Spaniards Boot Out Socialists: Is It Too Late?
That sound you heard if you were in — or flying over — Europe on Sunday was five million Spanish voters firmly planting their feet on the Socialist party’s behind. And with it, kicking out the last center-left government still standing on the continent.
To be sure, it didn’t come as a surprise; it’s exactly what polls were predicting for months. Although there was a slightly lower turnout than expected, the conservative Popular Party, led by Mariano Rajoy, was granted a comfortable absolute majority with 186 seats in the lower chamber. This is the biggest victory ever for the PP, even larger than in 2000, when Jose Maria Aznar was leading the party. And with just 110 seats‚ 59 less than in 2008, the Socialist party suffered its biggest defeat since the restoration of democracy after Franco’s death in 1975. It’s their Titanic moment.
(To avoid complicating this analysis needlessly, we will focus on the lower chamber, called the Congress of Deputies; because of how Spain’s legislative process works, the Senate is a chamber of second reading. All bills originate in and get final approval in the Congress, which means it’s there where the beef is cut.)
Spanish voters decided they had had enough of youthful idealism and traded it for a more seasoned, though not particularly charismatic, leader who is perceived as more competent with the economy. After all, the PP has the experience to prove it: it led the country to an economic boom in 1996-2004 during Aznar’s tenure, in which Rajoy held several cabinet positions, including deputy prime minister. At 56, Rajoy will become the oldest prime minister ever elected since the transition.
But the results reflect an unquestionable rejection of the Socialist platform by Spanish voters rather than very strong support for the PP. Looking at the actual votes, not seats in parliament, the conservatives gained only 500,000 votes from 2008, while the PSOE lost a whopping five million (if that number rings a bell it’s because, interestingly, it’s the number of jobless Spaniards). Years of erratic, even failed, economic policies that drove the country to the brink of collapse, and made it the country with the highest level of unemployment in the industrialized world, led many leftist voters to either stay at home or vote for alternatives like United Left (former Communists), which, with 11 seats, multiplied its result almost sixfold. Or for UPyD, a young party formed by Rosa Diez, a former Socialist official who left the party with a bang. The UPyD went from one to five seats. The Spanish electoral system punishes atomization: if the same number of votes is divided among several parties, the sum of the number of seats these parties get is lower than it would be if those votes were concentrated in just one party. So the discontent with the PSOE not only made the party lose millions of votes; it also helped the PP, which has more solid support because there’s no alternative on the right, earn a clear majority even though it had 400,000 votes less than the PSOE in 2008, when the PSOE only achieved a plurality.
Further evidence of the Socialists party’s disaster is that they even lost two of its strongholds: Catalonia, where it lost to moderate nationalists, sinking to almost half of the votes from 2008; and, more meaningfully, Andalusia, where it was defeated by the PP. It’s the first time in a national or regional election that the PSOE has lost its “home base.”
In the Basque Country the situation wasn’t better for the Socialists: since the Socialists lost almost 50% from their 2008 vote count, the big winner was Amaiur, ETA’s peaceful political arm, which got a green light by the Constitutional Court to participate in the election after the terrorist group announced a permanent ceasefire. Second in votes but first in the number of seats, the emergence of Amaiur, which openly advocates for the independence of the Basque Country from Spain, opens a new set of issues whose scope is too wide for this article.
So, now that the votes have been counted and the confetti has been dropped, the big question is: what’s next?
Pray…
The analysis is so biased…
Biased. Right. Pay no attention to the election results. And that financial crisis stuff is just a bunch of hooey. People still love socialism. It always saves the day. All we have to do is get the government to take money from the rich and redistribute it. Then we’ll all be happy.
And here are Barry and the Democrats, taking us down this same road, as if the European crisis doesn’t exist. What’s the definition of insanity?
Biased? Hmmm, so speaketh a lefty, and not only a lefty, but one afraid to leave his name. Wassamattah Anonymous, fear a few comebacks.
By the bye, I’ve known Jose Guardia for a long, long time, ever since he used to be my PJM editor. He is conservative, but his reporting is accurate and unbiased.
You’re right, the analysis was a bit too kind to the socialists. No mention of the rapid social changes that Zapatero ushered in, no mention of his efforts to sideline the Catholic Church, no mention of his failure to gain a lasting dhimmi arrangement for Spain with the violent radicals among the muslims. That too no doubt went into the calculations of some voters but was it in the article? No.
I hope that Mr. Rajoy’s not only picked up his campaign style from avoiding the UK conservatives but perhaps he is adopting a US GOP style that readers here might be familiar with, NJ Gov. Chris Christie. He too was elected on vague promises to bring responsibility to state government and to everybody’s shock he transformed after the election into an administration that accomplished much more.
And how is this analysis “so biased”? Seems fairly reasonable to me!
This is from someone who can’t admit that his/her belief system is wrong, because that would entail a lot of rewriting and work. Just call the truth “biased” and move along. Very safe and easy.
What will most likely happen is that the Socialists will “go to the barricades” to oppose any reforms, especially the ones they themselves talked about when they were in power. Counting on the chaos that ensues to cripple Rajoy’s government, and hopefully sweep them back into power.
The problems will still be there, of course, and they will have the same lack of solutions that lost them control this time around; getting cozy with the likes of Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran, blaming the U.S., Israel, and the UK, and demanding a bailout from the EU with Somebody Else’s Money.
It won’t actually work, of course, but it will mean they are back in power and will make them feel good about themselves. Which is ultimately what socialism is all about.
clear ether
eon
Warning!!
The writer of this piece, Mr. Guardia, tried to minimize as much as possible the unprecedented win of the Conservatives in Spain. Why?
Well he is not really Spanish, he is a Catalan. Catalans are notorious for their ridiculous separatist feelings and are rabidly anti-PP, the conservative party of Spain that had this tremendous win. He apparently doesn’t like it.
I am Spanish, but when I want to read the history of Spain I look for a British historian, never a spanish one, and, for heaven’s sake, never-never a Catalan.
You are very wrong. Please stop you to generalise with the catalonian people. And, please, consult the catalan PP results…
Of course the socialists will go to the barricades. It’s what socialists do when they lose elections. But we’re still in the “People get the government they deserve” mode.
But, with the defeat of the Socialists, what will become of the all-important battle of our time, the struggle for Simian Rights: http://is.gd/0BPie9 ?
Socialist are like hemoroids, they hang around and do not serve any purpose, they won’t go back where they came from and they are a constant pain in the ass.
If one does utilize the medications, the suppositories even the Doctors knife to cut them out and away from the body, they will always come back.
Apparently the socialist (hemoroid) like the view and the air down there where they hang out.
@ e pearse I suppose the numbers and the plain facts are Catalan too, provided that the Popular party has not improved its results at all and the Socialist party has lost 5 million votes. I think you are not much better than those separatists you criticize: they want to identify all Catalans with them whatever their feelings are, i.e., they state that if you are against them you’re against the whole Catalonia. You do exactly the same, identifying all Catalans with the separatist Catalans. Congratulations, you have become a little Carod Rovira without knowing it. This article is completely unbiased in my opinion. I’m from Madrid, if you’re already thinking I’m another evil Catalan plotting against Spain.
I agree that in many points the article is too moderate not so much about the conservative victory but about the actuion about Zapatero who has made all that was in his hand to seed hate betwwen Spaniards (violence of attacks against conservatives was moure of acold civil war than what is proper in a democracy) and reopen old wounds. But your critics agaibnst Mr Gaurdaia are improper: takze a look at his blog: barcepundit.blogspot.com (a blog in Spanish not in Catalan) and point me at a single article where he shows sympathises to the naationalists (BTW, Guardia is possibly a charnego not a Catalan. For our american readers: charnego can be translated asnon-catalan untermensch). And because you know a man by his friends (Dime con quien andas y te diré quien eres I recommend you follow Guradia’s link to nihilobstat.blogspot.com. That is a blog in catalan (since a few months ago there is amirror in spanish) made by a pure blood catalan whose author has ever firmly opposed catalano-fascists and their policies of discriminatiing against Spanish speakers, organizing the scholar failure of spanish speaking children or fines against shop owners labelling in Spanish.
Thanks for being so clear, to see if they understand…
Forgive me for my skepticism, but my bet is that Spain is permanently hobbled by its long term allegiance to socialist policy. If the new leadership attempts to rein in spending and restrict the states largess, the people will rise up and demand a new government to replace that most recently elected.
These people are so atrophied by their belief that the state will and must help them that they can’t see a free market alternative. It has happened all over Europe and it is happening here in the US. The spirit of independence and self reliance has withered to the point where people can’t understand an alternative reality where they are actually productive and able to problem solve on their own.
By the time free market solutions begin to reverse decline, the conservatives will be tossed out. Spain has little tradition that would be associated with entrepreneurship to kindle recovery from. My bet is that further ruin is more likely than any recovery. Same goes for Greece and France, they are too far gone to be able to understand what antidote is needed to reestablish productivity.
The US has a final chance to avoid Europe’s developing fate, but I am growing less and less optomistic the public will be capable of focusing its attention properly to the task. We will continue to muddle along towards a progressively constructed destruction where free markets are misidentified as the culprit, and further consolidation of state power is embraced.
We are headed to obscurity and great pain, unless we can seperate truth from lie and Americans seem less and less capable of that exercise.
Samizdat, that was well said.
I too think that there is no turning back at this point for Europe and probably not for the USA either. At least here we will go into a slow decline and maybe have a soft descent enabled by money printing and all of its variations. The Progressive party and their useful dimwitted and unwitting supporters will preside over a steadily decreasing standard of living until we end up with three classes: 1) The political elite and union leaders, 2) old money that figures out how to preserve their wealth and 3) the rest of us trapped in a miserable late-stage Soviet-style proletariat class.
I think those of us who value freedom and the American way of life bequeathed to us have only one tactic left. That is, organized en-mass civil disobedience. Don’t pay the taxes; don’t obey the rules and regulations. Force them to try going Stalin or Mao on millions of us before they gain full control. If someone wants to organize this, I’m in.
Spain now faces the same problems we in the US will face when we dump our current socialist regime: convincing people that repairing all the damage is going to take a long time, and will probably hurt like hell. Hopefully there are still enough mature adults in both societies that understand this.
I realize that it’s just a small country on the northern end of Europe far away from Spain, but the Danes just had an election and the results were the creation of a predominantly left-wing coalition government.
Otherwise, a great post. Thanks.
Actually, if you look at the real numbers;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_parliamentary_election,_2011
There was very little change from the 2007 election, which supposedly put a “center-right” coalition in power. The actual vote tallies were almost unchanged, percentage-wise.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt of the Social Democrats may claim a “changing of the guard” has taken place, but what really happened was that a few alliances realigned, resulting in a cosmetic style change without much change in policy.
The “new” ruling coalition is going to try to somehow get Denmark out of its financial problems without the austerity measures the previous session proposed, but never actually adopted. Since even those measures probably weren’t sufficient to accomplish the goal, the result will likely be the same as if the election had never taken place.
The only noteworthy thing about the election was the large number of sitting MPs who declined to stand for re-election, in all the major parties. This strongly indicates that they know “the ship is sinking”, and are heading for the lifeboats now.
cheers
eon
The three main parties are left-of-center (S), definitely-left (SF) and the the defeatist-right (R). The primary support party is the far-left Enhedslisten (Unity List, what the wiki page calls the Red-Green Alliance). The latter is part of the votes for next year’s budget (finanslov). What I said was “a predominantly left-wing coalition government” was formed. That is still true.
The previous coalition (V, K + DF) didn’t have the votes to create a government – the lefties did, regardless of the small change in the electoral results. The fact that the government set, if I recall correctly, a record long time in being formed and is probably quite shaky doesn’t change my (carefully limited) point: a left of center government was formed.
The “new” ruling coalition is going to try to somehow get Denmark out of its financial problems without the austerity measures [...]
Undoubtedly true. I think they will try to do as little as possible so as to maintain power so as to do as little… waittaminute… actually, I think the one thing with which all four parties can agree is loosening up immigration restrictions. Norway and Sweden are so much further along compiling all their immigration success stories, and the Danes don’t want to be left behind.
Bottom line: will they drastically reduce/eliminate the vast swathes of legislation that directly inhibit or block entrepeneurs from starting and/or growing business? Will so-called ‘environmental’ legislation, labor laws, various layers of taxes and permits disappear? If so, then business will boom. Wealth will spread. Workers will be in raging demand and will be able to nearly write their own ticket. Spain will grow its way out of debt and be prosperous. As we in the US would, if the sovereign of the nation, We the People, were to actually insist that our hired legislators and execs actually followed our own foundational Law.
But we won’t. And I doubt the Spaniards will, either. This does not end well.
the terrorists bombed their trains just before the last election, in fear, spanish voters elected a socialist leader. he and his green leftist cronies drove the economy into the ground. any questions? we have a job to do in 2012 and that is kick our socialist president and his self appointed marxist czars out. obama = fail
Two comments:
* It’s too late to rectify Spain’s situation, so the conservatives will now be the party of belt-tightening, which will not be appreciated by the Spanish people, who will, as usual, fill the streets.
* The Spanish people will draw all the wrong inferences, blame the conservatives, and vote socialists back into office in a few years.
Two comments:
* It’s too late to rectify Spain’s situation, so the conservatives will now be the party of belt-tightening, which will not be appreciated by the Spanish people, who will, as usual, fill the streets.
* The Spanish people will draw all the wrong inferences, blame the conservatives, and vote socialists back into office in a few years.
Bingo. Throw in an aging population that will increasingly look to the state for more hand-outs and you can see Spain’s future.
Here’s an idea: try a free-market capitalist economy. I know, I know, it’s crazy to unleash all the cruel, enslaving (read job-creating), greedy, grasping capitalists, but, hey, it just might work. True, it’s never been tried in Europe and generally requires a population that is self-reliant and has a strong work ethic, but it’s still worth a gamble.
It’s too late. The million Moroccans given permanent residence by Zapatero are going nowhere and will mulitply.
Spain is finished.
I think the conservatives have been elected into a no-win situation. If they actually do what needs to be done, the pain will be extreme and prolonged and the voters will learn to hate them. If they begin what needs to be done, they won’t be around to finish it.
What I have heard, and what some of the comments above support,
is that Spain is indeed a “State of Autonomies”, particularist
to the bone, unable to unite even in the face of an existential
threat. Perhaps Spain should adopt Benjamin Franklin’s flag as
a symbol of national resolve: ‘Join, or Die’.
Spain’s total debt is not so great compared to GDP as France, Italy, Greece and some of the other European countries. They were suffering rapid decline because of having their own version of Barack Obama. They dig in and should get out of trouble with a little dicipline. Their problem then will be that their industrial productivity and educational attainment is so far behind Germany’s. I think if their conservatives are like the US conservatives that they can fix that over the next fifteen years. If nothing else hire German School teachers who would like warmer winters.
So socialist parties are being rejected all over Europe. Could it be that the last socialist party still in power will be in the US, at least until 2008.
The socialists have finally run out of other peoples money to loot, and conservatives have come in the clean up the mess. The next big question though, will be once the conservatives have finally cleaned up the socialist fiscal disaster, and returned the world to prosperity and growth, will the people forget, and return the socialists to power.
Don’t make me laugh…!!!
In 1996 you were working in a distribution Spanish company that you sent to ruin…!!!
And now you are a political analyst with a TWO-DECADE experience in online media, technology, and internet businesses as an executive, consultant, and entrepreneur… NO COMMENT…!!!
LOL, LOL & LOL
Also, he left many debts everywhere.
Yeah, I think this writer was the real September 11 mastermind. Oh, and he shot president Lincoln too!