Festive election

Is Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, giving Spanish voters an early Christmas present? The prime minister announced yesterday that he will probably call a general election around December 20, just after the budget. So will he get a present from Spanish voters or will he be shown the door? I suspect that Rajoy will win but not with a majority. But if he does win, it will not be thanks to his policies, it will be more to do with fear. In the same way as the Conservatives in Britain managed to “scare” voters about a possible Labour/Scottish nationalist pact, Rajoy's Partido Popular is doing the same with the left-wing protest party, Podemos. I have spoken to numerous Partido Popular voters who are deeply concerned about the rise of Podemos. They are not impressed with Rajoy but will be voting for him to stop the rise of the left-wing parties. The Spanish prime minister will claim that his government has effectively rescued Spain from a possible economic meltdown. And to some extent it is true. But there are quite a number of disenchanted Partido Popular voters who claim that the only thing that Rajoy has done is increase taxes. It is going to be a very closely fought election race. No single party will win an outright victory, which could lead to yet another coalition government. The biggest problem of the Partido Popular at the moment is its failure to listen to the Spanish people. This cost the party heavily in the local elections. Rajoy needs to learn to listen.