Tag Archives: PSdeG

Galicia, Spain

Economy and budget woes, not regional independence, mark Galicia’s election campaigns

4 Comments

Galicia, this Sunday, joins Euskadi (i.e., the Basque Country) in holding regional elections, each of which will have national significance for the center-right government of prime minister Mariano Rajoy.

But unlike in Euskadi and especially in the upcoming November elections in Catalunya, the election in Galicia isn’t about the increasingly polarized fight over regional autonomy and independence, but about the budget priorities of the national and Galician government at a time of prolonged economic duress.

In Galicia, Rajoy’s home region, polls have consistently shown that the center-right government of Galician president Alberto Núñez Feijóo (pictured above) will win by law the largest share of the vote, although it will need to win an absolute majority of the 75 seats in the Parlamento de Galicia in order to continue governing Galicia — the difference between 37 seats and 38 seats could mean the difference between government and opposition.

Since Feijóo announced the early elections last month, polling has shown remarkably stable support for Feijóo’s party, the Partido Popular de Galicia (PPdeG, the People’s Party of Galicia), the Galician branch of Rajoy’s own Partido Popular (PP, People’s Party).

But if the PPdeG wins less than 38 seats on Sunday, the three opposition parties could unite to form a leftist coalition.

For example, the center-left Partido dos Socialistas de Galicia (PSdeG-PSOE, Socialist Party of Galicia), the Galician version of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) and the nationalist Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG, the Galician Nationalist Bloc), a nationalist Galician party, which also tilts to the left, formed a narrow one-seat governing coalition from 2005 to 2009.  That coalition was Galicia’s first center-left government since the normalization of democratic politics in Spain in the early 1980s.

In addition, the Esquerda Unida-Izquierda Unida (EU-IU, the United Left), the regional variation of the stridently leftist Izquierda Unida (IU, United Left), essentially the remnants of Spain’s communist party, looks set to win its first seats ever in Galicia, reflecting a nationwide resurgence for the radical left in the wake of four years of economic depression, unemployment and increasingly stringent budget cuts from governments of both the center-left and center-right.

As such, the Galician election is the first major electoral test for Rajoy’s government, which is already unpopular in its first year after passing increasingly severe austerity measures.  If Feijóo loses the election, it will an incredible embarrassment, given that it’s Rajoy’s home base (he once served in the Galician parliament) and Galicia has long been a traditional center-right stronghold in Spain.

In some ways, the Galician election is for Rajoy and the PP what the earlier March 2012 regional elections in the left-leaning Andalucía region of southern Spain were for the PSOE.  In that election, the PP marked its best performance yet — winning three more seats than the PSOE.  Although the PSOE continues to govern in coalition with the Andalucian version of the United Left, and the PP did not win an absolute majority of seats, as some had predicted, it marked a low point for the PSOE in what should be its traditional stronghold. Continue reading Economy and budget woes, not regional independence, mark Galicia’s election campaigns →

Galicia, Spain

Galicia regional elections will be the first test of Rajoy’s austerity measures

2 Comments

Galicia’s premier Alberto Núñez Feijóo on Monday announced that his province, too, would join the Basque Country in holding early regional elections on October 21, rather than waiting for his term to run out in March 2013.

In so doing, Feijóo (pictured above, right) who hails from the center-right Partido Popular de Galicia (PPdeG, the People’s Party of Galicia), the local version of Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy’s Partido Popular (PP, People’s Party), has launched the first electoral test for Rajoy’s government, after just eight months in office.

Given Rajoy’s ties to Galicia and its status as a traditional PPdeG stronghold, it’s very much more fraught for Rajoy (pictured above, left) than the simultaneous Basque election, where two nationalist parties lead polls and where unique local and autonomy issues will figure nearly as much as national issues.

Rajoy’s party won the Spanish general election in November 2011, but his government is already facing mounting unpopularity as it’s made increasing cuts to the Spanish budget, notwithstanding an economy that’s back in recession — the economy has contracted by 0.7% so far this year and grew just 0.4% in 2011 — and an unemployment rate of 24.8%, as of June.

So far, Rajoy has pushed through at least four different austerity packages, designed to bring the Spanish deficit to just 6.3% of Spanish GDP, down from an 8.9% deficit in 2011.  Rajoy has raised the Spanish income tax rate, raised the Spanish value-added tax by 3% to 21%, eliminated tax breaks for home owners and reduced spending on education and health care — and that comes after two years of cuts implemented by the government of Rajoy’s predecessor, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

For all its efforts, Spain is still straining under yields on its sovereign debt that rose from 5% (on 10-year bonds) when Rajoy entered office to 6.5% now, down from a crisis-level high of around 7.5% in mid-July.  So notwithstanding the harsh austerity, it seems more likely than not that Spain will seek a bailout from the European Union, possibly later this year — earlier in June, the European Central Bank intervened to provide funds for ailing Spanish banks.  That, too, has caused Rajoy to lose credibility after promising that he would never seek a bailout during his campaign.

The austerity push has affected the regions, which are responsible for cutting their own budgets to a combined 1.5% of GDP, and Galicia has not been unaffected by cuts at the regional level.

Since the end of the Franco era, the PPdeG has been out of power for just four years.  As such, it will be somewhat of an embarrassment if Feijóo and the PPdeG cannot win reelection in a region that’s historically been a bastion of Spanish conservatism — Rajoy himself is from Galicia and who once himself served in the Parlamento de Galicia.  Continue reading Galicia regional elections will be the first test of Rajoy’s austerity measures →