WILL THESE TURKEYS VOTE FOR CHRISTMAS?

In the coming months Britain will hold a general election. Now it could happen that against all the odds Labour will sneak back in but the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Brown and Darling, would be shown the door by the voters. Neither is likely but it could happen.

Equally the Conservatives might romp home but by a quirk of fate the voters in his constituency could dump the party’s leader David Cameron on the pile of out of work Old Etonians. Again unlikely but it could happen.

The reason it could happen is that under the British electoral system every MP, be it the Prime Minister or leader of the opposition or a humble member of the House, has to fight in effect his or her own mini general election. They are only returned to parliament if the voters in their constituency given them their backing – if they don’t they’re out whatever the broader result may be.

Now in Spain that scenario is virtually impossible. Every province has its own closed slate of candidates to fight for the seats. The number is decreed by the size of the population - the chiefs like Zapatero and Rajoy always head the list leaving the Indians to be sacrificed.

So it is interesting that one of Spain’s leading parliamentarians, the president of Congress José Bono, has been speaking at a meeting of the Fórum Europa in Barcelona on the need for a new electoral law in Spain. He also indicated that he could be looking to follow the British model.

The idea is to give wider powers and freedom of expression to the party and its MPs. Bono said elected representatives should in the future not be afraid to voice their opinions on their leaders, be it good or bad.

Bono said that he was looking at ways to fundamentally change the structure of the parties and to modify the electoral system. He says he wants to see a wider spread of power rather than it being held in the hands of “one, two or three people”.

No major formula has yet been revealed but it could see the removal of the current closed party lists to be replaced by open lists. Bono added that he was also exploring the option of introducing some of the single seat representatives as seen in the UK.

Well change is needed because politics in Spain is in crisis. Curiously it is not a political crisis as such but one brought about by the widespread corruption in all the political parties. The problem is that the proposals being brought forward by Bono have to be agreed and approved by the nation’s politicians – so will these turkeys vote for an early Christmas? Perhaps a better idea would be for a set of options to be set before the voters and they then vote for them in a referendum.

SO WHO DO YOU TRUST?

Politicians sadly come way down the scale in the public’s esteem. Whilst it is one thing to not particularly believe what a politician promises or says – to view them all as crooks is another.

Already Barack Obama is back tracking on pledges he made on the campaign trail. That the pundits tell us is pragmatism and is therefore acceptable. Nobody, as of yet, is suggesting that the new president is a corrupt man.

However the real problem comes when people do not know where to turn because corruption is all around them.

I am not going to dwell on Marbella which has gained an international reputation for corruption through the GIL and post GIL eras. That municipality has been brought to its knees in public debt so the legacy of that criminal era will not only be witnessed by jailed councillors and businessman but in the very daily lives of its residents.

Today I cast my gaze on Estepona, Marbella’s neighbour to the west. On June 16 the National Police raided the town hall and town planning office and duly arrested the socialist mayor, Antonio Barrientos, on corruption and money laundering charges. Held in jail with him till last week when bail was agreed were his chief of staff and two councillors from PES (formerly members of GIL) that had been his coalition partners up till the local elections in May 2007.

Currently 63 people are implicated in the ‘Astapa’ town planning corruption case who are now awaiting trial. The number is largely made up of councillors and businessman. Estepona is deeply in debt and is struggling to make ends meet. The new socialist mayor is David Valadez, a staunch opponent of Barrientos, and who therefore is not implicated in his alleged crimes.

None the less councillors from the socialist PSOE, PES and Partido Andalucista are caught up in the ‘Astapa’ scandal. The only parties not tainted are the Izquierda Unida and the opposition Partido Popular. The IU says its will back Valadez’s administration but the PP has refused insisting on fresh elections as it says the current coalition is not above suspicion.

Well that is fine as far as it goes except now the Málaga prosecutor is seeking a jail term of 21 months for the PP president in Estepona, Ignacio Mena, at a court hearing that started today.

The complaint was laid by a local businessman and dates back to the time when Mena was himself the councillor for town planning between 2001 and 2003. The prosecutor claims coercion on the part of Mena and relates to the construction of an apartment and his alleged paralysation of permissions at the town hall to the benefit of another businessman. If convicted then Mena, the former GIL councillor Víctor Sánchez Pinacho and another businessman face jail terms.

Whilst there is nothing to link the PP to ‘Astapa’ if Mena is convicted then it drags the local party in to the corruption mire. So then who do the local people trust?

On January 16 the action group representing the people of Estepona has called a new street protest. They are angry that the town hall has taken no action to reduce or halt the major rises in local taxes and municipal charges and believe that only a major demonstration will keep the pressure on the councillors to act.

The group made up largely of local residents’ associations say the new charges for rubbish collection and water are simply too high. In addition they are facing major increases in the IBI property valuation tax. In a statement the action group pointed to “the precarious situation of many families and the poor situation of businesses and industry” in these times of economic crisis and their inability to meet this new financial burden.

They too are demanding fresh elections but that was before news of Mena’s court case broke. So it could be that the socialists, PES, PA and PP would all go again to the polls with councillors either in prison or facing trial. Only the IU and Estepona 2007 minority parties would be seemingly clean. So the question then for the people of Estepona is - who do you trust? Who do you vote for?

The January 16 march will undoubtedly be peaceful as have the demonstrations of the past. However when people feel their case is hopeless, that they are being taken for fools, then violence can easily surface. We only have to look at the present crisis in Greece.

The situation in Estepona is a tragedy for the local people. Yet Marbella and Estepona are not isolated cases for this scenario is played out in too many town halls, which endangers the very bedrock of democracy in Spain.