domingo, 17 de abril de 2016

Spain counts cost of inevitable new elections


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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