The week that was

The psychology of lists

So, there was this thing - the BBC’s website, I think - about lists. The psychology thereof. Why are we so drawn to learning the top ten things to do on a wet weekend in Wolverhampton? Perhaps they should also look into the psychology of why we want to read articles about the psychology of lists. Whatever the article was going on about, I was that underwhelmed that I can’t remember what it said. If it had been a list, maybe I would have done.
José Ramón Bauzá may or may not possess intimate knowledge of the psychology of lists, he may or may not be a student of psephology, but he has been hard at it, putting together his own list. Now, who should I put at number eighteen, he may have mumbled to himself at home with Sra. Bauzá who was diligently compiling her own list of the week’s shopping items from Mercadona (or any other supermarket; I have no way of knowing the shopping preferences of leading Balearics politicians’ spouses as no one has issued a list to identify them).
I know, he would suddenly have thought. That taekwondo girl. What’s her name? Brigitte Yagüe. That’s her. Silver medal at the London Olympics. Number eighteen she is. How about the tennis boy? Hmm, he probably has other things to do. No matter, there’s always his uncle. Rafael Nadal. If there’s one good thing about Manacor - and it certainly isn’t Antoni Pastor - you can rely on there being a whole load of Rafael Nadals to pick from. Number eleven he is.
Of course, no list for Partido Popular parliamentary candidates would be complete without a fair smattering of the fair sex to attract the fair sex vote. So, why not match women to even numbers and men to odd numbers. Brilliant. What psychology. Number two, Maria Salom; number four, Margarita Prohens; number six, Antonia Perelló (who?). And on they even numbered go, all the way down to the PP’s taekwondo expert and beyond.
The trickier part was knowing who to leave out of the squad. When there are 33 to list plus a few reserves, you are not going to make everyone happy, but there will be one or two who are dispensable. How about the health bloke? Sansaloni. He’ll be taking the rap for the “caso Farmacias” thing in any event but he won’t make a fuss about not being picked. Personal reasons. Just tell them it’s for personal reasons, Marti. And he has. Martínez. He’s another one for the chop. As it is, never been too sure about a fella who looks as though he’s enjoyed too many good lunches being in charge of sport and tourism. Off you go.
The list duly compiled, the winners and losers notified, the 33 headed off for Son Termens and a happy-clappy photo opportunity. All good friends together; one big, happy PP family. What psychology. What could possibly now go wrong?
Shame that at the same time Mariano Rajoy’s old chum Rodrigo Rato was being arrested.

Allies for José Ramón?

I still can’t help feeling that not is all hunky-dory with José Ramón and PP High Command in Madrid. As mentioned last week, he managed to skip his second successive national executive chinwag and this past week he was nowhere to be seen when the Iron Lady, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, was despatched to Palma for a spot of morale-boosting psychology for Majorca’s PP troops. National vice-presidents don’t make a habit of pitching up in Palma, but when they do, the first person you might expect to be greeting her on the tarmac at Son Sant Joan would be the Balearics’ first person. But no. Where was Joserra? Apparently, he was in the Canaries. For family reasons. Hmm.
Meanwhile, he was receiving what might be his own spot of morale boosting, and it came from an unlikely source. Albert Rivera, the dashing leader of Ciudadanos, was saying that they (Ciudadanos) know that they will have to make pacts if they are to have any chance of getting into power, and he added that any of the other parties which suggest that they won’t need to form a coalition will be lying. He didn’t expressly say that his party would make alliances with the PP, but the good money is now shifting towards this very possibility in the Balearics.
The upper estimates in one of the most recent opinion polls would give the PP and Ciudadanos  a combined total of 29 seats, one shy of the 30 needed to form a majority, but it is not impossible to believe that the 30 could be achieved.  It hadn’t previously seemed as if Ciudadanos might be willing to create accords with the PP because it, as with Podemos, has expressed its distaste for the “casta” system of the two dominant parties. But realities are taking over and Ciudadanos, which is right-wing in some respects and left-wing in others, appears to be more realistic than Podemos.
Into this equation has entered the Ciudadanos presidential candidate for the Balearics, Xavier Pericay. Journalist, writer and philologist (a student of languages therefore), Pericay stated last week that education would be the cornerstone of the party’s campaign. He has in the past defended the “linguistic modalities” of the Balearics, so by inference he may not be that far removed from Bauzá who, while he has had Catalan in his sights, has also defended the local languages.
Ciuadanos’s national secretary-general, Matías Alonso, was also in Palma last week. He said that the party has not committed itself to a pact with any party. Yet. And it would be highly unlikely that it would do so prior to the elections. But for the PP, there may just be the sniff of a lifeline after the elections.

DJ for mayor

If all else fails though, how about having a DJ as a candidate? The PP list doesn’t appear to contain one, but in Ibiza, Joan Ribas, a DJ at Pacha who has also been at Cafe del Mar and Space as well as numerous venues outside Ibiza and Spain, has been selected as mayoral candidate for Ibiza Town Hall by Guanyem (let’s win or we win, I’m unsure whether it’s meant to be subjunctive or not).  
What a good idea. Bauzá urgently needs to revise the list. There are hundreds of DJs knocking around in Majorca who I feel sure would be happy to have a gig in parliament. Turn the whole thing into a rave and a taekwondo exhibition. Would make as much as sense as it does at the moment, so why not?