COALITION SPLIT OVER WHAT WENT WRONG....

By Humphrey Carter FORMER Balearic president and leader of the PSOE-PSIB socialist party, Francesc Antich, gathered the party's chief executives together on Monday night to analyse the election results and discuss why they lost. Yesterday morning Antich blamed two reasons, “the problems with the coalition in Ibiza and Formentera” and what he referred to as the “vote of fear” obtained by the PP's presidential candidate Jaume Matas. Antich admitted that he did not honestly consider losing the election, but ruled out resigning. The out-going Balearic president is putting a brave face on the election defeat “the PSIB (Balearic Socialist Party) experienced an important increase in the number of votes” he said, adding that over the next few weeks, further flaws in the party's campaign strategy will surface, enabling the party to correct its errors and rebuild for the future. Antich said that the PSIB will lead the coalition parties in opposition. The former president said that the PP seized on the present condition of the economy to generate a “vote of fear which was fuelled by cabinet ministers from Madrid as they swept through the Balearics on the campaign trail.” Antich also made a reference to the “dozen odd powerful” business people who backed Matas for president “for whom he is now on his knees, vouching to scrap the tourist tax.” However, he was forced to admit that the socialists failed to properly study whether or not its tourism policies clashed with the business and hotel sectors. But despite Antich's determination to continue as head of the left wing coalition, post-election blues appear to have set in and members of the coalition are starting to blame each other for defeat - further proving one of the PP's claims that the coalition has been incapable of agreeing on anything. Yesterday, the secretary general of the PSM Majorcan nationalist party, Mateu Morro, whose leader Pere Sampol was Antich's deputy and Minister for Commerce, admitted that the PSM's poor performance at the polls was primarily to blame for the coalition's defeat, but he added that Antich's “confrontational policies” with regards to the business and tourist sectors “damaged the coalition.” Morro, accompanied by Pere Sampol, said yesterday that the election results “have been very negative” for the party which polled less votes than in the 1999 elections. “The PSM was unable to convey its message to the electorate and why the people should have voted for the party, the coalition has been an electoral failure,” Sampol said. He added that the political confrontation with certain economic sectors, in particular the hotel sector and tourism, for which Sampol holds Antich and the out-going Minister for Tourism, Celesti Alomar responsible, “was not a good idea.” Morro said that the Partido Popular mounted a “good” campaign which the PSOE was unable to match, adding that the coalition's campaign “was marked by strong bipartisanship which was reflected in the results, a seat lost in Majorca and votes in general to the PSOE while the conservatives strengthened its majority.” No one in the PSM expected the results to be so bad, the one-time Balearic Agricultural Minister Morro said that they honestly thought the party would strengthen its position, something the PSM is going to have to start working at now in order to recover the local political ground it has lost.