Posts Tagged "Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol"

Zapatero announces early elections

The President of the Government of Spain, aka Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero today announced that Spain would hold the legislative elections on November 20th.These elections were originally going to take place in March 2012.

The Socialist (PSOE) candidate is Alfredo Rubalcaba (left) and Conservative (PP) candidate is Mariano Rajoy.

I’m going to write more analysis of both of them in the next few days with comments on the elections. However I will say that they have both been in politics and government for years. Rajoy has lead his party in Opposition for over a decade, and was a minister in the Aznar government before that. Rubalacaba has been involved in every socialist government since Gonzalez came to power in the early 80s.

Countering the Coalition 6: Conclusion, a Soft Opposition

This is without doubt a new era in politics. The end of a Labour decade, the Liberals are back in government, and of course the start of a coalition.

The Education Secretary’s disastrous mishandling over the Building Schools for the Future program posed the question of how long the government’s honeymoon will last and there are multiple factors worth considering in response. The fact that this is a coalition opposed to a single party gives the coalition a certain novelty aspect, particularly so as it follows 13 years where Labour has had extremely large majorities, meaning that the public will be more inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt.

However, the conditions that prolong the government’s honeymoon like the ‘time for a change’ feeling are likely to dissipate very quickly. As cuts begin to impact on frontline public services people will inevitably become less sympathetic, in addition to this we have had a few minor political scandals with David Laws and Chris Hunhe, and now a larger competence-based scandal surrounding Michael Gove, which will accumulate and test the public’s patience.

Labour has to act in two stages, the immediate term and then a deeper approach. The timing of this falls along two parallels, primarily with the duration of the government’s honeymoon period and secondarily the long process of the Labour Leadership election.

The Tory strategy is almost crass in its execution; Labour left us in this mess, but we are clearing it up. They gibber about the deficit and they panic over national debt, completely neglecting the economic recovery and, even more surprisingly, forgetting the massive global financial crisis that Labour had to deal with to stop the economy collapsing.

True or not, fair or not, their criticism has a bold simplicity. Our argument is more evolved than theirs which means it is more difficult to understand and therefore less popular. It operates under what I call the “Garden Shed Principle,” which is to say that normal people understand how their household finances work, and how to use bank overdrafts, and so it resonates when Cameron uses such an analogy. Nobody knows whether saving the banks is worth trillions and billions because nobody can really understand whether it is value for money. Yet the anger was so much more explosive during the expenses scandal because people know the price of a garden shed, and when an MP claims several thousand pounds for a duck house, they can see the injustice.

The solution is to disarm the government of the argument. The Tories are in the same mode as they were before the General Election in that they are trying to frame the debate around what happened in the past instead of policies for the future. We have to move the debate forward by “accepting and moving on.” Harriet Harman as acting leader is in the perfect position to act as a lightning rod and clear the ground ready for the new leader to make a fresh start without so much baggage left over from the credit crunch.

A strategy of Soft Opposition currently seems the most appropriate for Labour. My example to follow is how Zapatero conducted his party before becoming the President of the Spanish Government in 2004. His prescription was to be as calm and constructive as possible, even going so far as to offer pacts to the government of the time, which under Aznar was as equally dangerous as ours is now.

Zapatero was famous for this almost bipartisan style of opposition, for which the British public seem to have an appetite at present. Although some would suggest that the Socialist victory in Spain was as an indirect consequence of the Madrid bombings, the evidence showed a firm, slow but steady improvement for the PSOE in the polls. This is exactly the kind of foundation we need to lay over the next four years.

In contrast, the bland and non-confrontational style of Zapatero in opposition, which I must say suits perfectly all five Labour Leadership contenders, made his attacks against the government much stronger. Labour will look so much more competent and even statesmanlike than Cameron did when he was constantly on the offensive like the noise of WWI artillery.

To conclude this series, I hope that I have demonstrated some of the key features of the new government and set out a plan for Labour to proceed in opposition. The coalition showed that the Tories could not win a majority by themselves even in such favourable conditions. Labour needs to use this to our advantage in order to shrink both the Tories and the Lib Dems into a co-dependent state. The Tories lose their teeth and the Lib Dems lose their independence.

The coalition will survive for the duration of the Parliament; the conditions are right for it to last because we have seen just how willing the Lib Dems are to throw away their principles. The government is structurally sound because the Tories do not depend on the Lib Dems to be in power, but for the Lib Dems this is their only chance.

The fact that the coalition will go the distance is good for Labour as we can occupy a broader space on the centre-left. It is important to stick the other two parties together, which is why we are better off referring to John Major’s government and its divisions over the callous spending cuts of Thatcher.

In doing so, we must move away from the line that the Lib Dems betrayed their voters. If the voters feel betrayed, we cannot mock them if we want their support, this is why it is better to dismiss the Lib Dem leadership as useful idiots or even hostages in some cases, while we concentrate are arguments against a typical Tory government.

However, we do need to understand that the game we play with the Lib Dems has changed, or perhaps it would be better to say ‘exposed.’ This is why we have to resist the obvious temptation to mock their hypocrisy.

Finally, Labour needs to accept responsibility for its record in government and act accordingly. We have to show that the party is not bitter and can be constructive, but that we are always ready to right for those who need help. It is a case of picking battles carefully.

The coalition does not represent New Politics, but as the Labour Party it is our duty to come up with new ideas.

Zapatero buys time thanks to one crucial vote

I’m typing this from a hostel in Lisbon, so allow me to be brief.

As I mentioned in my previous post on the Spanish economy, the President of the Government Zapatero canceled all his appointments, meetings and visits in order to present himself to the Congress of Deputies (the Parliament).

Congress met specifically to debate the Government’s proposals to reduce the deficit, which include a cut of 1.5% in two years. A defeat could have meant the end of the government.

It passed by one vote.

Zapatero’s centre-left party, the PSOE, won all of their 169 “yes” votes against 168. It is worth noting that this was probably the most important legislative vote of the Parliament and not a single deputy (MP) was missing. Several smaller parties abstained (13 votes).

Rajoy, leader of the Spanish conservatives (el Partido Popular) was typically in character, saying that the plans were “improvised and injust” adding “Yes to reducing the deficit, but not like this.” as the plans include a cut of 5% to public sector salaries and pensions.

President Zapatero was able to leave the chamber with a smile, then, after a very tense morning. I would probably compare it to the Tuition Fees Vote that passed with a majority of 5 in the UK.

He won, and so the Spanish President has been able to buy some much needed time.

Brown should take a lesson from ZP

Zapatero, President of the Government of Spain was on top form last night in Malaga, where he made a surprisingly powerful speech to party members.

Play it through, even if you don’t understand Spanish. ZP has been the centre-left President of the Government since 2004, and has been fiercely criticised over the fact that Spain has been hit harder than most by the recession.

In the clip, he makes an incredibly important point that Gordon Brown would do well to repeat. Zapatero challenges Rajoy, leader of the Spanish conservative party (El Partido Popular) to be a little bit more constructive.

Here’s my rough translation of the most important part, from 0.45 to 1.08:

This is why I ask Rajoy to come and presents his proposals. I’m not asking him to take responsibility for the government, I’m asking him to take responsibility for Spanish society.

I’m not asking him to help the government, I’m asking him to help our country!

However, the PP has been surprisingly quiet as of late. Funny that.

With My David Cameron change is possible!

Though many aspects of Spain are incredibly backwards, there’s something incredibly modern about their politics.

They don’t have silly minority parties like the Lib Dems, they don’t have mad communist parties like in France, and they actually talk about the problems instead of personalities, unlike Britain.

What most struck me though, is their campaigning, and I have two main examples of how Spain is miraculously ahead of the game.

Here’s the first example. You are all familiar with this picture of Obama with the slogan “Change.” below:

I then realised that this ground-breaking piece of imagery was nothing but a jumped up PSOE campaign from 1982. Have a glance at Felipe Gonzalez:

The topline reads “Vote PSOE” and the slogan means “For change.” Suspicious, no?

Anyway, this is just an aside compared to what I want to go into. My second example pertains to the infamous Conservative Cameron poster campaign:

Which bears an amazing resemblance to the Spanish Conservative Party’s (el Partido Popular) election posters in 2008, which was also just a picture of their leader with a slogan. Take a look at “Make it to the end of the month” “With Rajoy it’s possible“:

Note that the British Tories decided to drop the blue coloured background.

So, the next interesting development is that in Britain, everybody lauded the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the My David Cameron website for it’s (very good, I shall add) instant poster parody maker of the above poster, and subsequent campaign editions. However, back in their elections in 2008, that’s right, they had their own DIY-Rajoy poster generator!

And they call it New Media!