have emerged from the uncertainty caused by the December election, it is that Mariano Rajoy simply doesn't get it. He doesn't get the fact that the PP received a stuffing. He doesn't get the fact that by not putting himself up for being reinstated as prime minister and then refusing to stand aside and let someone else do so is selfish and stupid. He doesn't get the fact that things have changed, and changed dramatically. In the course of one day, 20 December, Mazza became a relic. He became history. A thing of the past. Spain had moved on without having a clue in which direction it was actually heading.
Which of course may be what he's banking on. The citizens, now alerted to the dreadful mistake they made, will hope for a new election, at which they will demonstrate their eternal gratitude to Mariano, say sorry for having misbehaved so badly in December, recognise their collective folly and reinstall Mariano and the PP with a landslide. The weeks since the election have shown that none of the other lots are capable or responsible. Only the PP, with Mariano at its head, can once again save the citizens from themselves. Oh, and don't worry about all the millions that have gone missing on account of alleged corruption cases. Keep them. In fact, have some more. We, the citizens, promise never to do anything like 20 December again.
It's possible in Mariano magic land, that he and the PP actually think like this. So divorced from reality, so desperate has Mariano become in wanting to hold on to power that he came up with the bizarre proposal made to the boy Pedro of PSOE whereby PSOE would support his investiture in return for the PP giving PSOE-led administrations in regions and municipalities its support and so meaning that they - the PSOE administrations - could get Podemos off their backs. In fact, even this wasn't quite as bizarre as it sounded. Something similar had occurred in Andalusia over the months it took Susana Diaz (PSOE) to ensure her re-investiture as president of that region. In the end, this deal with the PP was not needed, but it seemed then, as it does now, as though it was an arrangement best described through the use of the phrasal noun carve-up.
Ultimately, whichever way Pedro jumps (Mariano won't care about this), he will be acutely aware that one element on the Podemos charge list is that of the "casta", the two-party dominance that The Hairy One has been so determined to shatter. Would the citizens, indeed members of his own party, ever forgive him for reinforcing the existence of the casta, given that Podemos (and the C's) have so dramatically disrupted its co-habitation? He would have had a lot on his plate when the federal committee gathered yesterday.
At least Pedro has been able to rely on the support of sweet and friendly Francina (he doesn't enjoy the wholehearted support of the PSOE collective of barons and baronesses). But Francina's support came with a caveat. While saying on the one hand that Pedro should be given total freedom to negotiate however he wished, there she was, insisting that this freedom should be in the image of the dialogue, consensus and fully and well-functioning Balearic model, one with Podemos in the wings putting the boot in, courtesy primarily of The Boot Girl Laura. Francina is, of course, bound to say this. She would hardly say anything else, though she might have taken note (and perhaps Pedro has) of the words of the Grand Baron of PSOE, one-time dashing premier, Felipe González, who made it clear that he believes that the Podemos wrecking ball is aimed at a total destruction of the "system" and not merely some redevelopment work. These are, it must be said, awkward moments.
Back in Congress, where the elected members are enjoying a sabbatical at taxpayer expense and not doing anything on account of there not being anything to shout at each other about, the infant Íñigo Errejón was busying himself with some sheets of paper and a set of crayons. Íñigo was making sketches of the seating arrangements. Podemos want these, he stamped his foot and demanded. Here is another awkward aspect of these changing times. They've not previously had to worry about accommodating great banks of stroppy sorts in the Congress semi-circle. But just as important for Íñigo would have been where Carolina Bescansa is to be in this maroon party forum within the grander forum of the Cortes. He will surely not be wishing a repeat of the baby business. Moreover, how will Podemos juggle the competing hairstyles within its ranks? Do they opt to put the flamboyant ones together, with Pablo's ponytail brushing up against Natty Dreadlock In A Babylon, the bloke who's the head of the Rastafari Tenerife wing of We Can? Yet more awkwardness.
Index for January 2016
Balearic land planning decree - 14 January 2016, 16 January 2016
Blasphemous video - 7 January 2016
Bridge breaks and holidays - 13 January 2016
Bullying and suicide - 22 January 2016
Consensus and Spain's politics - 6 January 2016, 20 January 2016
Corruption - 29 January 2016
Demons' promotion - 15 January 2016
Education and language - 28 January 2016
Holiday rentals and overcrowding - 30 January 2016
Investment in the Balearics - 21 January 2016
Llorenç Moya - 11 January 2016
Mallorca in numbers 2015 - 1 January 2016
Manacor, the demon and the model - 19 January 2016
Nativity scenes in Mallorca - 4 January 2016
Nóos trial - 12 January 2016, 18 January 2016
Palma's name - 3 January 2016
Photographic heritage of Mallorca - 25 January 2016
Pine trees - 17 January 2016
Real Mallorca - 8 January 2016, 10 January 2016
Seasonality and tourism jobs - 2 January 2016
Sharing economy and holiday rentals - 5 January 2016
Spain's government: negotiations - 24 January 2016, 31 January 2016
Tourist tax - 9 January 2016, 23 January 2016
Towns' images - 27 January 2016
Utopia - 26 January 2016
Which of course may be what he's banking on. The citizens, now alerted to the dreadful mistake they made, will hope for a new election, at which they will demonstrate their eternal gratitude to Mariano, say sorry for having misbehaved so badly in December, recognise their collective folly and reinstall Mariano and the PP with a landslide. The weeks since the election have shown that none of the other lots are capable or responsible. Only the PP, with Mariano at its head, can once again save the citizens from themselves. Oh, and don't worry about all the millions that have gone missing on account of alleged corruption cases. Keep them. In fact, have some more. We, the citizens, promise never to do anything like 20 December again.
It's possible in Mariano magic land, that he and the PP actually think like this. So divorced from reality, so desperate has Mariano become in wanting to hold on to power that he came up with the bizarre proposal made to the boy Pedro of PSOE whereby PSOE would support his investiture in return for the PP giving PSOE-led administrations in regions and municipalities its support and so meaning that they - the PSOE administrations - could get Podemos off their backs. In fact, even this wasn't quite as bizarre as it sounded. Something similar had occurred in Andalusia over the months it took Susana Diaz (PSOE) to ensure her re-investiture as president of that region. In the end, this deal with the PP was not needed, but it seemed then, as it does now, as though it was an arrangement best described through the use of the phrasal noun carve-up.
Ultimately, whichever way Pedro jumps (Mariano won't care about this), he will be acutely aware that one element on the Podemos charge list is that of the "casta", the two-party dominance that The Hairy One has been so determined to shatter. Would the citizens, indeed members of his own party, ever forgive him for reinforcing the existence of the casta, given that Podemos (and the C's) have so dramatically disrupted its co-habitation? He would have had a lot on his plate when the federal committee gathered yesterday.
At least Pedro has been able to rely on the support of sweet and friendly Francina (he doesn't enjoy the wholehearted support of the PSOE collective of barons and baronesses). But Francina's support came with a caveat. While saying on the one hand that Pedro should be given total freedom to negotiate however he wished, there she was, insisting that this freedom should be in the image of the dialogue, consensus and fully and well-functioning Balearic model, one with Podemos in the wings putting the boot in, courtesy primarily of The Boot Girl Laura. Francina is, of course, bound to say this. She would hardly say anything else, though she might have taken note (and perhaps Pedro has) of the words of the Grand Baron of PSOE, one-time dashing premier, Felipe González, who made it clear that he believes that the Podemos wrecking ball is aimed at a total destruction of the "system" and not merely some redevelopment work. These are, it must be said, awkward moments.
Back in Congress, where the elected members are enjoying a sabbatical at taxpayer expense and not doing anything on account of there not being anything to shout at each other about, the infant Íñigo Errejón was busying himself with some sheets of paper and a set of crayons. Íñigo was making sketches of the seating arrangements. Podemos want these, he stamped his foot and demanded. Here is another awkward aspect of these changing times. They've not previously had to worry about accommodating great banks of stroppy sorts in the Congress semi-circle. But just as important for Íñigo would have been where Carolina Bescansa is to be in this maroon party forum within the grander forum of the Cortes. He will surely not be wishing a repeat of the baby business. Moreover, how will Podemos juggle the competing hairstyles within its ranks? Do they opt to put the flamboyant ones together, with Pablo's ponytail brushing up against Natty Dreadlock In A Babylon, the bloke who's the head of the Rastafari Tenerife wing of We Can? Yet more awkwardness.
Index for January 2016
Balearic land planning decree - 14 January 2016, 16 January 2016
Blasphemous video - 7 January 2016
Bridge breaks and holidays - 13 January 2016
Bullying and suicide - 22 January 2016
Consensus and Spain's politics - 6 January 2016, 20 January 2016
Corruption - 29 January 2016
Demons' promotion - 15 January 2016
Education and language - 28 January 2016
Holiday rentals and overcrowding - 30 January 2016
Investment in the Balearics - 21 January 2016
Llorenç Moya - 11 January 2016
Mallorca in numbers 2015 - 1 January 2016
Manacor, the demon and the model - 19 January 2016
Nativity scenes in Mallorca - 4 January 2016
Nóos trial - 12 January 2016, 18 January 2016
Palma's name - 3 January 2016
Photographic heritage of Mallorca - 25 January 2016
Pine trees - 17 January 2016
Real Mallorca - 8 January 2016, 10 January 2016
Seasonality and tourism jobs - 2 January 2016
Sharing economy and holiday rentals - 5 January 2016
Spain's government: negotiations - 24 January 2016, 31 January 2016
Tourist tax - 9 January 2016, 23 January 2016
Towns' images - 27 January 2016
Utopia - 26 January 2016
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Turning Portuguese
Some of my correspondents are shrewd analysts. I said Podemos wouldn't shift their stance on Catalonia. Oh yes they will, came the response: The Hairy One's a canny bugger. I'm happy to be told that I was told so, given that I seem to spend a great deal of time doing just this myself. Never let political opportunism get in the way of power-grabbing. The Hairy One has shifted the red line of Catalonia slightly to the right. It is now a pink line which might in due course fade under a burning Catalonian sky. So much depends.
Meanwhile, Mariano was meeting the King. What a time Felipe is having with all of this, having to forego the Fitur travel fair and a chance to sample some Mallorcan ensaimada at the Balearic stand, needing instead to attempt to knock some sense into the blockheads. I want first dibs at becoming premier, said Mariano. Or something along those lines. The King must have been sorely tempted. And how exactly do you think you will manage this? Where exactly do you think the support will come from?
Mazza's mouthpiece, Rafael Hernando, ahead of Rajoy going off to ask for royal first refusal, said that the citizens had had enough of confrontation, implying that the citizens would immediately realise how foolish they had been in voting for anyone other than Mazza and ignoring the fact that the PP had been instrumental in bringing about confrontation. The King, meanwhile, would have been fully apprised of the fact that the boy Pedro of PSOE was in the process of cobbling together the Portuguese option, one which, on the face of it, sounds quite attractive, what with that nice Portuguese clam soup thing you get, various outstanding golf courses and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Pedro's Portuguese alternative doesn't appear to embrace such delights, however. If Heath Robinson had designed governments, then he would have come up with Portugal's - and now possibly Spain's - bits of only vaguely related political parts hammered together with some enormous valve contraption to be attached to the roof of the Cortes in order to allow all the hot air and steam to be evacuated from the building.
With The Hairy One kindly offering to become Vice-President (sorry, but it does need pointing out that the Spanish don't refer to prime ministers and deputy prime ministers, only the aloof British on account of a superior knowledge of how monarchical democracies work), Pedro now faces the opportunity of presiding over His Majesty's Heath Robinson Government of Spain. This, it is beginning to appear, may well involve a rag-tag of waif and stray parties, ranging from the only somewhat weird to the very weird. The United Left are to the right of this weirdness, but who on earth are Compromís or En Marea? Frankly, even I've given up trying to figure them all out. And then we have En Comú Podem, which is sort of Podemos but isn't. This Catalonian conglomeration of ever more rag-tag-ability reckons it might be able to sway the boy Pedro back towards the Catalonian referendum red line and so away from The Hairy One's recently discovered referendum pinkness.
Confused? Not as much as the King must be.
The odd thing is of course that they've all arrived at the Cortes to take their seats. In the absence of an actual government, what do they do with themselves? Take selfies and play Candy Crush? Well, if they are the Podemos member, Carolina Bescansa, they take their baby to Congress. The joyous family scene on the Podemos benches featured a beaming Pablo Iglesias, reaching out and then rocking the baby as Carolina passed her young offspring in front of the infant Íñigo Errejón, who is achieving the seemingly impossible of getting younger by the moment. Íñigo, it has to be said, looked as if he was about to throw an infant strop on account of being squeezed between The Hairy One in full cooing mode and the proud mother. In other words, he had a right arse on and didn't appear to relish the moment when he too was to be subject to the baby dribbling on him. Some wag Photoshopped his face onto the baby's. He's unlikely to ever live it down but must be hoping to God that the first act that Podemos pass in the Cortes is to establish a creche. For the record, Íñigo is 32.
Meanwhile, Mariano was meeting the King. What a time Felipe is having with all of this, having to forego the Fitur travel fair and a chance to sample some Mallorcan ensaimada at the Balearic stand, needing instead to attempt to knock some sense into the blockheads. I want first dibs at becoming premier, said Mariano. Or something along those lines. The King must have been sorely tempted. And how exactly do you think you will manage this? Where exactly do you think the support will come from?
Mazza's mouthpiece, Rafael Hernando, ahead of Rajoy going off to ask for royal first refusal, said that the citizens had had enough of confrontation, implying that the citizens would immediately realise how foolish they had been in voting for anyone other than Mazza and ignoring the fact that the PP had been instrumental in bringing about confrontation. The King, meanwhile, would have been fully apprised of the fact that the boy Pedro of PSOE was in the process of cobbling together the Portuguese option, one which, on the face of it, sounds quite attractive, what with that nice Portuguese clam soup thing you get, various outstanding golf courses and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Pedro's Portuguese alternative doesn't appear to embrace such delights, however. If Heath Robinson had designed governments, then he would have come up with Portugal's - and now possibly Spain's - bits of only vaguely related political parts hammered together with some enormous valve contraption to be attached to the roof of the Cortes in order to allow all the hot air and steam to be evacuated from the building.
With The Hairy One kindly offering to become Vice-President (sorry, but it does need pointing out that the Spanish don't refer to prime ministers and deputy prime ministers, only the aloof British on account of a superior knowledge of how monarchical democracies work), Pedro now faces the opportunity of presiding over His Majesty's Heath Robinson Government of Spain. This, it is beginning to appear, may well involve a rag-tag of waif and stray parties, ranging from the only somewhat weird to the very weird. The United Left are to the right of this weirdness, but who on earth are Compromís or En Marea? Frankly, even I've given up trying to figure them all out. And then we have En Comú Podem, which is sort of Podemos but isn't. This Catalonian conglomeration of ever more rag-tag-ability reckons it might be able to sway the boy Pedro back towards the Catalonian referendum red line and so away from The Hairy One's recently discovered referendum pinkness.
Confused? Not as much as the King must be.
The odd thing is of course that they've all arrived at the Cortes to take their seats. In the absence of an actual government, what do they do with themselves? Take selfies and play Candy Crush? Well, if they are the Podemos member, Carolina Bescansa, they take their baby to Congress. The joyous family scene on the Podemos benches featured a beaming Pablo Iglesias, reaching out and then rocking the baby as Carolina passed her young offspring in front of the infant Íñigo Errejón, who is achieving the seemingly impossible of getting younger by the moment. Íñigo, it has to be said, looked as if he was about to throw an infant strop on account of being squeezed between The Hairy One in full cooing mode and the proud mother. In other words, he had a right arse on and didn't appear to relish the moment when he too was to be subject to the baby dribbling on him. Some wag Photoshopped his face onto the baby's. He's unlikely to ever live it down but must be hoping to God that the first act that Podemos pass in the Cortes is to establish a creche. For the record, Íñigo is 32.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
The Forgotten Kingmaker
You could have written the script. Indeed, many had. The opinion polls had been right except in one respect. The citizens decided that the Citizens' Party, Ciudadanos, was less a panacea for political new-ageism than Podemos. The citizens had thus concluded that collectively they could, as in backing the Podemistic optimism of We Can, as opposed to the Ciudadanos' message of We Might Possibly Be Able To Were It Not For The Fact That We Give The Impression Of Being The PP In Disguise.
No sooner had the first results started coming in, and analysts were rushing to examine various permutations which should have been obvious before the citizens even stepped into the polling stations. The media love of seeking a kingmaker had conveniently ignored the fact that the Warwick of the Spanish war of the election roses was was not going to be the Prickly Rose of Pablo Iglesias and Podemos or the Trailing Rose of Albert Rivera and the C's but rather the Redleaf Rose of Pedro Sánchez and PSOE.
The boy Pedro was being advised left, right and centre by the left, by the right and by the centre. Which way should he go? Which way will he go? Whichever direction he takes, it would appear not to include Mariano Rajoy as a fellow traveller. Making it clear that Mazza would not receive investiture support, the interpretation was that Pedro wouldn't be touching the PP with a pact barge pole, while a different one might be that he would be prepared to, if Mariano is packed off to Galicia, never to darken governmental doors again.
Having seen Pedro assault Mazza with such verbal gusto during their head-to-head TV debate, it was now alarming to find them posing for the media with statesman-like expressions and a handshake. All's fair in love, war and election campaigning, but for Pedro to even give the possibility of taking the hand of the fair Mariano in a tryst of grand coalition some element of houseroom in the stately rooms of the Moncloa Palace appeared to be stretching political opportunism too far. But Pedro would have known, even before agreeing to an appointment with the damsel prime minister in distress, that shacking up with him would incur the interminable wrath of both the Prickly Rose and the Trailing Rose. "Casta," they would shout. The citizens' voices raised against the two-party dominance would have been ignored. The PP and PSOE would walk together hand-in-hand, thumbing noses at the new age of political pluralism.
Pedro thus finds himself between a rock and an even bigger rock, both of which are poised perilously and about to fall on him from a great height. At the back, or more likely at the front of his mind, he'll be thinking about the next election (and not a re-run of last Sunday). For PSOE, having taken a further electoral tumble, it is imperative to regain the lost ground since 2011. Go with the PP, and it risks citizen revulsion, even if it might be the most pragmatic way, and decimation in four years time. Go with Podemos, and it risks being ground into submission. He should ask sweet and friendly Francina what it's like to do business with Podemos. "Don't even go there," she should say, but publicly wouldn't, because as we know - as she and other PSOE-ists in the Balearics say so - the regional government is working well because of the new age of dialogue and consensus, supported by the agreements for governability.
Who'd be Pedro Sánchez?
No sooner had the first results started coming in, and analysts were rushing to examine various permutations which should have been obvious before the citizens even stepped into the polling stations. The media love of seeking a kingmaker had conveniently ignored the fact that the Warwick of the Spanish war of the election roses was was not going to be the Prickly Rose of Pablo Iglesias and Podemos or the Trailing Rose of Albert Rivera and the C's but rather the Redleaf Rose of Pedro Sánchez and PSOE.
The boy Pedro was being advised left, right and centre by the left, by the right and by the centre. Which way should he go? Which way will he go? Whichever direction he takes, it would appear not to include Mariano Rajoy as a fellow traveller. Making it clear that Mazza would not receive investiture support, the interpretation was that Pedro wouldn't be touching the PP with a pact barge pole, while a different one might be that he would be prepared to, if Mariano is packed off to Galicia, never to darken governmental doors again.
Having seen Pedro assault Mazza with such verbal gusto during their head-to-head TV debate, it was now alarming to find them posing for the media with statesman-like expressions and a handshake. All's fair in love, war and election campaigning, but for Pedro to even give the possibility of taking the hand of the fair Mariano in a tryst of grand coalition some element of houseroom in the stately rooms of the Moncloa Palace appeared to be stretching political opportunism too far. But Pedro would have known, even before agreeing to an appointment with the damsel prime minister in distress, that shacking up with him would incur the interminable wrath of both the Prickly Rose and the Trailing Rose. "Casta," they would shout. The citizens' voices raised against the two-party dominance would have been ignored. The PP and PSOE would walk together hand-in-hand, thumbing noses at the new age of political pluralism.
Pedro thus finds himself between a rock and an even bigger rock, both of which are poised perilously and about to fall on him from a great height. At the back, or more likely at the front of his mind, he'll be thinking about the next election (and not a re-run of last Sunday). For PSOE, having taken a further electoral tumble, it is imperative to regain the lost ground since 2011. Go with the PP, and it risks citizen revulsion, even if it might be the most pragmatic way, and decimation in four years time. Go with Podemos, and it risks being ground into submission. He should ask sweet and friendly Francina what it's like to do business with Podemos. "Don't even go there," she should say, but publicly wouldn't, because as we know - as she and other PSOE-ists in the Balearics say so - the regional government is working well because of the new age of dialogue and consensus, supported by the agreements for governability.
Who'd be Pedro Sánchez?
Thursday, December 17, 2015
The Four-Way Fight: PSOE
Life in the land of PSOE can move at a slow pace. Perhaps this suits a party that is the second oldest socialist workers party in Europe, one that was founded in 1879 by Pablo Iglesias. Now there's a coincidence.
PSOE was originally a product of Marxism. Early on in its existence it avowed policies of anti-clericalism (against the church, therefore), coming into alliances with Republicans and even with a dictator. Though PSOE was to be proscribed by Franco, it was useful to Primo de Rivera, a collaboration earning it the wrath of a more militant left-wing.
By the time of the Second Republic of 1931 to 1936, PSOE had become the largest political party in Spain, but the upheavals of that period were followed by its banning. It didn't totally cease to be, as it existed in exile and later in a clandestine fashion inside Spain. Then, in 1977, it was invited, under its leader Felipe González, voted in at a meeting in France in 1974, to take part in the first post-Franco democratic election. Five years later González won. PSOE would govern for fourteen years, a period of enormous social change, which was to end through a combination of economic crisis, strikes and allegations of corruption.
In the democratic era, defined as having started in 1977, PSOE has ruled for 21 of the 38 years. It might be said, therefore, to be the natural party of government in Spain, though such a conclusion doesn't take into account the fact that the Partido Popular (in government for a total of twelve years) has only truly existed since 1989: PSOE can claim only two more years of government than the PP since then.
These two parties have dominated the scene for the past generation, but both now are exposed to the demands for a new politics made by their Ciudadanos and Podemos challengers. For PSOE, these challenges have been as great if not greater than for the PP. This creation of the nineteenth century, stripped of its one-time and ancient quasi-revolutionary roots and of the enormous vitality that González once injected into the party and into Spain, lumbered through the years of Zapatero. Yes, it effected some decent social legislation but it never dared to take its old anti-clericalism to the conclusions some might have wanted, while economically it was living off the complacency of a boom with all too shaky foundations.
When the world first started to learn the terms subprime and toxic debt, Zapatero's reaction was to say there was no crisis in Spain. He failed to consider the structural weakness, ineptitude and corruption of parts of the Spanish financial system as well as inherent lack of competitiveness in the economy and chose a policy of spend. Too late, too slow, he tried to go into reverse. He didn't stand for re-election.
His successor, Alfredo Rubalcaba, presided over PSOE's humiliation in 2011. It lost 59 seats in Congress, having held 169. Despite this, Rubalcaba stayed on. A man of some honour, he was nevertheless exposed as symptomatic of the PSOE malaise. It was old, it had lost its way, it had little or nothing to offer. At last year's European elections, there was further humiliation. Finally, Rubalcaba stood aside.
Enter, therefore, Pedro Sánchez, a 42-year-old with comparatively little experience. With some acquired at the town hall in Madrid and with two years as a Congress deputy, it was to be a book that he had written on Spain's new economic diplomacy that was to launch him as a potential replacement for Rubalcaba. In July last year he became the party's secretary-general.
His comparative youth was in contrast to Rubalcaba, It was in contrast to Mariano Rajoy as well, but by the time Sánchez was elected, there were more youthful kids on the block and both were taking pops in equal measure against the PP and PSOE. Sánchez was leader of one of the "casta", a party every bit as mired in a history of sleaze as the PP.
While the electorate more readily associates corruption with the PP and so considers this a reason to give it a kicking on Sunday, it associates PSOE with crisis. Confronted as well by the arrival of Podemos and the C's, this economic legacy has dragged PSOE down further. It may end up losing thirty or more seats in Congress to add to the 59 in 2011.
Afforded the right as the leader of the (at present) main opposition, Sánchez went head to head with Rajoy on Monday night. The prime minister had cut everything but corruption and was not a decent man. The general view was that Sánchez lost the debate. On Sunday there is a great deal more to lose. Sánchez has failed to galvanise PSOE as many would have hoped. Slow, too slow. It needs a Pablo Iglesias.
PSOE was originally a product of Marxism. Early on in its existence it avowed policies of anti-clericalism (against the church, therefore), coming into alliances with Republicans and even with a dictator. Though PSOE was to be proscribed by Franco, it was useful to Primo de Rivera, a collaboration earning it the wrath of a more militant left-wing.
By the time of the Second Republic of 1931 to 1936, PSOE had become the largest political party in Spain, but the upheavals of that period were followed by its banning. It didn't totally cease to be, as it existed in exile and later in a clandestine fashion inside Spain. Then, in 1977, it was invited, under its leader Felipe González, voted in at a meeting in France in 1974, to take part in the first post-Franco democratic election. Five years later González won. PSOE would govern for fourteen years, a period of enormous social change, which was to end through a combination of economic crisis, strikes and allegations of corruption.
In the democratic era, defined as having started in 1977, PSOE has ruled for 21 of the 38 years. It might be said, therefore, to be the natural party of government in Spain, though such a conclusion doesn't take into account the fact that the Partido Popular (in government for a total of twelve years) has only truly existed since 1989: PSOE can claim only two more years of government than the PP since then.
These two parties have dominated the scene for the past generation, but both now are exposed to the demands for a new politics made by their Ciudadanos and Podemos challengers. For PSOE, these challenges have been as great if not greater than for the PP. This creation of the nineteenth century, stripped of its one-time and ancient quasi-revolutionary roots and of the enormous vitality that González once injected into the party and into Spain, lumbered through the years of Zapatero. Yes, it effected some decent social legislation but it never dared to take its old anti-clericalism to the conclusions some might have wanted, while economically it was living off the complacency of a boom with all too shaky foundations.
When the world first started to learn the terms subprime and toxic debt, Zapatero's reaction was to say there was no crisis in Spain. He failed to consider the structural weakness, ineptitude and corruption of parts of the Spanish financial system as well as inherent lack of competitiveness in the economy and chose a policy of spend. Too late, too slow, he tried to go into reverse. He didn't stand for re-election.
His successor, Alfredo Rubalcaba, presided over PSOE's humiliation in 2011. It lost 59 seats in Congress, having held 169. Despite this, Rubalcaba stayed on. A man of some honour, he was nevertheless exposed as symptomatic of the PSOE malaise. It was old, it had lost its way, it had little or nothing to offer. At last year's European elections, there was further humiliation. Finally, Rubalcaba stood aside.
Enter, therefore, Pedro Sánchez, a 42-year-old with comparatively little experience. With some acquired at the town hall in Madrid and with two years as a Congress deputy, it was to be a book that he had written on Spain's new economic diplomacy that was to launch him as a potential replacement for Rubalcaba. In July last year he became the party's secretary-general.
His comparative youth was in contrast to Rubalcaba, It was in contrast to Mariano Rajoy as well, but by the time Sánchez was elected, there were more youthful kids on the block and both were taking pops in equal measure against the PP and PSOE. Sánchez was leader of one of the "casta", a party every bit as mired in a history of sleaze as the PP.
While the electorate more readily associates corruption with the PP and so considers this a reason to give it a kicking on Sunday, it associates PSOE with crisis. Confronted as well by the arrival of Podemos and the C's, this economic legacy has dragged PSOE down further. It may end up losing thirty or more seats in Congress to add to the 59 in 2011.
Afforded the right as the leader of the (at present) main opposition, Sánchez went head to head with Rajoy on Monday night. The prime minister had cut everything but corruption and was not a decent man. The general view was that Sánchez lost the debate. On Sunday there is a great deal more to lose. Sánchez has failed to galvanise PSOE as many would have hoped. Slow, too slow. It needs a Pablo Iglesias.
Friday, December 11, 2015
The Chaos Of Colour: Spain's election
In just over a week's time Spain will hold a general election unlike any other in its comparatively short democratic history. If there are those who still cling to the belief that Ciudadanos and Podemos are impostors, these are beliefs of denial: two-party politics in Spain is dead, long live quadripartite politics.
Life will be breathed into this four-party system for at least as long as the life of the next legislature (until the end of 2019). Whether it survives beyond this will depend upon what happens between now and then. The deniers may, in the long term, prove to be right. If they are for the PP and PSOE, they will hope that they are.
Unless the opinion polls are wildly wrong, a prediction can be made before the electorate heads to the booths on Sunday week. Spain's political scene will be altered. It will also be highly uncertain. The country's general elections would normally expect to demand the footnotes of mainly indifference outside the nation's borders, but not this one. It will be watched like a hawk, with the eyes of Brussels, among others, firmly trained on it.
Judging by the comparative turnouts in Palma this week, the Podemos bubble appears anything but burst. Pablo Iglesias fed the five thousand at Palma Arena, while a surreal gathering - a tenth this size - wrapped themselves up against a keen breeze on the Parc de la Mar and listened to Rajoy. The prime minister observed that this was a working day and a gathering during the day. He must surely have made this remark because of events some hours previously. Iglesias had chosen a holiday and the evening: the resulting difference was political PR heaven for Podemos.
Not that these two rallies hold a key to Sunday week. Podemos has not become the mighty force it once looked as if it might; according to the polls, at any rate. The rise of Ciudadanos may explain this. Or perhaps there was always going to be a plateau that Iglesias would not be able to surmount. But in a different sense they did hold a key. Iglesias, populism aside, can be mightily impressive. He is also different.
The four-party televised debate earlier in the week had been a curious prelude to the two Palma rallies; curious because of the absence of Rajoy. This had been known a couple of weeks in advance, the official reason being the number of requests from media outlets and schedule. It was difficult to avoid believing there were other reasons.
One survey of the performances of Iglesias, Sánchez (PSOE), Rivera (Ciudadanos) and Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, Rajoy's substitute, made Iglesias the winner. Had Rajoy appeared, he might have been a greater winner. The debate itself, minus Rajoy, was a winner. There was freshness in the relative youth of the participants and the presence of a woman. There were degrees of charisma as well.
An argument for Rajoy taking part was that his seniority would afford him gravitas in the eyes of the viewer when set next to the younger upstarts - Iglesias, Rivera and Sánchez - but in recalling the debate he had with Alfredo Rubalcaba prior to the 2011 election, any such gravitas might have been lost amidst the greyness. That debate in 2011 was excruciating. Conducted by two grey men, it might now be looked back upon as the moment when the two-party system condemned itself to the political waste bin. If that was Spain's politics, with two tedious and not especially sympathetic characters representing it, change could not have come soon enough.
The new politics expounded by Iglesias and Rivera is not simply an alteration to political party dynamics, not just an assault on the sleaze and the inherent corruption of the two-party state, it is also much closer to the "citizens" through personality. Spain could abide the aloof drabness of Aznar and Zapatero during the boom times. It could also accept, for a time, the unappealing Rajoy, if this was what it genuinely had to endure. Now, battered by austerity and the greyness inflicted on society, it looks for colour, ironically capable of looking forward to this because of the at least partially successful policies of the PP. As the charismatic González supplied a vitality to the youthful democracy in 1982, so the stage awaits a similar character to advance the rebirth of a country that has been kicked but not totally humiliated, unlike Greece.
But González was able to emerge as the flagwaver of the two-party system that resulted from the chaotic transition with its alliances of convenience. A new chaos of alliance now beckons because of its dismantling. Charisma might abound, but it will be enjoyed only by minorities of supporters and rejected by the combined majorities of others. Political colour is being supplied, but who's to be the artist?
Life will be breathed into this four-party system for at least as long as the life of the next legislature (until the end of 2019). Whether it survives beyond this will depend upon what happens between now and then. The deniers may, in the long term, prove to be right. If they are for the PP and PSOE, they will hope that they are.
Unless the opinion polls are wildly wrong, a prediction can be made before the electorate heads to the booths on Sunday week. Spain's political scene will be altered. It will also be highly uncertain. The country's general elections would normally expect to demand the footnotes of mainly indifference outside the nation's borders, but not this one. It will be watched like a hawk, with the eyes of Brussels, among others, firmly trained on it.
Judging by the comparative turnouts in Palma this week, the Podemos bubble appears anything but burst. Pablo Iglesias fed the five thousand at Palma Arena, while a surreal gathering - a tenth this size - wrapped themselves up against a keen breeze on the Parc de la Mar and listened to Rajoy. The prime minister observed that this was a working day and a gathering during the day. He must surely have made this remark because of events some hours previously. Iglesias had chosen a holiday and the evening: the resulting difference was political PR heaven for Podemos.
Not that these two rallies hold a key to Sunday week. Podemos has not become the mighty force it once looked as if it might; according to the polls, at any rate. The rise of Ciudadanos may explain this. Or perhaps there was always going to be a plateau that Iglesias would not be able to surmount. But in a different sense they did hold a key. Iglesias, populism aside, can be mightily impressive. He is also different.
The four-party televised debate earlier in the week had been a curious prelude to the two Palma rallies; curious because of the absence of Rajoy. This had been known a couple of weeks in advance, the official reason being the number of requests from media outlets and schedule. It was difficult to avoid believing there were other reasons.
One survey of the performances of Iglesias, Sánchez (PSOE), Rivera (Ciudadanos) and Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, Rajoy's substitute, made Iglesias the winner. Had Rajoy appeared, he might have been a greater winner. The debate itself, minus Rajoy, was a winner. There was freshness in the relative youth of the participants and the presence of a woman. There were degrees of charisma as well.
An argument for Rajoy taking part was that his seniority would afford him gravitas in the eyes of the viewer when set next to the younger upstarts - Iglesias, Rivera and Sánchez - but in recalling the debate he had with Alfredo Rubalcaba prior to the 2011 election, any such gravitas might have been lost amidst the greyness. That debate in 2011 was excruciating. Conducted by two grey men, it might now be looked back upon as the moment when the two-party system condemned itself to the political waste bin. If that was Spain's politics, with two tedious and not especially sympathetic characters representing it, change could not have come soon enough.
The new politics expounded by Iglesias and Rivera is not simply an alteration to political party dynamics, not just an assault on the sleaze and the inherent corruption of the two-party state, it is also much closer to the "citizens" through personality. Spain could abide the aloof drabness of Aznar and Zapatero during the boom times. It could also accept, for a time, the unappealing Rajoy, if this was what it genuinely had to endure. Now, battered by austerity and the greyness inflicted on society, it looks for colour, ironically capable of looking forward to this because of the at least partially successful policies of the PP. As the charismatic González supplied a vitality to the youthful democracy in 1982, so the stage awaits a similar character to advance the rebirth of a country that has been kicked but not totally humiliated, unlike Greece.
But González was able to emerge as the flagwaver of the two-party system that resulted from the chaotic transition with its alliances of convenience. A new chaos of alliance now beckons because of its dismantling. Charisma might abound, but it will be enjoyed only by minorities of supporters and rejected by the combined majorities of others. Political colour is being supplied, but who's to be the artist?
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Young Pedro Versus Young Pablo
In February 2012, I wrote of Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba's re-selection as leader of PSOE that the party had "opted for a safe pair of hands, ones that, in his own peculiar style, play a piano when's he's speaking. For safe pair of hands, read boring. Not for the first time ... Spanish politics has refused to dump a loser". Rubalcaba's continuing as leader following the spanking that Rajoy and the PP had given PSOE was a massive mistake. Consequently, 2012 to 2014 have been the lost years for PSOE, wandering in the wilderness without a compass and having no idea as to which direction it was heading other than in the wrong one. When the European elections this May showed that the sage-like Rubalcaba had been leading the lost tribes of PSOE ever deeper into a political desert, his time was up. His staff has now been kicked away, his sackcloth removed, his beard shaven off. Welcome to new PSOE. Pedro Sánchez. Young PSOE. And hardly a facial hair to be seen.
Much is being made of Sánchez's youth and indeed the youth of leaders of other political parties in Spain, with the very obvious exception of Mariano Rajoy. Will Sánchez, in addition to leading PSOE back to civilisation, also lead them - and the country - towards the sun of a new dawn with youthfulness to the fore in shaping a whole new politics in Spain? Well, some are suggesting something along these lines. But before we get carried away, it should be noted that youth is very much a relative term. Sánchez is 42. He is 17 years younger than Rajoy and 20 years younger than Rubalcaba, so he does represent a bit of a change in the current political scene, but in the wider scheme of things he doesn't.
When Felipe González became prime minister, he genuinely was something new. Apart from being a socialist, he was dynamic and charismatic and young. Youngish. He was 40. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was 43 when he won the 2004 election. And if you want other examples, there is always the Balearics' own José Ramón Bauzá, also 40 when he won. Or how about Tony Blair? 43 on the day, that beautiful spring day when a warm sun shone and a new dawn really did dawn. Or so we thought. Little did we know that we were getting a narcissistic, control-freak lunatic with two heads.
What really has alerted political commentators to this new youth movement in Spanish politics is the younger-than-Sánchez leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, who shouldn't be confused with the Marxist Pablo Iglesias who was the founder of PSOE. He, were he to still be alive, would be 164 in October this year. It might be felt that, in terms of Marxist ideology, there isn't a great deal of clear blue water between the two Pablos, but there is a vast ocean between them when it comes to years. The new-age Pablo is a mere 35.
This mere stripling of a politico has, along with Podemos, firmly put a very determined cat among the fat, lethargic pigeons of Spanish politics. PSOE has been caught on the hop by Podemos more than the Partido Popular. The left has been invaded and has been, moreover, by a ponytail-wearing populist who looks as though he should be mixing the decks at an Ibiza rave club rather than trying to clear the decks of the detritus of rotting Spanish politics. PSOE, desperate for a new image, turned down the nerdy appeal of Zapatero Mark II, namely Eduardo Madina, and opted instead for Felipe González Mark II, i.e. Pedro Sánchez. What he lacks by comparison with Iglesias in terms of seven years and a ponytail, he makes up with a winning smile, good looks and a name that is about as Spanish as you can get. Pedro. Sánchez. The Catalonians must already hate him.
The Catalonian question is just one that Young Pedro will have to get his head around. Of other questions, we know comparatively few if any answers. One thing we do know is that he has suggested that he "is going to be as left as the membership". What exactly does this mean? It sounds potentially ominous. Or it sounds as though he doesn't have a clear idea. Or it sounds as though he is taking the notion of being customer-driven and placing it in a political context: you tell me how left you want me to be, and I'll lean that way.
Being vague probably suits him. It gives scope to move towards the left and attempt to reclaim the territory occupied by established, more left-wing parties and now Podemos. Alternatively, it gives scope to be centrist. What it doesn't mean, one might hope, is that Young Pedro goes as far to the left as Old Pablo. Young Pablo's out there. Ponytail and all.
Much is being made of Sánchez's youth and indeed the youth of leaders of other political parties in Spain, with the very obvious exception of Mariano Rajoy. Will Sánchez, in addition to leading PSOE back to civilisation, also lead them - and the country - towards the sun of a new dawn with youthfulness to the fore in shaping a whole new politics in Spain? Well, some are suggesting something along these lines. But before we get carried away, it should be noted that youth is very much a relative term. Sánchez is 42. He is 17 years younger than Rajoy and 20 years younger than Rubalcaba, so he does represent a bit of a change in the current political scene, but in the wider scheme of things he doesn't.
When Felipe González became prime minister, he genuinely was something new. Apart from being a socialist, he was dynamic and charismatic and young. Youngish. He was 40. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was 43 when he won the 2004 election. And if you want other examples, there is always the Balearics' own José Ramón Bauzá, also 40 when he won. Or how about Tony Blair? 43 on the day, that beautiful spring day when a warm sun shone and a new dawn really did dawn. Or so we thought. Little did we know that we were getting a narcissistic, control-freak lunatic with two heads.
What really has alerted political commentators to this new youth movement in Spanish politics is the younger-than-Sánchez leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, who shouldn't be confused with the Marxist Pablo Iglesias who was the founder of PSOE. He, were he to still be alive, would be 164 in October this year. It might be felt that, in terms of Marxist ideology, there isn't a great deal of clear blue water between the two Pablos, but there is a vast ocean between them when it comes to years. The new-age Pablo is a mere 35.
This mere stripling of a politico has, along with Podemos, firmly put a very determined cat among the fat, lethargic pigeons of Spanish politics. PSOE has been caught on the hop by Podemos more than the Partido Popular. The left has been invaded and has been, moreover, by a ponytail-wearing populist who looks as though he should be mixing the decks at an Ibiza rave club rather than trying to clear the decks of the detritus of rotting Spanish politics. PSOE, desperate for a new image, turned down the nerdy appeal of Zapatero Mark II, namely Eduardo Madina, and opted instead for Felipe González Mark II, i.e. Pedro Sánchez. What he lacks by comparison with Iglesias in terms of seven years and a ponytail, he makes up with a winning smile, good looks and a name that is about as Spanish as you can get. Pedro. Sánchez. The Catalonians must already hate him.
The Catalonian question is just one that Young Pedro will have to get his head around. Of other questions, we know comparatively few if any answers. One thing we do know is that he has suggested that he "is going to be as left as the membership". What exactly does this mean? It sounds potentially ominous. Or it sounds as though he doesn't have a clear idea. Or it sounds as though he is taking the notion of being customer-driven and placing it in a political context: you tell me how left you want me to be, and I'll lean that way.
Being vague probably suits him. It gives scope to move towards the left and attempt to reclaim the territory occupied by established, more left-wing parties and now Podemos. Alternatively, it gives scope to be centrist. What it doesn't mean, one might hope, is that Young Pedro goes as far to the left as Old Pablo. Young Pablo's out there. Ponytail and all.
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