Editorial: A bad move

I was rather amazed last month when I was informed that Angela Guerrero, the outgoing British born councillor on the Calvia Council had been moved from nine to 14 on the electoral list of the ruling Partido Popular. Ilike and admire Angie and I thought that the move was rather silly especially when the Partido Popular were actively trying to court the expat vote in Calvia. Many Calvia residents said to me at the time that it was a snub not only to Angie but to the non-Spanish voters as well. Well the results speak for themselves. Just 400 expats voted in Calvia out of a total of 3,800 who were eligible to do so. In fact the Partido Popular were only a few hundred votes away from winning their 10th councillor which would have put them on joint first with the winning Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE). Could things have been different? Well, we will never know but with the benefit of hindsight it does appears that moving Angie down the list was a bad move. Now, obviously certain voters were not impressed with the Partido Popular´s performance over Magalluf but there was also a good degree of voter apathy. The President of the Partido Popular, Jose Ramon Bauza, said after the election debacle on Sunday that his party had “obviously done something wrong.” Yes, he is right. I think that the biggest mistake made by the Partido Popular was that they failed to listen. They failed to listen to the people who mattered, the voters.