The week that was

In the blue corner, José; in the other blue corner, José. Smokin’ Joe, José Ramón Bauzá versus Stokin’ Joe, José María Rodríguez. A fight they said would never happen. It’s going the distance, ten rounds or more between the champion of the Partido Popular in the Balearics, José Ramón, and the champion of the Palma wing of the party, José María. The president thought he had delivered a knockout blow, but José María, no sign of any injured shoulder, came swinging back. He was going nowhere.
On Monday, José Ramón stated that José María’s time with the PP was up. The fight’s authority, the anti-corruption prosecutor, Pedro Horrach, had implied that José María was unfit to carry on fighting: all to do with payments in black for the PP’s 2003 election campaign for which he won’t carry the can because of statute of limitations. Never mind this legal technicality, reckoned José Ramón. The bell had rung for the last time for José María.
By the end of the week, José María was making it clear that he was not about to resign as party president in Palma. An embarrassing and frosty encounter between the two Joes at a dinner at which it was hoped that differences could be patched up exposed the vast rift that developed in PP-land over the week. It had been an earthquake on a potentially terminal scale. “Rodriguistas” in Palma were coming to the defence of their man. If Bauzá was so insistent on Rodríguez resigning, they wouldn’t attend a meeting between Bauzá and Mariano Rajoy, planned some time before the 24 May election. The conspicuousness of their absence would provide a “lethal image” for Bauzá.
It is perhaps too simple to say that Bauzá was reacting to the Horrach declaration regarding black payments. There had been a damning article in the Spanish press which said that Bauzá was a “hostage” to Rodríguez. In other words, he couldn’t live without him, much though he would prefer not to have to. Palma’s PP list of candidates had been filled with “Rodriguistas” - the mayoral candidate, Marga Durán, the number two, Alvaro Gijón - and Bauzá had been party to this. By siding with Rodríguez, who had been stoking the fires to purge Palma of a too independently minded Mateo Isern, he had given them succour.
This is a strange affair. I am convinced that Bauzá never wanted Rodríguez to be the national government delegate to the Balearics - an appointment made in late 2011 - and that he was more than happy when Rodríguez was forced out of this post when he was implicated as part of the massive Palma Arena criminal investigation. Yet, he was in a way a hostage to him, a hostage to an old-style PP in the Balearics.
Bauzá, for all his faults, has attempted to be a moderniser. He has made mistakes, many of them, but he has sought to rid the party of the stench of corruption that still hangs over it from the Matas era (Rodríguez was a minister under Matas) and to move it in a direction that is less parochial, one represented by one-time president Cristòfol Soler, now no longer a member of the party. One of his greatest mistakes was Isern, who he saw as a rival. By allowing this to cloud his judgement, he became a hostage to the “Rodriguistas”, and so the fight will continue till the last breath, when they both may well expire on 24 May.

The sofa of hope

Some politicians take to the election campaign trail on a “battle bus”, others prefer to fly, but few, indeed none, go on the trail with an accompanying sofa, except one. Esperanza Aguirre is the PP candidate for mayor of Madrid. She was formerly the president of the Madrid Community, a position she resigned from in September 2012, citing a serious illness. Within a month, she had become an advisor to the national tourism ministry. A few further months on, she got a job as an advisor to a recruitment company that specialises in headhunting senior management. By October of last year, she was making her intention to run as Madrid mayor clear. It was a remarkable and rather peculiar comeback. This said, what is in a name? Esperanza. It means hope. Or it can mean expectation. Hope had triumphed over infirmity. The expectation was (and is) to return to the Madrid spotlight as the city’s president. And in seeking to realise this expectation, a sofa has been following her as she has taken to the neighbourhoods of Madrid to speak to the electorate.
This is not any old sofa. It is an inflatable sofa. A kind of political bouncy castle. Boing, boing. The sofa was packed away on the plane that carried her to Palma during the week. The sidekicks got the pump out, it was blown up, and anyone who wanted to have a bounce could do so, all in aid of Bauzá. The sofa had come to José Ramón’s rescue. Hope was here. Expectation grew. Side by side on an inflatable of harmony, Esperanza had come to campaign for José Ramón.

Has the Podemos bolt been shot?

Perhaps it is the realisation that votes will have to soon be cast in regional elections and that they will have to be votes cast with seriousness. Perhaps it is the fallout that has seen Juan Carlos Monedero (pictured) resign. Perhaps, perhaps. Whatever the reason, the latest opinion poll for the national election has seen support for Podemos slump to 16.5%. Perhaps, though, it is the rise of the possibly more acceptable face of political alternativism that has been the cause. Albert Rivera’s Ciudadanos continues to make great strides. The poll places it some 2.5% behind Podemos, but another puts its share of the vote significantly higher than 14%.  At best, support for Podemos would appear to have plateaued. In the Balearics, the polls suggest that it is not gaining any real ground, and it seems intent on pulling itself apart with its own local resignations and fall-outs, ones that I had rather predicted.
Whatever the regional elections and subsequently the national election hold for Podemos and Ciudadanos, both of them have serious questions to ask of themselves. Will they accept the electorate’s support in making themselves available to form coalitions? Both have implied that they will not. A dislike for the two main parties is one thing, but to reject voters by sticking to their guns and making governments all but untenable is another. Some principles occasionally need to be swallowed.