T E N E R I F E ’ S O N LY Issue 698
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W E E K LY N E W S PA P E R
08 April 2011 - 14 April 2011
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Spain’s PM will not stand SPANISH Prime Minister Jose Luís Rodríguez Zapatero won’t run for a third term, in a move calculated to improve his Socialist party’s bleak electoral prospects but one that could undermine his authority at a dangerous time. With his stature severely diminished by a 20% unemployment rate and unpopular economic overhauls, the 50year-old Socialist leader hadn’t been expected to run for re-election when his current term ends next March. The timing for announcing his decision, however, had become a complex political calculus. On the one hand, many party leaders believed an early announcement could help mitigate expected heavy losses in coming regional elections on 22nd May, while others worried it could spark internal party tensions as would-be successors jockey for position and even undermine Mr. Zapatero’s authority. (As long as you are registered on the padrón as a resident in Spain, and that does include British nationals, then you have until and including Monday, 11th April to check with your town hall to see whether you are on the list of registered voters, in time for the local and regional elections). But, in what appears to be an attempt to stop the downward spiral of support for his ruling Socialist party, Zapatero has now ended months of speculation by announcing on 2nd April that he will not seek re-election after completing his second four-year term next March. After announcing his decision at a meeting of his
party’s federal committee, Mr. Zapatero repeated several times he would serve out the remainder of his term and focus on carrying out his program of overhauls. “I will fulfil my responsibilities as prime minister until the end of the term, until the very last day,” Mr. Zapatero said. Now high-ranking members of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) will jockey for the job if, as expected, a primary leadership election is held after the regional and local elections on 22nd May, including here in Tenerife where, amongst others, the PSOE Mayors of Adeje and Vilaflor will be concerned about the repercussions that an unpopular PM may have had on their chances of re-election. Whoever is nominated as the new party head, however, will inherit Spain’s worst economic crisis in 30 years and an electorate who in recent times seem to have voted not for the best candidate but for the lesser of two disappointments. “Both the incumbent and the head of the opposition — in theory the next Prime Minister — are regarded as a heap of rubbish,” says William Chislett, who writes about Spain for the Madrid-based think tank Elcano Royal Institute. “It’s clear the people are fed up with the political parties, their bickering and their failure to resolve problems.” When Zapatero took up office back in April 2004, following the Madrid train bombings, Spain was basking in economic prosperity that was largely buoyed by a booming property sector. Zapatero immediately complied with his campaign pledge to withdraw Spanish soldiers from Iraq, and then began an aggressive policy of social reforms. In 2005, Spain legalised same-sex marriage, made it easier for couples to get a divorce and gave work-
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ing papers to around 580,000 illegal immigrants with work contracts, all controversial decisions. While these moves sparked opposition from the right, Zapatero’s push for peace talks with the separatist group ETA in 2006 ignited a caustic political discourse that has yet to abate. ETA, which has killed around 850 people over the past 51 years in a campaign for an independent Basque nation, ended negotiations nine months later with a bomb in Madrid’s Barajas airport that killed two men. For Zapatero, it was a major political failure. With elections looming, the Socialists sought votes through a one-off 2,500-euro payment for new parents and a 450-euro income-tax rebate. The tactic seemed to work, and Zapatero won re-election in 2008. But both measures were repealed when Spain’s
economy took a nosedive. While immune from the subprime hangover, Spain suffered its own economic crisis when the property sector, which accounted for around 18% of GDP, collapsed. In 2008, the unemployment rate was around 9%; and now it’s 20%. Add the debt crisis affecting Europe, and in three years Spain’s economy has gone from robust to flagging. The government tried to stop the bleeding by cuts to civil servants’ pay, lowering the cost to fire employees and increasing the retirement age. But experts say these reforms should have been implemented years ago when Spaniards could afford them. “Zapatero’s economic policy has been a bloody disaster,” says Chislett. “He was in denial for far too long about the dangers, and the measures that were put into place were more of a result of outside
pressure from the International Monetary Fund, Brussels and the U.S. than anything else.” Despite a 60% approval rating in Zapatero’s first term, the economic crisis has destroyed Spain’s regard for him, as in the case with many leaders, such as the UK’s Gordon Brown, each being blamed for a situation that was largely a global one. According to a January poll by the Centre of Sociological Research (CIS), 80.7% of respondents said they had little or no confidence in the Prime Minister and 58.8% said the government was doing a bad or very bad job. The opposition Popular Party (PP), which has been plagued by corruption scandals and led by the decidedly uncharismatic Mariano Rajoy, who has twice lost to Zapatero in general elections, does not seem to excite vot-
ers either. In the same CIS poll, 78% of the respondents said they had little or no confidence in Rajoy. When asked to compare the two leaders, 27% said neither politician inspired more confidence than the other. Following Zapatero’s announcement, analysts are now looking at Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba as the Prime Minister’s most likely successor. A long-time PSOE heavyweight, and a more aggressive politician than Zapatero, Rubalcaba consistently tops polls as the most respected Minister in the Cabinet. But even if the popular Rubalcaba takes the lead, the Socialists know they are going to suffer in the May regional elections and are likely to lose the general election in 2012, says David Mathieson, a former adviser to the British government and now a Madrid-based political analyst. The hope would be that Rubalcaba’s nomination could protect against the PP winning an absolute majority in parliament. Polls currently have the PP ahead of the PSOE by between 7 and 15 percentage points. The CIS report from January said that 71% of the respondents thought the PP would win the next general election. By deciding not to stand for re-election and taking the blame for Spain’s economic woes, Zapatero is hoping that the administration’s mistakes stick with him and not with the PSOE. While that may not be enough to earn the party a victory in 2012, it could at least give it a chance to stay in the game. “If anyone can salvage anything, Rubalcaba is the sharpest tool in the box of any party in Spain,” says Mathieson. “The question now is how fast the PSOE can rebuild themselves after being defeated.”