José Ramón Bauzá believes that the selection of the next full-time president of the Partido Popular in the Balearics will be a run-off between himself and the long-time favourite for the post, Biel Company. The delay in holding a regional congress - its date has still to be decided - has been caused by the national situation. There should have been a congress following the general election in December last year; it was placed on hold because of the inconclusive outcome of that election and the second one in June.
The delay has led to Bauzá's attempt to return. Had there been a congress at the start of this year, he wouldn't have been in the frame to be restored as party president and as, he will wish, president of the Balearics.
The temporary leadership of the PP is wanting there to be a single candidate for selection. Acting president Miquel Vidal and others hope that this will lead to party unity, which may be a forlorn hope but would at least paper over the divisions. If there is more than one, especially if Bauzá features, the schisms will be laid bare. There'll be blood on the carpet. Bauzá has made it clear that he isn't looking for rapprochement with Company.
The former environment and agriculture minister ticks a number of boxes where the PP rank and file out in the sticks are concerned. Originally from the rural town of Sant Joan, his background is agriculture; he was brought in as minister by Bauzá, even though he wasn't at the time a PP member. In addition to this appeal to rural parts, Company represents something of the old style of the PP, one more in tune with regional identity and not openly antagonistic towards Catalan.
Bauzá represents the opposite, and his recent announcements show how the divisions in the party are also geographical. He says that he has the backing of the Palma membership. He may well not, but the very fact of him having referred to this just serves to highlight how attitudes differ between the city and the "part forana"; the latter is generally in sympathy with the old style than is the former.
Moreover, there is the figure of José María Rodríguez, who somewhat unexpectedly turned up at a Bauzá gathering. It is understood that he is lending Bauzá support, but he - it shouldn't be forgotten - was ousted from his position as president of the PP organisation in Palma because of corruption allegations. With friends like him and Carlos Delgado, widely disliked within the PP, Bauzá's selection chances would seem lessened.
Were he to be selected, assuming that he does go ahead and present himself, it would be a major shock. Bauzá maintains that he has support in Mallorca, the Balearics and in Madrid among the national leadership, but there is more than a hint of wishful thinking. He has little backing in Madrid, where he has been overlooked for any meaningful contribution in his role as a Balearic senator because there is little faith in him or like. In Mallorca, his status has been summed up by the new mayor of Petra, former health minister Marti Sansaloni: Bauzá has lost all credibility.
Sansaloni, like Company, owed his ministerial role to Bauzá. He was the third health minister in the Bauzá regime, brought in as something of a yes-man but later one of Bauzá's fiercest critics, as was Company. These two were instrumental in ensuring that Bauzá resigned as party leader after the disastrous election in 2015.
That election disaster was in no small part due to the trilingual teaching (TIL) fiasco and to Bauzá's policies regarding Catalan (TIL was one of these policies). Bauzá says that he would reintroduce TIL and once more make Catalan a "merit" for public employment rather than a requisite, which is how the current government views Catalan. He would therefore return to precisely the policies that made him so disliked and so ultimately unelectable.
Of reaction to Bauzá's intentions, it has been notable (among those commenting on websites/social media) that there isn't hostility to the principle of TIL. There needn't have been when Bauzá made it policy. But because it was a political instrument targeted at Catalan - educationally, the implementation sucked big time - the hostility was inevitable. He says that he has learned from his mistakes. Has he? It doesn't sound like it.
A further Bauzá intention has raised considerable opposition. He says that he would do away with the tourist tax. One wouldn't rule out the PP doing so whoever its leader might be, but judging from reaction there is popular support for the tax. Electorally, a pledge to get rid of it might not be wise.
Will he stand as president? He seems determined to. Will he win? He's deluding himself in believing that he will.
Showing posts with label Presidency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Presidency. Show all posts
Monday, December 26, 2016
Monday, November 12, 2012
Mesquida For President!
Joan Mesquida would like to be the president of the Balearics. He made his desire known at a conference speech celebrating business studies at the Centro Universitari Ariany (which isn't in Ariany but in Palma).
Mesquida is one of Mallorca's foremost politicians, which isn't difficult as there aren't many who are foremost. He has held positions in the Balearic Government and in national government; he was, for example, tourism secretary of state under Zapatero. He is, apart from former president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich, the one member of the PSIB wing of the PSOE national party about whom one can say that weight or gravitas is carried. PSOE in the Balearics is otherwise populated with lightweights.
This said, does the Balearics political class deal with heavyweights? There are some who have knocked around the corridors in Madrid as well as Mesquida and there are plenty who have been prominent in Mallorca for years. However, being given some government position or having longevity do not necessarily equate to being any good; there are too many suspicions that politicians in Mallorca and Spain rise to the top for reasons unrelated to ability.
The impression is given that, because of the various arms of government in Mallorca, the pool from which leading politicians can be picked is wide. It is wide but it is also shallow. For instance, being a local mayor isn't any real qualification, as mayors are often selected who shouldn't be mayors. They get the jobs thanks to the nature of the system of proportional representation and thanks to connections within the community.
There are mayors, though, who do move on to higher office; the current president, José Ramón Bauzá is an example. A criticism levelled at him, however, has been that he is inexperienced and was a mere mayor of Marratxí before becoming president. True though this is, political leaders have to come from somewhere. It might seem like a Premier League club plucking a striker from Championship obscurity in order to lead the line, but in Mallorcan politics you can't transfer a Merkel or even a Zapatero to put on the number-nine shirt.
Nevertheless, it is this inexperience which, however good or not good Bauzá is, reinforces opinion that he lacks standing and that, as a consequence, he owes his position to devotion to a Partido Popular national cause. It remains to be seen where, if anywhere, his future political career may lead, but he will forever be a hostage to a PP anti-regionalist fortune; he will never shake this off.
Mesquida tossing his hat into the presidential ring, if only tentatively, is significant. He does have standing. For the socialists in the Balearics, he would bring experience, recognition and a voice that would demand being listened to. At a time when the governing party is listing badly under the pressure of the various storms it faces, the Balearics can ill afford to have a main opposition party that is as rudderless and as inept and ill-equipped to oppose as PSOE is.
Mesquida took the occasion of his speech to ram home the message about Bauzá's inexperience and that of his governmental colleagues. He accused them of having been daydreaming when budgets were being allocated to the regions; hence why the Balearics have fared badly. He also attacked the new tax to be imposed on hire cars, a tax that he had dismissed when he was part of the regional government because it wouldn't have raised a great deal. Instead he helped to give the Balearics the eco-tax which, had it not been dropped by the Matas PP government, would now be bringing the Balearics much-needed financial relief.
This support of the eco-tax, and you would expect him to defend it, will certainly not be echoed in some quarters, but it chimes with what I have had to say about a tourist tax in the Balearics and about the car-hire tax. If tax there has to be, then it is better to think big and not fanny around.
It is the eco-tax, though, which may well be Mesquida's Achilles heel. He accepts that it is nigh on impossible to get consensus for such a tax, by which he means that the hoteliers would be against it. Were he to be PSOE's local white knight, riding in to rescue the poor damsels who are currently running it (and failing), he would have to confront the armies of the black knights of the hotels. There again, the hotels don't constitute the whole electorate, though the electorate needs to be convinced that PSOE might offer a meaningful alternative come the next elections. Formerly responsible in his different posts for the Guardia Civil, for finance and for tourism, Mesquida does at least represent experience. He would certainly make a better fist of challenging the inexperienced Bauzá than the current PSOE leadership is.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Mesquida is one of Mallorca's foremost politicians, which isn't difficult as there aren't many who are foremost. He has held positions in the Balearic Government and in national government; he was, for example, tourism secretary of state under Zapatero. He is, apart from former president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich, the one member of the PSIB wing of the PSOE national party about whom one can say that weight or gravitas is carried. PSOE in the Balearics is otherwise populated with lightweights.
This said, does the Balearics political class deal with heavyweights? There are some who have knocked around the corridors in Madrid as well as Mesquida and there are plenty who have been prominent in Mallorca for years. However, being given some government position or having longevity do not necessarily equate to being any good; there are too many suspicions that politicians in Mallorca and Spain rise to the top for reasons unrelated to ability.
The impression is given that, because of the various arms of government in Mallorca, the pool from which leading politicians can be picked is wide. It is wide but it is also shallow. For instance, being a local mayor isn't any real qualification, as mayors are often selected who shouldn't be mayors. They get the jobs thanks to the nature of the system of proportional representation and thanks to connections within the community.
There are mayors, though, who do move on to higher office; the current president, José Ramón Bauzá is an example. A criticism levelled at him, however, has been that he is inexperienced and was a mere mayor of Marratxí before becoming president. True though this is, political leaders have to come from somewhere. It might seem like a Premier League club plucking a striker from Championship obscurity in order to lead the line, but in Mallorcan politics you can't transfer a Merkel or even a Zapatero to put on the number-nine shirt.
Nevertheless, it is this inexperience which, however good or not good Bauzá is, reinforces opinion that he lacks standing and that, as a consequence, he owes his position to devotion to a Partido Popular national cause. It remains to be seen where, if anywhere, his future political career may lead, but he will forever be a hostage to a PP anti-regionalist fortune; he will never shake this off.
Mesquida tossing his hat into the presidential ring, if only tentatively, is significant. He does have standing. For the socialists in the Balearics, he would bring experience, recognition and a voice that would demand being listened to. At a time when the governing party is listing badly under the pressure of the various storms it faces, the Balearics can ill afford to have a main opposition party that is as rudderless and as inept and ill-equipped to oppose as PSOE is.
Mesquida took the occasion of his speech to ram home the message about Bauzá's inexperience and that of his governmental colleagues. He accused them of having been daydreaming when budgets were being allocated to the regions; hence why the Balearics have fared badly. He also attacked the new tax to be imposed on hire cars, a tax that he had dismissed when he was part of the regional government because it wouldn't have raised a great deal. Instead he helped to give the Balearics the eco-tax which, had it not been dropped by the Matas PP government, would now be bringing the Balearics much-needed financial relief.
This support of the eco-tax, and you would expect him to defend it, will certainly not be echoed in some quarters, but it chimes with what I have had to say about a tourist tax in the Balearics and about the car-hire tax. If tax there has to be, then it is better to think big and not fanny around.
It is the eco-tax, though, which may well be Mesquida's Achilles heel. He accepts that it is nigh on impossible to get consensus for such a tax, by which he means that the hoteliers would be against it. Were he to be PSOE's local white knight, riding in to rescue the poor damsels who are currently running it (and failing), he would have to confront the armies of the black knights of the hotels. There again, the hotels don't constitute the whole electorate, though the electorate needs to be convinced that PSOE might offer a meaningful alternative come the next elections. Formerly responsible in his different posts for the Guardia Civil, for finance and for tourism, Mesquida does at least represent experience. He would certainly make a better fist of challenging the inexperienced Bauzá than the current PSOE leadership is.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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