EDITORIAL - Rajoy needs to centre

EDITORIAL - Rajoy needs to centre
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By Howard Brereton - Mar 31, 2009 - 8:44 PM
A good performance by party leader Mariano Rajoy on television this week is simply not enough

Mariano Rajoy during the TVE programme, 'Tengo una pregunta para usted' - EFE

He may not be the most charismatic of politicians, but Mariano Rajoy had done his homework ahead of his appearance of television earlier this week to answer questions from a live studio audience.
We’re told that he spent a month preparing for the encounter, and no banana skins were found.

But given the current economic circumstances the opposition should be doing far better than just level in the polls with the governing Socialist party.

The public’s questions were almost all centred on the economic crisis and unemployment, and with Spain already leading the unemployment rates in Europe, why isn’t the opposition moving forward?

If the Partido Popular is to have any chance of forming the next government in Spain, Rajoy needs to take far greater control and move his party towards the centre. He also has to centre the political and media agenda on the economy and the serious problems facing Spain and the Spanish people, but the trouble is the Partido Popular is too busy facing problems of its own.

A blatant whitewash in Madrid over the political spying allegations, and the rejection of an investigation into the Gürtel affair in the Valencia region, are now eclipsed by the latest allegations from Judge Garzón of the party’s national treasurer accepting a 1,3 million € bribe.

Rajoy needs to roll up his sleeves and take control of what is going on in the regions where the P.P. has power.

And now the choice of a far right wing candidate with links to Aznar and Opus Dei, who would never use a condom, and who does not even speak the regional Basque language, to be the first P.P. President of the Basque Parliament, is hardly the best way to show the country that the P.P. or Mariano Rajoy understand either the job that has to be done or how to do it.

Such decisions can instantly erase the benefits of a month’s TV preparation by Mariano Rajoy, however competent he may appear.

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