"2015 will be a year of political thrills - and colossal dangers. What-ifs aren't cashable once this most uncertain of elections is over. Nothing can be taken for granted." These are the words of Polly Toynbee writing in "The Guardian" behind a banner on the website which says that 2015 will be "a political moment of truth". Without wishing to suggest for one moment that what happens in a regional election in the Balearics is comparable to a general election in a one-time major power that could be on the point of finally ensuring that its future is behind it, they are words which, with an exception, could also apply here. Colossal dangers? I don't think so. However the regional elections go, the islands will stumble along as they have for the past thirty years making political mountains out of molehills and disappearing up a collective posterior of animosity, polarity and division that leads to ineffectualness and endless challenges to legislation in the courts which mean that "nothing can be taken for granted" because whatever political decisions might be taken will later be revealed to be illegal in some form or another. Which isn't to say that the regional elections are not relevant. They most certainly are, but above relevance there is the entertainment factor. The political thrills will be the comedy gold of what nonsense awaits us. What fun it will indeed be.
I can readily concede that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for the next few months but perhaps not everyone shares my view that the islands' politics exist for their amusement value. Everyone should. Yes, there are the serious bits, and I can readily turn my hand to politics-serious, but far preferable is politics-slapstick and politics of the old school. From the bucket loads of so-there, yah-boo, custard-pie-in-the-face politics to the green-t-shirted hordes of agitprop Dave Sparts marching on the winter palace of the Balearics Government, only to be repelled by police implementing the new and absurd "gagging law", the Balearics specialise in both. The old school, particularly that of the left, fills me with nostalgia for the days of the students union, for its dog's breakfast of Marxist-Leninists, Leninist-Marxists, Maoists, Trotskyists and for its passing motions approving ultra-vires payments to the Iranian 91 and Shrewsbury 3 and the budget for the eggs to be thrown at Keith Joseph.
It was all so fantastically divorced from any known reality, which is where the comparison with the Balearics falls down. This is real. And rather than some paltry union funding to be frittered away on some political cause which was of no interest to the student rank and file, there is a vast budget of hundreds of millions to be squandered, which is where the reality kicks in. Nevertheless, there is the air of the students union. It is vastly more than playing at politics, but when laws and decrees can be passed only for Madrid, Brussels, the courts or all three to instruct local politicians to stop arsing around, it is a reality constantly being checked by the more powerful.
Polly Toynbee speaks of a "moment of truth" in the UK. Here, it is more a moment of destiny. There was a time when I paid no attention to Mallorca's politics. This changed on the day in late 2006 when Eugenio Hidalgo, the former mayor of Andratx, was arrested. Soon after, there was a sort of night of the long knives when notary and lawyer offices were raided. Something big was stirring. We had no idea then how big it would eventually be. The reports of corruption which followed came so constantly that they suspended belief. How else could one respond other than to laugh at the sheer audacity and incredulity of what had been going on and to become deeply curious as to what sort of society - political and non-political - could give birth to such shenanigans? The moment of destiny is caused by the arrival of Podemos, a national product of the anti-corrupt but just as relevant to the Balearics; it is a moment of destiny that is the culmination of what happened in Andratx in 2006.
"This most uncertain of elections" will be uncertain because of Podemos and because of it being added to the already over-long cast list of leftist parties. In the Balearics, it is an election that can be styled as a clash between the Dracula-alike, blood-dripping Bauzá and the presence on the islands of the Guevara for the new age, the poster boy of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias. Podemos won't win (it would be a hell of an upset if they were to) but they will determine how things will be if they form part of a PSOE-led winning coalition. Let the fun begin.
Index for December 2014
Air Europa inter-island flights - 15 December 2014
Awards: Obra Cultural Balear - 11 December 2014
Balearics education ministry scandal - 13 December 2014
Balearics tourism decree - 8 December 2014, 12 December 2014
Balearics tourism economic contribution - 26 December 2014
Castellón airport - 16 December 2014
Christmas number ones - 18 December 2014
Constitution of 1931 and Balearics autonomy - 7 December 2014
Corruption in Spain - 4 December 2014, 9 December 2014
Day of the Innocents spoof - 29 December 2014
El Gordo lottery - 22 December 2014
Farming law - 10 December 2014
Fiesta of the Standard - 28 December 2014
Guanyem and Mallorca's left - 6 December 2014
Holiday lets and sharing lobby - 19 December 2014
King Felipe, Princess Cristina and corruption - 27 December 2014
LIttle Nicholas - 3 December 2014
Mallorca's fishermen - 2 December 2014
Obituaries 2014 - 30 December 2014
Phillip Hughes: Spanish reaction - 1 December 2014
Pig slaughter (matances fair) - 14 December 2014
Podemos in Palma - 20 December 2014
Quotes of 2014 - 23 December 2014
Regional elections in 2015 - 31 December 2014
Sibil-la - 21 December 2014
Tourism journalism - 17 December 2014
Up-market tourism - 5 December 2014
Showing posts with label Regional elections 2015. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Regional elections 2015. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Saturday, November 16, 2013
The 2015 Regional Election Has Just Begun
Both Bauzá and Calvo would have to go through the hurdles of being selected by their respective parties, and of the two, Bauzá has probably got the clearest run. He has caused some surprise in making his announcement when he has, but it certainly wasn't unexpected. Indeed, the timing may have been determined by the fact that he has been off on a jolly to California with the Crown Prince, thus demonstrating how presidential he is; a Mallorca president on the world stage, even if the stage is only tiny.
True to form, the announcement made and the support has been voiced. But how genuine is the support? And indeed, might Bauzá's ambitions yet be scuppered if the courts find that his business interests made his position incompatible? This uncertainty will probably be removed. One says probably, but one can never be sure. Nevertheless, it would come as a surprise if the courts ruled that he would have to stand down.
Setting this to one side, what about the support from the Partido Popular rank and file? The last time there was a party congress and a vote for leader, Bauzá scooped up 94.5% of the vote, the sort of percentage normally reserved for dear and glorious leaders in parts of the world with a warped notion of electoral democracy and fairness. There again, as there was no one standing against him, there was little point in the rank and file voting en masse in favour of A.B. Stencion, and this was a vote only a year into Bauzá's presidency. Things have changed a bit since then.
The president of the PP in the Balearics (a different position to that of president of the regional government) has reminded the world of Bauzá's achievement in gaining a 94.5% vote in 2012, but what does this president, Jeroni Salom, really think, do you suppose, because at the end of September it was clear that he didn't think a great deal of Bauzá and the regional government's handling of the crisis in the islands' education system.
Ahead of the Palma demonstration against the government's introduction of TIL trilingual teaching, Salom admitted that many who would be demonstrating had good reason to do so. He agreed that it was lamentable that Bauzá was apparently closeted away in a bunker and wasn't fronting up over the whole TIL mess. He believed that Bauzá and the government had made a strategic error where TIL was concerned. It was hardly a statement of overwhelming support.
Salom knows, as do many in the PP, that TIL and the government's whole line on Catalan is what could cause them immense damage at the next election. The party might hope that it will all have been forgotten by then, but that is very doubtful. Schisms have appeared in Mallorcan society in general and within the PP. Bauzá has even been seen as something of a liability. Yet, the ability for parts of the party to act with self-interest should not be underestimated. A meeting of PP mayors gave Bauzá its support over TIL, but certain mayors now find themselves threatened for taking a line not endorsed by town halls. Biel Serra in Sa Pobla, who didn't attend the meeting and so therefore didn't vote against, is one. He faces a motion of censure.
Whether anyone will emerge to challenge Bauzá remains to be seen. It is hard to see who this challenger might be. There are no obvious candidates, except perhaps the other Salom, Maria, the current president of the Council of Mallorca. Meantime, for PSOE there will probably be no shortage of likely lads and lasses who fancy having a pop at being president. Francina Armengol, a former president of the Council of Mallorca, would appear to be in pole position, and she may end up in an all-female head to head with Aina Calvo, the former mayor of Palma who was given a drubbing at the last election. Both of them are losers in the past, and for PSOE in the Balearics its biggest challenge lies not so much with who leads it as making itself relevant, as it has spent the past two years or more looking anything but relevant.
The painful truth for both the PP and PSOE is that they are riven by factions. The PP is trying hard not to admit that it is, but Salom's attack on Bauzá at the end of September highlighted this division. The elections may be some eighteen months away but the intervening months are going to be about other elections: those for leaders. The hustings are open.
Friday, June 08, 2012
The Ramon Llull Election
There is some dispute, but 29 June is the date usually given for the death of one of Mallorca's very few famous historical figures, Ramon Llull. The year of his death is generally accepted to have been 1315, even if the exact day is open to question. Despite the uncertainty, you can be sure that in three years time Mallorca will be gearing itself up for some serious Llull-ing; a Llull-tide festival, one would imagine.
29 June, 2015, 700 years after Llull's death (possibly) will also be a week or so after the next president of the Balearics is sworn in, assuming the election and its interminable post-election process follow the same pattern as last year. The anniversary of his death would be symbolic regardless of any political dimension, but it will be even more so given the current politics of Mallorca's languages.
Catalan is the language of Llull (well one of them as he could also speak and write Latin and Arabic), so the coincidence of the anniversary of his death so soon after the culmination of the next electoral process will make that anniversary a major factor in the next election.
The Partido Popular government of José Ramón Bauzá finds its language policy undermined, especially as far as education is concerned. As Llull, a scholar himself, is so closely associated with modern-day education, the policy towards education is particularly apposite.
A key aspect of this policy has been the intention to introduce free selection of teaching language (Castellano or Catalan). This is a subject I have dealt with previously, as recently as 11 May ("Why Is My Friend Different, Mummy?"). I come back to it because, as that previous article suggested, there isn't a groundswell of support among Mallorca's parents for their children to be taught in Castellano. There isn't anything like it, and now we know how little support there is: 10%. Support for Catalan, on the other hand, is 62% (the remaining amount being explained by the fact that parents would go along with whichever language were to be the main teaching language in a particular school).
As education minister Rafael Bosch has implied that there won't be a doubling-up of lessons conducted in the two languages unless there is a critical mass of pupils whose parents want Castellano, where does this leave the government's policy on education language? Indeed, other than the government's perseverance with its downgrading of Catalan as a pre-requisite for public-sector employment, where does it leave its entire language policy? Another aspect, that of changing place names to their Castellano version, is one on which the government has backtracked significantly, to the point where it is likely to be quietly forgotten.
The government has maintained that it had a mandate to go ahead with introducing free selection. Which is true, but only partially. That free selection may have been part of its manifesto doesn't, however, mean that it was something that those who voted for the PP agreed with. The PP were elected last year for two reasons: they weren't PSOE and it was hoped they might do something about the economy, however forlorn a hope that was ever going to be.
Whatever now happens to the free-selection policy, this is a government that will, right up to the next election, be associated with the politics of language that are increasingly looking like a failure as well as a totally unnecessary diversion from far more pressing matters. How is the PP going to react, though? Llull's anniversary is going to play a part in the next election and all political parties will doubtless seek to claim Llull as their own, including the PP. But how will it be able to when it will be remembered as the party that sought to reduce the influence of Llull's language?
The PP might hope that three years will be long enough for it to do something positive about the economy and for everyone to forget about its language policy. It won't be. And opposition parties will use Llull's anniversary as the hook on which to try and hang the PP and its attack on the island's Catalan culture and heritage. This might all seem rather silly to the neutral, foreign observer, but it quite obviously isn't silly for the majority of Mallorca's parents.
If the PP had any sense, it would already be paying serious attention as to how it can handle the inevitable Llull question in three years time. But whatever it might come up with as spin is going to lack credibility, so long as the current leadership remains in place. The way things are going, it will lose the Ramon Llull election.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
29 June, 2015, 700 years after Llull's death (possibly) will also be a week or so after the next president of the Balearics is sworn in, assuming the election and its interminable post-election process follow the same pattern as last year. The anniversary of his death would be symbolic regardless of any political dimension, but it will be even more so given the current politics of Mallorca's languages.
Catalan is the language of Llull (well one of them as he could also speak and write Latin and Arabic), so the coincidence of the anniversary of his death so soon after the culmination of the next electoral process will make that anniversary a major factor in the next election.
The Partido Popular government of José Ramón Bauzá finds its language policy undermined, especially as far as education is concerned. As Llull, a scholar himself, is so closely associated with modern-day education, the policy towards education is particularly apposite.
A key aspect of this policy has been the intention to introduce free selection of teaching language (Castellano or Catalan). This is a subject I have dealt with previously, as recently as 11 May ("Why Is My Friend Different, Mummy?"). I come back to it because, as that previous article suggested, there isn't a groundswell of support among Mallorca's parents for their children to be taught in Castellano. There isn't anything like it, and now we know how little support there is: 10%. Support for Catalan, on the other hand, is 62% (the remaining amount being explained by the fact that parents would go along with whichever language were to be the main teaching language in a particular school).
As education minister Rafael Bosch has implied that there won't be a doubling-up of lessons conducted in the two languages unless there is a critical mass of pupils whose parents want Castellano, where does this leave the government's policy on education language? Indeed, other than the government's perseverance with its downgrading of Catalan as a pre-requisite for public-sector employment, where does it leave its entire language policy? Another aspect, that of changing place names to their Castellano version, is one on which the government has backtracked significantly, to the point where it is likely to be quietly forgotten.
The government has maintained that it had a mandate to go ahead with introducing free selection. Which is true, but only partially. That free selection may have been part of its manifesto doesn't, however, mean that it was something that those who voted for the PP agreed with. The PP were elected last year for two reasons: they weren't PSOE and it was hoped they might do something about the economy, however forlorn a hope that was ever going to be.
Whatever now happens to the free-selection policy, this is a government that will, right up to the next election, be associated with the politics of language that are increasingly looking like a failure as well as a totally unnecessary diversion from far more pressing matters. How is the PP going to react, though? Llull's anniversary is going to play a part in the next election and all political parties will doubtless seek to claim Llull as their own, including the PP. But how will it be able to when it will be remembered as the party that sought to reduce the influence of Llull's language?
The PP might hope that three years will be long enough for it to do something positive about the economy and for everyone to forget about its language policy. It won't be. And opposition parties will use Llull's anniversary as the hook on which to try and hang the PP and its attack on the island's Catalan culture and heritage. This might all seem rather silly to the neutral, foreign observer, but it quite obviously isn't silly for the majority of Mallorca's parents.
If the PP had any sense, it would already be paying serious attention as to how it can handle the inevitable Llull question in three years time. But whatever it might come up with as spin is going to lack credibility, so long as the current leadership remains in place. The way things are going, it will lose the Ramon Llull election.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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