News, July '08

Elections 2009

On 7th June there was the European Parliament election. On 1st March there were also regional elections in the Basque Country and Galicia, two of the regions with most autonomy. One year on from the last general election, these elections have shown up the impact on public opinion of the recession and other internal and international events on the Zapatero / socialist government, now in its second term. In the European election the conservative Partido Popular won most seats and got more votes than in any previous European election. Party leader Mariano Rajoy claims the issue of values was fundamental, as the government currently has a new, freer abortion bill in parliament. The other major issue was the recession and it is clear that voters do not trust president Zapatero to lead them quickly out of the mess, being too keen on protecting privileged unionised workers.

For the European election, Spain has 50 seats, but it treats the whole country as one district, so minority parties actually have a greater chance of gaining seats than they would do in a first past the post system. Thus the conservative regionalist parties of Catalonia, the Basque Country and several other regions joined in a coalition to gain two seats, as did the left wing Izquierda Unida and a new party UPD, somewhere between the main parties, gained a seat, the last seat going to the Greens. But most voted for the two major parties, so PP (conservative) gets 23 seats and PSOE (socialist) gets 21.

In Galicia, home of the national Partido Popular leader, Mariano Rajoy, the right wing again won a majority, after the Socialist PSOE and regionalist BNG parties ran the region for the past 4 years. In the Basque Country, the right of centre regionalist PNV had been in power since the advent of democracy, but is now in the position of having won most seats, but has been unable to return to government as the 'constitutionalist' parties led by PSOE now have enough seats to rule. In the Basque Country politics has been dominated by the independence movement in which terrorist group ETA is most visible. Yet PNV also has aspirations to independence, or at least a very high level of autonomy. Against these aspirations, the 'pro-democracy' constitutionalist main-line Spanish parties have won a vote of no confidence in policies which have encouraged ETA to believe it is winning its war on Spain. Socialist Patxi Lopez has become Lehendakari from May.

EU elections: BBC Europe-wide coverage

Gibraltar is considered part of SW England! -BBC comment. So the English MEP will have a good excuse to charge for holidays in the sun.

Regional Election : See the comment on the results from the BBC.
The Economist comment