TIME RUNNING OUT FOR PSOE

If an opinion poll published by El País on Sunday is correct then PSOE have a mountain to climb to win the general election whoever leads the party. The soundings indicate the Partido Popular have an over 14 per cent lead as Spaniards react with anger to the high levels of unemployment and the financial crisis.


The poll by Metroscopia says 44.7 per cent of those questioned intend to vote for Mariano Rajoy’s PP. PSOE currently led by the prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero with Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba waiting to take over, limps behind on 30.4.

These finds give the PP a 0.5 per cent increase in support over the last month. However in the real life elections – municipal and regional – on May 22 the PP’s lead was just over 10 per cent.

At the last general election in 2008 PSOE had a lead over the PP of 3.6 per cent. This gave Zapatero his second mandate and second victory over Rajoy. Rajoy may be third time lucky but Zapatero will remain undefeated as he will have left the political stage by then.

However the Spain of 2012 will be very different from that in 2008. The economy no longer has the highest growth in the Euro zone. The property bubble has truly burst and unemployment stands at a massive 21 per cent – double the European average. Hence it is no surprise that support for PSOE has tumbled by 13.3 per cent whilst the PP have seen a 4.6 per cent growth.

Perhaps the most depressing fact for PSOE is there seems to be no Rubalcaba bounce in the offing. On July 9 the current first vice president of the government and hard line minister of the interior officially is anointed as the successor to Zapatero. His likely accession has been known for two months but support for PSOE has dropped by 1.3 per cent over that period. In addition 88 per cent of Spaniards believe the PP will form the next government.

Rubalcaba is famous for his hangdog look and the poll readings are likely to add another crease to his face. The fact that he has gone unchallenged to the top job is probably because all the other heavyweights know the writing is on the wall. They don’t want to go down in history as the candidate who led PSOE to a historically heavy defeat. Mind you if Rubalcaba can pull off a miracle recovery...

HIGH EARNER IN CHEAP SANDALS

If you were asked to guess who is the highest paid politician in Spain the chances are you would have answered – the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. However you would have been very wrong indeed.


The top earner is María Dolores de Cospedal and she is not even a member of the ruling socialist party. Yet according to her tax return she earned 223,598 euros in 2010, which is seven per cent less than the year before when she banked over 240,000 euros.

Her declaration means she earns three times as much as Zapatero – the premier only has his 78,184 euros official salary to live off. Cospedal’s tax return was published in the Diario Oficial de Castilla – La Mancha where she occupies a seat, is secretary general of the opposition Partido Popular and is bidding to be president of her home region.

In 2009 when she earned 240,737 euros her three main sources of income were from the Senate, the PP and her three year period with the State lawyer’s office.

However whilst Cospedal is a glamorous high earner she is seemingly a frugal spender. On the day the election campaign was launched last week in Castilla – La Mancha she was seen at a small market at Villanueva de los Infantes buying for herself a five euros pair of sandals.

Obviously a sure footed politician!

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THINGS WERE BAD ENOUGH – PAPA SMURF!

Well the Spanish Government has published its latest sackcloth and ashes package for the people to fight the economic crisis. Public sector pay cuts, pensions freeze and labour reforms.

Original thinking!

After all wasn’t it the workers and pensioners who got us in to this mess? Hang on – no it wasn’t – it was the bankers who created the worst financial disaster in living memory. So have they had their pay cut? No! Frozen? No! Ah but surely those obscene bonuses have gone? Yes, right in to their pockets!

If that wasn’t bad enough who is coming over the hill to rescue us but Papa Smurf!

First writing in the London Financial Times the former Spanish Partido Popular prime minister José María Aznar has urged Zapatero’s socialist government to step down adding that no leftist government has been able to rescue Spain from an economic crisis in 160 years.

“The current Socialist government is incapable of resolving Spain’s problems and taking the necessary steps. Only a new government can do this. The sooner, the better.” Time to dig up Franco then!

Then El País published an opinion poll on Sunday showing the ruling PSOE had lost public support with its austerity plan. The poll showed the centre right Partido Popular opposition - led by Papa Smurf aka Mariano Rajoy - with a 9 point lead over the Socialists following the announcement of the measures.

The poll also showed three in four Spaniards think that despite 15 billion euros in extra spending cuts announced on Wednesday, the measures, including a freeze in pensions and a cut in civil servant pay, were not enough.

Well don’t worry. With Papa Smurf shooed in at the next elections these cuts will seem like a joy ride and those three out of four will get their wish. And as we all stand in the dole queue we can read in the paper about how the PP politicians have stuck their noses in the public trough just vacated by the PSOE snouts. Of course the followers of Rajoy have been getting in some good practice with a mountain of corruption cases stacked up against them. Time to sack another interfering judge then – he can join the workers and pensioners in our centre-right paradise where we’ll all know our place – skid row!

Oh happy days!

THE CRISIS THREATENS NOT SPAIN’S ECONOMY BUT ITS DEMOCRACY

The current world economic crisis has hit Spain hard. Like Britain it will probably be one of the late to emerge from recession, a recession which some believe is already over in France, Germany and Japan.

In Spain the economy has been smashed and there are lengthy dole queues. At some time the economy in the future will recover but it is the Spanish body politic that is in danger.

There is a lot of disquiet in the country over the socialist government of José Luis Zapatero Rodríguez. There are those who would argue that he is the worst “ruler” of the nation since Ferdinand VII who was basically a crook.

However it is not Zapatero that is the problem but the Partido Popular opposition of Mariano Rajoy. Whenever an election comes in Spain the voters can throw Zapatero and PSOE out on their ears – if they so wish. The only alternative government is the PP led by Rajoy. The Spanish opinion polls show the true extent of the problem where basically PSOE and the PP are running neck and neck despite the economic turmoil.

Contrast that to Britain where the discredited Labour government are and have been for months ten or more percentage points behind the Conservatives and have suffered humiliating by-election defeats. For Gordon Brown the writing is on the wall.

The PP is wracked with corruption scandals. What’s worse is that Rajoy and his party have willed that Spain is overcome by economic disaster as he and they see that as the most likely way to regain power. They promote the nation’s destruction rather than its salvation but the voters’ dissatisfaction with this ploy is plain to see as they haven’t rallied to the PP cause.

In recent days, Juan Rámon Quintás, the president of the nation’s savings banks, has said that unless an accord can be reached between the political and social sides then the best thing for the nation would be an immediate general election. Then the newly elected leader would have the required mandate to lead Spain out of the crisis. However it is not an economic but political crisis that faces Spain and the decisions facing the voters are tough because neither Zapatero nor Rajoy have won or deserve their trust.

BROWNED OFF OVER EUROPE

It must be a glummer Gordon Brown than usual that woke up in the flat above 10 Downing Street this morning. After the mauling he received in the local elections, the fiasco of his reshuffle, the booing from sections of the crowd in Normandy he now finds his party’s Euro vote has collapsed pushing Labour in to third place being the Tories and UKIP. I guess its good news though for Nokia as the British PM will no doubt hurl a couple more mobile phones around and they’ll need to be replaced.

I watched the election results come in on Spain’s TVE1 and Sky News. In Spain we polled on Sunday and by 22.00 around 80 per cent of the vote was in and we knew how the parties had fared.

Over on Sky News a depressed Adam Bolton was left reviewing the results from Spain, Poland, Italy and elsewhere in far-flung Europe. One constituency in England told him the result might not be known for six hours...even the rest would take a good while to crawl in. I bet Gordon Brown muttered “what’s the rush, what’s the rush!”

In Spain the centre right Partido Popular’s leader, Mariano Rajoy, and his party’s supporters were wearing large smiles. Hardly surprising as the party had chalked up its first National election victory since it lost power in 2004.

In the interim the PP has lost two Spanish General Elections and the last Euro poll so Sunday’s victory tasted very sweet indeed. However whilst prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will have been disappointed with second place the results were far better than a government battling with the full effects of the economic crisis could rightfully expect. Indeed how his socialist counterpart in London must envy him.

After Sunday’s poll the PP have 23 Euro MPs a loss of one over 2005. PSOE have 21 four less than last time out when they had a one seat advantage over the PP. The PP commanded 42.23 per cent of the vote (41.21 in 2005) and PSOE slumped to 38.51 compared with 43.48. So PSOE are firmly in second place but it not a disastrous result and with the general election not due to 2012 Zapatero will still be hopeful of a recovery. What would Gordon Brown give for 38.51 per cent of the vote? Don’t ask!

CORRUPTION PROBE HITS MAJOR POLITICIANS

The corruption probe led by Spain’s famous judge Baltazar Garzón involving businessmen with ties to the Partido Popular has entered a new phase.

On Wednesday in a legal document Garzón indicated there was the possibility of national politicians being implicated. To date only local PP politicians have been fingered by the judge.

Garzón, for now, is not naming any names but that has not stopped media speculation. Politicians who have appeared in print in El País and other newspapers include the PP’s treasurer Luis Barcena and European Parliament MP Gerardo Galeote. Earlier the judge formally denied that a senior PP politician from Valencia was under suspicion as reported by El País but gave no such solace to Barcena.

The PP is of course fighting back. It has filed a complaint Garzón alleging “corrupt practices.” Garzón himself has asked prosecutors if he should be removed from the case as he is sits in the National Audience, Spain's highest criminal court that is technically not competent to investigate Spanish politicians and lawmakers.

The investigation has also embroiled the ruling PSOE government. The PP criticised the former justice minister, Mariano Fernández Bermejo, for going on a hunting trip with Garzón – the politician resigned his post on Monday.

One of the first arrests several weeks ago was of Francisco Correa at his home in Sotogrande in San Roque. The entrepreneur organised PP events and it is alleged he is behind dodgy building permits and other lucrative contracts awarded by PP municipal councils in Madrid, Valencia and elsewhere.

All of this will take British and indeed US readers by surprise because the tradition in those countries is for the judiciary and the political worlds to keep themselves at arms length. Indeed, the judges and law makers are more often than not at each others throats rather than sharing lunch on shooting parties. The White House has often been at odds with the Supreme Court, even though the President chooses its judges, and the High Court in London has often rattled the cage of the Prime Minister and his cohorts.

The problem in Spain is that although everybody accepts politicians are corrupt the judges are in danger of now being viewed as political rather than judicial – or perhaps they always were.