The aftermath Last week's local and regional elections produced few surprises. Those who were tipped to win, won. The only - mainly expected - upsets were in the regional government elections. In the Canary Islands, the Socialists (PSOE) ousted the main opposition party, Partido Popular (PP), and in the Balearic Islands, coalition negotiations were still going on at the time of writing in an effort to keep the PP in power. In Navarre, the Union del Pueblo Navarro (UPN) - the equivalent of the PP - got the most votes but not a majority, leaving the Socialists in a position to form a coalition with the other smaller parties. However, this is an exceptionally sensitive area. The Basque terrorist group ETA and its political wing, the banned Batasuna party, have made it clear they want Navarre to form part of an independent Basque state, mainly because it will give them a frontier with France. Polls show that most non-Basques would not like that. Now it looks as if Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero may decide against entering into a coalition with pro-ETA or pro-independence parties and allow the UPN to rule as a minority, which would dispel accusations that he wants to hand the region over to ETA. This would be the most sensible decision because when all the votes were in and counted, it turned out that the PP won some 166,000 more votes than the Socialists. It doesn't sound a lot now, but it could make a big difference next March. One newspaper extrapolated the voting figures and concluded that the PP would win the next election by 147 seats to 146 for the Socialists. The overall conclusion of most political observers is that Sr Zapatero should sit down and do some serious thinking especially as the people of the city he governs from - Madrid - gave the PP historically overwhelming majorities - for Esperanza Aguirre as president of the Madrid Community (regional government) and Alberto Ruiz Gallardon, who repeats as Mayor. In an effort to wipe the PP from the political map, for the past three years Sr Zapatero and his cohorts have been doing everything possible to make people believe that the PP is the Franco dictatorship in disguise. They are quick to point out that many PP politicos come from Franco-supporting families. What they fail to mention is how many of their own come from a similar background. They came up with the Historical Memory Law, reopening the old wounds caused by a civil war that ended 68 years ago. They have tried to make out that all Republicans were "good" and all the rest were fire-breathing, blood-thirsty monsters who enjoyed torturing little children to death. What they never mention is that it was tacitly agreed after Franco's death not to indulge in show trials of the dictator's supporters had been involved in atrocities for the simple reason that a lot of Republicans would end up in the dock too. For example, the man who led the Communist Party when it was legalised after Franco's death - Santiago Carrillo - was the commissar in charge of Madrid when 5,000 men and women suspected of sympathising with Franco were rounded up and shot. It must also be noted that Sr Carrillo fully supported the return to democracy and the monarchy, and was booted out of the party for his pains. Then we have Iraq. Joining the allies in the Iraq war was the biggest mistake former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar ever made. It was very unpopular with the Spanish people and Sr Zapatero made the withdrawal of Spanish troops his main commitment during the March 2004 election campaign. The day after he took over, he recalled the troops, and he's never stopped reminding people of this ever since. It had become so boring that just a few days before the May 27th elections, one of the allies who helped him form a government, Izquierda Unida general secretary Gaspar Llamazares, wondered aloud just how much more mileage Sr Zapatero expected to get out of the Iraq war. The same could be asked about the PP's "inability to come to terms with losing the March 2004 election" - which it had been tipped to win. Whenever the PP dares to criticise the government, which is most days, the first thing the PM or his spokesperson says is: "The trouble with you lot is you can't get over your election defeat". In fact, the odds were in favour of the PP until the morning of March 11th 2004, when bombs blew up several trains in Madrid during the rush hour, killing 91 people and injuring more than 1,700. The Socialists seized on the fact that the bombs had been set by Islamist not ETA terrorists to bring out the anti-war vote on Sunday, March 14th. What they never mention is that their followers attacked PP party headquarters in several major cities on Saturday, March 13th, a day on which all electioneering was prohibited in order to give people time to "reflect" on their vote the following day. All the pro-Socialist TV stations - that is, the majority - repeatedly showed images of the disturbances, which were encouraged by text messages that apparently originated in the party's headquarters in Madrid. These tactics have not helped Sr Zapatero. In fact they may even have been counterproductive. The same old song gets boring eventually. The big question now is: Will he be able to change his tune?
Monday, June 04, 2007
TAGGING OR JAIL
The government will soon have to decide if convicted Basque terrorist Iñaki De Juana Chaos is to spend the rest of his last three-year jail sentence under police supervision at home or go back to jail. Doctors at the hospital in San Sebastian where he has been recovering from a hunger strike since March 1st say he is now well enough to leave. The government incensed ETA victims when it said it would allow De Juan to go home for "humanitarian reasons", after serving only 17 years for the murder of 25 people when he was leader of ETA's Madrid commando group in the mid-80s. De Juana has said he will not wear an electronic tag if he is allowed home.
NATIONAL ANTHEM
The President of the Spanish Olympic Committee, Alejandro Blanco, wants to put words to the country's national anthem. More specifically, he wants them to be about sports and not politics. Sr Blanco said many Spanish sportsmen have commented that they feel out of it when sportsmen from other countries belt out the words to their respective countries' anthems. He said: "They want to express their pride in their country, just as the English and the French do." Apparently the government has already given him the go-ahead and he is now looking for the right auteur.
THE OLDEST BREED OF HORSE IN EUROPE
The Higher Council of Scientific Research (CSIC) has said that the wild horses known as retuertas which live in the Doñana Nature Reserve are the oldest breed of horse in Europe. The authors of the CSIC's genetic study said the 60-strong herd of retuertas which are found nowhere else but Doñana is the last wild horse population in Europe to live in complete isolation from other breeds. They said their study is drumming up support for the retuertas horse to be recognised as a breed native to Andalusia.
FISHING BOAT SANK IN HEAVY SEAS
Divers spent two days searching for the body of the third crew member of the fishing boat, the Nuevo Amadorín, which sank in heavy seas off the coast of Lugo in Galicia lat Monday. Oscar Blanco, aged 19, was the son of the boat's owner, Máximo Blanco Galdo, whose body was recovered not long after the boat when down, together with that of the other crew member, Peruvian Félix Armando Peña, whose body was flown home for burial.
TEACHER AWARDED LESS THAN 9 EURO A DAY FOR ATTACK
Cordoba's Juvenile Court has sentenced the parents of a boy who attacked a teacher at a school in Posadas to pay a fine of 2,000 euros. The secretary general of the city's Independent Public Employees' Association told reporters that it was not enough. He said the teacher had to take 225 days off work to recover from the attack, which worked out at a compensation of 8,.9 euros a day.
