Spain in need of an effective opposition

Spain in need of an effective opposition
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By Howard Brereton - Editor - Nov 22, 2009 - 10:06 AM

Rosa Díez during her party congress at the weekend - EFE

The Partido Popular are far from effective, and the UPyD are far from a breakthrough

Spain, like any democratic country, needs an effective opposition party, and Mariano Rajoy’s Partido Popular is far from that.

The average person in the street in Spain knows far more about the details of the infighting in the Partido Popular, the war between Esperanza Aguirre and Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón in Madrid, and the corruption allegations and financial irregularities faced by the party in Valencia, than they do about the opposition’s policies.

Rajoy’s PP has always followed a strategy of simply opposing everything the Government does, but only rarely does it bring any alternatives to the table.
The ‘Alakrana’ case is an example of this, with the PP demand for three minister’s resignations made before they even had a chance to give statements to explain their actions to Congress. The PP then lost a vote criticising the Government’s actions over the affair, because of their own isolation from other opposition groups.

When criticised, the PP has generally responded against the institutions. The SICAV phone surveillance system, used against them in the Gürtel case, is now deemed by them to be illegal, despite it being approved by Mariano Rajoy in the first place, and despite as many as nine rulings in the Supreme Court that it is legal. It’s also the system used by most other European countries.

During Gürtel the PP claims of persecution have often been made against the judiciary and the institutions, but last week’s statement from the Attorney General shows that in fact there are more current prosecutions against Socialist politicians than those of the PP. Hardly persecution against the PP.

Now Mariano Rajoy, after months of almost complete silence, speaking in Sevilla on Saturday, has finally proposed a list of 50 measures against corruption, although many of them have already been approved by the Government, and others have been failed to be met up to now by his own party. We can only hope that some form of cross party pact is finally made on the matter to allow both sides to get on with the far from easy job of getting Spain out of recession.

When speaking of the opposition in Spain note should also be taken that ex Socialist Deputy, Rosa Díez, was re-elected leader of the UPyD (Unión, Progreso y Democracia) over the weekend, with 81% support in her fledgling party. Their policies to attack the nationalists in Spain and remove the current protection of linguistic plurality are now as clear as ever, though this writer doubts that they are going to make any serious form of political breakthrough at the next election.

I still believe, and have done for years, that if Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón was leading the party, the P.P. would win by a landslide at the next election, and probably would have won the last one too. But with Esperanza Aguirre jealously blocking the Mayor’s every move, it seems it will be left to Mariano Rajoy to try to win his first general election in three.

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