Spain
counts cost of inevitable new elections
Spain’s
bickering politicians can’t even agree on how to keep campaign
costs down.
By DIEGO TORRES
4/18/16, 5:32 AM CET
MADRID — New
elections in Spain look almost inevitable after four months of failed
coalition talks. The battle is now shifting to a new front: how to
organize and pay for the vote.
The politicians are
coming up with rival proposals for keeping the financial cost down —
and, as in the coalition dance, can’t agree with each other where
to come up with the nearly €190 million to fund a second election
in six months, barring a last-minute miracle to form a government.
The poll would likely be held June 26.
The December
elections cost the state €130 million. On top of that, parties can
apply for about €60 million in total in campaign funding, with the
level of subsidies depending on the number of votes and assembly
seats each party has, and the expenses it can justify. Private
donations are limited to €10,000 euro per person and anonymous
allowances are banned.
The politicians’
inability to agree on proposals for lowering these costs undermine
hopes that the demolition of the two-party system in December’s
elections could herald a new age of consensus-building and
transparency. The right-of-center Popular Party and their traditional
Socialist (PSOE) rivals on the left have to share the main stage with
two new challengers, the business-friendly Ciudadanos (Citizens) and
the far-left Podemos (We Can).
“Citizens
should not pay for the irresponsibility of those who have driven us
to new elections” — Antonio Hernando, PSOE speaker
From the
conservative PP, which came first in December but lost its majority
in parliament, acting Justice Minister Rafael Catalá suggested
shortening the official election campaign, which in Spain’s case
normally lasts only two weeks anyway, so as not “to bother [voters]
so much.”
That proposal,
however, could favor acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s PP
because on current form it would increase its share of the vote in
fresh elections, especially if its smaller rivals have less time to
campaign against it.
Pedro Sánchez’s
PSOE quickly denounced this option as illegal. The Socialists came
came second in December, and signed a coalition agreement with Albert
Rivera’s Ciudadanos, but then failed to enroll Pablo Iglesias’
Podemos in order to put an end to the impasse.
The PSOE’s speaker
at the Congress, Antonio Hernando, said this would be unlawful; he
proposed instead cutting back on public subsidies for political
parties’ campaign mailing expenses. “Citizens should not pay for
the irresponsibility of those who have driven us to new elections,”
he said.
At Ciudadanos, the
organizing secretary Fran Hervías told POLITICO the party could
agree to streamlining mailing costs, but since there’s no time to
change the electoral law, shortening the campaign would depend on a
gentleman’s agreement — which he considered unlikely in the
current political climate.
‘Closer to Italy’
Manuel Arias,
politics professor at the University of Málaga, said the inability
of leaders to find common ground is providing the country with what
he said was a much-needed dose of reality.
“It is
self-delusion to think that the fragmentation of parliament will
automatically drive to more understanding and consensus-based
agreements among leaders,” he said. Instead, Arias said, Spain’s
situation can be described as one of “aggressive pluralism” in
which all political forces are artificially exaggerating their
ideological differences.
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“We are closer to
Italy than to Denmark,” he concluded.
If the past weeks
are any guide, much of the coming campaign will deal with
apportioning blame for the failure of coalition talks and with the
economic costs of the months of political uncertainty.
Businesses are
worried about the political stalemate’s impact on the Spanish
economy, which recovered from recession to grow 3.2 percent in 2015.
However, the country still has more than 4 million people unemployed
and last week the International Monetary Fund downgraded Spain’s
growth forecast for 2016 to 2.6 percent from 2.7 percent.
Political forces
have until May 2 to try and break the political deadlock and avoid
new elections. Kiko Llaneras, a politics professor at the University
of Girona, said that two weeks ago he would have put the odds of a
last-minute agreement at about 50 percent, but now he sees it as
“very difficult.”
Most
polls indicate that Mariano Rajoy’s ‘wait-and-see’ strategy
during the coalition talks could pay dividends.
A recent survey by
Llaneras for the newspaper El Español showed that, even if most
citizens want to avoid new elections, all the possible coalition
combinations have more opponents than supporters — reflecting what
he said was the genuine depth of feeling among citizens but also
political leaders’ unwillingness to take a risk and suggest
unpopular coalition options to their supporters.
Rajoy’s confidence
Most polls indicate
that Mariano Rajoy’s “wait-and-see” strategy during the
coalition talks could pay dividends if it does come to new elections.
As leader of the largest party, the acting Spanish premier rejected
an offer by King Felipe to try to form a ruling coalition and has
spent the last four months watching Socialist leader Sánchez failed
in his attempts.
Not even the
numerous corruption cases and scandals surrounding Partido Popular in
recent months – the latest blow being the resignation last Friday
of industry minister José Manuel Soria over links to offshore
companies revealed in the Panama Papers — has taken a toll on
Rajoy’s popularity.
Lucía Méndez, a
political analyst for the newspaper El Mundo, said many in the PP are
not convinced that the party would fare better in new elections, but
Rajoy himself is sure of that, and recent polls tend to strengthen
his position.
A poll for newspaper
El Mundo put the PP in the lead with 128 seats in Congress, up from
the 123 it won in December’s vote, followed by the PSOE, unchanged
with 90 seats. Ciudadanos would see its share of seats rise to 52 —
from 40 at present — while Podemos would see its seats shrink
drastically to 49 from 69.
Such a result would
make a center-right coalition between Rajoy’s PP and Rivera’s
Ciudadanos almost inevitable, unless they want to be blamed for
shouldering the Spanish economy and its taxpayers with an even
greater cost from all the political uncertainty.
Authors:
Diego Torres
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