Post by pchallinor on Nov 11, 2011 23:05:41 GMT
Six months ago, inspired by the Arab spring, a movement sprang up in Spain seemingly from nowhere. Its name and demand were one and the same: Real Democracy Now!
Spanish people, the young in particular, kicked aside their habitual apathy and fatalism, dubbed themselves los indignados, took to the streets in their tens of thousands, camped in city squares and led others from Paris to New York to follow their example.
Spain has not known political fervour like this since the end of the Franco dictatorship 36 years ago.
And yet, despite this fervour, you would hardly know that in a little over a week the country will elect a new government. There is scarcely an election poster on a lamp-post, let alone in anyone's window, nor any leaflets through the door.
This is partly because the party funding has slumped along with everything else, but largely through indifference and the apparently foregone conclusion of a sweeping conservative victory.
The election was not due until next March. It was brought forward by the exhausted and discredited Socialist government to 20 November, which no one in the administration appeared to notice is the anniversary of Franco's death.
All polls point to an overall majority for Mariano Rajoy's conservative People's party as the Socialists take the rap for the dire state of the economy. Indeed, Rajoy appears to be such a shoo-in that the party has barely bothered to draw up a manifesto, claiming that it does not want to make promises it cannot keep.
The Socialist party candidate, Alfredo Rubalcaba, says he hopes to win over the undecided but, as Manuel Jabois commented in El Mundo newspaper, with 5 million unemployed, "the undecideds are already either leaving for Germany or waiting for the strawberry picking season to begin".
On Monday night, 12 million viewers watched the leaders in a two-hour televised debate. It was dispiriting stuff. Rubalcaba, with a lot of ground to make up, attacked while Rajoy, who went into the debate with a 17-point lead in the polls, knew he did not need to play and simply kicked every ball into touch.
The press unanimously agreed that Rajoy won on points, but already Twitter was buzzing with dismay at #pierdedemocracia (democracy loses).
The paradox is that the conservatives are on course for an historic overall majority at a time when socialist and communitarian politics are once again in fashion, stirred up by the indignados.
However, the socialist mainstream has not been able to benefit from this leftwing sentiment. Socialist politicians and trade union officials have not been welcome at indignado marches and encampments.
The view, and not just among the young, is that they are all corrupt and not up to the job of getting the country back on its feet. It was depressingly clear during the televised debate that neither candidate had any substantial ideas of how to revive the moribund economy and get people back to work.
For their part, the mainstream parties have dismissed the indignados as naive idealists at best.
The indignados' slogan is "they don't represent us", which raises the question of why they have not established their own party. Carlos Paredes, a spokesman in Madrid for the movement, said the system was rigged so that only the two big parties could win, so there was no point in forming a party. He believes the role of the movement is to act as a pressure group.
"The politicians make policy, not us. The movement wouldn't be necessary if the politicians hadn't decided to make all these cuts," he said.
The natural indignado position would be to adopt "a plague on both your houses" stance and abstain in the election, but this, too, favours the two-party hegemony.
Instead they have launched a clever campaign encouraging people to vote for small parties and have produced a chart suggesting which party to support in each constituency in order to wreak maximum damage on the Socialist-People's party duopoly.
None of this is likely to change the predicted outcome of a big win for the conservatives, although to call it a landslide suggests that something dramatic is going on, whereas the People's party is going to win mainly by default.
A recent poll showed that, after the economy and unemployment, the Spanish see their politicians as the biggest problem. If scarcely anyone is taking any interest in the general election it's not just because the result is seen as largely irrelevant: it's the markets that rule.
So much needs to change if Spain is to get out of the hole it's in. But as the commentator David Espinós wrote in El Periódico this week, "Rajoy is the antithesis of change. But in almost every election the candidate who can pull off the trick of associating themselves with change, wins. And in spite of everything, Rajoy has pulled it off."
Guardian
Spanish people, the young in particular, kicked aside their habitual apathy and fatalism, dubbed themselves los indignados, took to the streets in their tens of thousands, camped in city squares and led others from Paris to New York to follow their example.
Spain has not known political fervour like this since the end of the Franco dictatorship 36 years ago.
And yet, despite this fervour, you would hardly know that in a little over a week the country will elect a new government. There is scarcely an election poster on a lamp-post, let alone in anyone's window, nor any leaflets through the door.
This is partly because the party funding has slumped along with everything else, but largely through indifference and the apparently foregone conclusion of a sweeping conservative victory.
The election was not due until next March. It was brought forward by the exhausted and discredited Socialist government to 20 November, which no one in the administration appeared to notice is the anniversary of Franco's death.
All polls point to an overall majority for Mariano Rajoy's conservative People's party as the Socialists take the rap for the dire state of the economy. Indeed, Rajoy appears to be such a shoo-in that the party has barely bothered to draw up a manifesto, claiming that it does not want to make promises it cannot keep.
The Socialist party candidate, Alfredo Rubalcaba, says he hopes to win over the undecided but, as Manuel Jabois commented in El Mundo newspaper, with 5 million unemployed, "the undecideds are already either leaving for Germany or waiting for the strawberry picking season to begin".
On Monday night, 12 million viewers watched the leaders in a two-hour televised debate. It was dispiriting stuff. Rubalcaba, with a lot of ground to make up, attacked while Rajoy, who went into the debate with a 17-point lead in the polls, knew he did not need to play and simply kicked every ball into touch.
The press unanimously agreed that Rajoy won on points, but already Twitter was buzzing with dismay at #pierdedemocracia (democracy loses).
The paradox is that the conservatives are on course for an historic overall majority at a time when socialist and communitarian politics are once again in fashion, stirred up by the indignados.
However, the socialist mainstream has not been able to benefit from this leftwing sentiment. Socialist politicians and trade union officials have not been welcome at indignado marches and encampments.
The view, and not just among the young, is that they are all corrupt and not up to the job of getting the country back on its feet. It was depressingly clear during the televised debate that neither candidate had any substantial ideas of how to revive the moribund economy and get people back to work.
For their part, the mainstream parties have dismissed the indignados as naive idealists at best.
The indignados' slogan is "they don't represent us", which raises the question of why they have not established their own party. Carlos Paredes, a spokesman in Madrid for the movement, said the system was rigged so that only the two big parties could win, so there was no point in forming a party. He believes the role of the movement is to act as a pressure group.
"The politicians make policy, not us. The movement wouldn't be necessary if the politicians hadn't decided to make all these cuts," he said.
The natural indignado position would be to adopt "a plague on both your houses" stance and abstain in the election, but this, too, favours the two-party hegemony.
Instead they have launched a clever campaign encouraging people to vote for small parties and have produced a chart suggesting which party to support in each constituency in order to wreak maximum damage on the Socialist-People's party duopoly.
None of this is likely to change the predicted outcome of a big win for the conservatives, although to call it a landslide suggests that something dramatic is going on, whereas the People's party is going to win mainly by default.
A recent poll showed that, after the economy and unemployment, the Spanish see their politicians as the biggest problem. If scarcely anyone is taking any interest in the general election it's not just because the result is seen as largely irrelevant: it's the markets that rule.
So much needs to change if Spain is to get out of the hole it's in. But as the commentator David Espinós wrote in El Periódico this week, "Rajoy is the antithesis of change. But in almost every election the candidate who can pull off the trick of associating themselves with change, wins. And in spite of everything, Rajoy has pulled it off."
Guardian