[Marxism] A summary of the Spanish electoral situation.

[David Picón Álvarez]

> One was the confidence and aplomb of Zapatero (whom I recognized) and the
> kvetchy, complaining tone of Fraga (the other candidate, whom I did not
> recognize but identify now from David's report). Of course I realize there
> must be much to kvetch about in Spain, but I had the feeling that Fraga 
> came
> across as griping while Zapatero seemed to be not desperately defending 
> but
> clearly presenting his own point of view (whatever it was).

I should have made it clearer that, although Fraga was the PP's founder, it 
is currently led by Mariano Rajoy, a Galician, like Fraga himself, and a 
property registrar. Fraga was himself a professor of law (in theory still 
is) and I think he belonged to the technocratic wing of the fascist 
government. He was a Spanish ambassador in the UK for some years, and much 
later during democracy he took the risk to go to visit Fidel Castro as 
President of the Galician government. At this stage, although Fraga is still 
a Senator, he is not considered to be a powerful person in the party, though 
after the electoral results we shall see.

Rajoy was directly chosen to lead the party in 2004 by Aznar, who was the PP 
ruler at the time. He had several ministerial duties from 1996-2004. He was 
chosen, as we say in Spain, "a dedo", which is to say, by the finger, just 
by Aznar pointing his finger at him. So many people consider he lacks a 
certain level of legitimacy to lead the party. He is a bit of a shy, or at 
least private, person, not very charismatic, which doesn't help him in 
debates. The most vivid memories I have of his time in government were the 
management of the Prestige wreck (an oil tanker which spilled its stuff all 
over Galicia) and the management of the 11th of March attacks in 2004. As to 
the first, his explanations were so litterally nonsensical as to cause 
hilarity. I remember him saying something like: del barco salen unos 
pequeños hilitos como si fueran de plastilina en desplazamiento vertical. 
Something like: from the ship come some tiny wee threads, like made of play 
dough, in vertical displacement. Before Zapatero and Rajoy debated, which is 
already unusual (there hadn't been presidential debates for 15 years), the 
minister of the economy (Solbes) and the presumable candidate by the PP 
(Pizarro, an ex-executive of a big energy company called Endesa) did 
likewise. Solbes isn't a very good speaker, he tends to sound proffesorial 
and distant, but he managed to convey confidence and knowledge, whereas 
Pizarro seemed far to defferential.

Anyway, both debates by Zapatero and Rajoy were at least according to the 
surveys won by the former. Rajoy centred his critiques on terrorism 
(Zapatero negotiated with ETA, but then so did Rajoy!), immigration, and the 
worsening of the Spanish economy.

This last point is a very real concern. Spain is experiencing a very sharp 
slow-down of construction and real estate activity (can hardly talk of a 
crash yet when housing is still appreciating faster than 10% per anum). In 
addition, inflation is relatively high, on the 4.x%, and the basic products 
like bread, milk, eggs, have risen very, very sharply, probably partly due 
to oil prices. Unemployment is growing very slightly in absolute terms 
although unemployment rate is decreasing a bit.

> This left me with the suspicion that Zapatero -- a very able politician, I
> think, expects the margin to be greater than the media are expecting.

The results are out, and they could be summarized as a victory for PSOE but 
a victory for a 2-party system more generally. Both IU and ERC have lost a 
very significant number of seats, whereas both PSOE and PP have grown 5 
seats each, PSOE being at 6 seats from absolute majority now. During the 
provisional stage, PSOE even brushed the absolute majority, but 
realistically the people in the party knew that was not likely. It is 
believed by political analysts that Rajoy will have to resign from party 
leadership. In IU, Llamazares will have to do likewise.

> The other thing that caught me was from the US electoral standpoint.  This
> seemed to be a real debate between two people who actually had different
> thought-out opinions. There was a moderator from the media, but this was 
> not
> a debate run primarily to feed media gossip.  No idiotic reporter 
> questions,
> begging for brief and equally idiotic replies from candidates who have no
> ideas of their own as a matter of principle.

I would agree that having a free form debate is better, although one runs 
the risk of getting 2 non-intersecting monologues. That said, the fact there 
was a debate is in itself quite a novelty. Perhaps the form of the debate is 
due to the fact that our president often has to respond to Parliament and to 
opposition questions there, and the TV debates looked quite a lot like what 
we call "debate sobre el estado de la nación", the debate over the state of 
the nation, a yearly debate in Parliament where the president addresses all 
the forces with parliamentary representation.

> One of Obama's advantages and problems is that he is  a very intelligent-
> and thoughtful-LOOKING fellow who is therefore widely suspected of having
> some ideas although he goes out of his way not to express them on the
> campaign trail.

You think it is really true that there is such a strong anti-intellectual, 
anti-elitist if you will, trend in US politics that seeming smart is not a 
good idea? I find this still somehow hard to believe.

> I'm sure there was plenty of bullshit in the Spanish debate, but it seemed
> cut from a different cloth than what we get here.

There was bullshit aplenty. Particularly, it is now recognized that one of 
Rajoy's mistakes was in his conclusion. Instead of making a declarative 
conclusion, with a statement of action and so on, he got into this really 
weird mode and told the story of a little girl who has a family, and how we 
must make sure her parents have jobs, and how although her country will 
demand much of her she will be proud of it when she goes abroad with her 
acclaimed university qualification. It was completely artificial, and made 
no sense to our political culture, and it sounded doubly false on the 
account that he was actually reading it out!

> By the way, the waiters and the restaurant-owner were all for Zapatero.

I must say I voted PSOE myself. Although it is not a Marxist party by any 
understanding, the way the electoral system works IU had no chance to get a 
seat in my province, so it would have been rather poinless to vote for them. 
All that, within the understandably little that one can do through voting, 
of course.

--David.