Champagne on ice

THE mother of all battles will rage over the next week in Calvia with both the Partido Popular and the Spanish Socialist Party trying to court the vote of the single Majorcan Unionist councillor who can give either party a majority. Now the Partido Popular are quietly confident. The feedback, they have had from the nationalist councillor has been good, they say. But Mayor Margarita Najera, who is no stranger to forming coalitions, and who has come back from allegedly unwinnable positions before, has hit back. According to press reports yesterday she has offered the Unionist the Mayorship of the area if he agrees to a coalition. Eight years ago she was in a similar position and a councillor voted by mistake which effectively gave her power. As one candidate said to the Bulletin yesterday “anything can happen in Calvia.” It would be a great shame if the party with the most number of votes, in this case the Partido Popular, did not win. This is one of the main problems with the Spanish election system, the most voted party is not always the winner. There will be plenty of behind the scenes negotiations taking place over the next few days and the Partido Popular are confident that they will be able to announce their coalition next week. Kate Mentink, councillor elect for the Partido Popular, said that they were only a few votes short of an overall majority. As I said at the start of this column the next couple of days are going to prove interesting. The election may have been won but there are still battles to be fought. In the case of Calvia the battle for the councillor will be fought with the same vigour as the election campaign itself.