POLITICAL ROUND-UP BY MURIEL PILKINGTON

Edition: 525

Dirty tricks Both of the main parties - the Socialists (PSOE) and the Partido Popular (PP) - are making liberal use of their dirt sprays in the run-up to the local elections on May 27th. Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is making flying visits to places where the Socialists need some extra back-up, like Marbella, where the PP is tipped to win. He visited the town last Wednesday to have his photo taken with the Socialist candidate for mayor, Paulino Plata, just hours before the police arrested singer Isabel Pantoja on suspicion of helping former mayor Julian Muñoz to launder his ill-gotten gains. Neither Muñoz nor Pantoja have ties - past or present - to the PP but the former mayor, and therefore by association his girlfriend, belonged to the party founded by Jesus Gil, who was elected mayor of Marbella in 1995. That was when the real corruption began and, according to political observers, the Socialists did nothing about it because Gil, a right-winger, was taking votes away from the PP and keeping them out of power. According to this convoluted conspiracy way of thinking, Pantoja's arrest was planned to stir up memories of all that right-wing corruption which in turn will encourage voters to opt for the Socialists, the Greens, or whomever, to stop the PP. It's a bit far-fetched but that's what the PP is saying, if only to impress upon voters that you can't trust those Socialists an inch. However, Sr Zapatero was clearly up to electoral tricks at the beginning of last week when he handed over the administration of Montjuic Castle in Barcelona to the city's mayor, Jordi Hereu. The castle is a powerful symbol for Catalan nationalists, who have been claiming total possession for decades. Francisco Franco ceded it to the city in 1960, but in name only. Its administration remained in the hands of Madrid until last week. It houses the Military Museum which will now be dismantled and the castle will become a Peace Centre, to be administered by the Catalan regional government, Barcelona City Council and the central government in Madrid. However, a basic stipulation in last week's agreement is that four flags will fly over the castle - the Spanish national flag, as well as those of Catalonia, Barcelona City and the EU. The Catalan nationalists have always said that only the Catalan flag should be flown at the castle. Sr Zapatero no doubt hopes that this generous gesture will encourage the Catalans to vote for the Socialists in the local elections, but they probably won't. They have too many Catalan options to choose from and they still remember how Sr Zapatero changed Catalan allies in midstream to get a watered-down version of the reform to the Catalan Autonomy Statute accepted. The Catalan Socialists have been steadily losing ground to the nationalists in recent years. In the last regional election, in November 2006, the Socialists lost five seats. The moderate nationalist party, Convergencia i Union (CiU), won numerically, but was unable to convince any of the other parties to help it form a government. CiU leader Artur Mas had very foolishly sworn that he would not form a coalition government with the PP, whose support had kept the CiU in power for more than 20 years until the Socialists won the 2003 regional election. The Socialists were able to convince their the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) to back them once again, despite Sr Zapatero's "treachery" in the matter of the Statute, which had particularly annoyed ERC, so they were able to stay in power. It will be interesting to see how well - or badly - they do in the May 27th elections. But the biggest dirty trick of all, according to the PP, is currently taking place in a Madrid courtroom where 29 Islamists, mainly Moroccans, are finally being tried for the March 2004 train bombings in that city. Some of the men were arrested shortly after the bombings and the rest were caught over the next few months. The PP has always insisted that the government was dragging its feet over putting them on trial and has always claimed that they would finally end up in court at some strategic time - like just weeks before the May 27th local election. The trial is not expected to end until October but the verdict probably won't be known until January next year, just two months before the next general election. The Socialist government has consistently used the M-11 bombings to undermine the PP, accusing the party of not having come to terms with its defeat in the March 2004 election. The PP was tipped to win but the Socialists very ably used the bombings to bring out the anti-Iraq war vote and surprised even themselves by winning. Sr Zapatero's more rabid enemies always refer to him as the "accidental" prime minister but the Socialists have always denied that the bombings had anything to do with their election victory. However, in a recently published book, one of the PM's former consultants claims that Sr Zapatero admits in private that without the bombings he wouldn't be where he is - something that three quarters of the Spanish population also believes, according to the polls. Next week: What the different parties are offering to do for you.