A small fillip for the opposition
Rajoy wins one, at lastIT TAKES more than an economic crisis to revolutionise Spanish politics. Bombs, like those that killed 191 people on Madrid trains in 2004, can topple governments. But unemployment at 18% does not. So the European elections, which gave the opposition People’s Party (PP) a modest four-point victory, suggest. Yet the PP’s win was significant. This is the first national vote it has won over José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s Socialists in nine years. “A majority have expressed their will for change,” said the PP leader, Mariano Rajoy.
Has the tide turned? There are plenty of ills to worry about. One in five Spaniards will soon be out of work. Economists predict that Spain will be one of the last rich countries to emerge from the recession. Some 30% of children leave school without qualifications. Only 5% of exports are high-tech, and research spending is feeble. More than a million new homes sit unsold. Meanwhile a large part of the workforce is protected by armour-clad contracts.
Yet the PP’s modest win does not mean that all Spaniards want change. It will help Mr Rajoy to see off both critics and potential challengers. It will also boost the PP’s confidence as it tries to trip Mr Zapatero up in parliament, where he is seven seats short of a majority. What it will not do is put Mr Zapatero’s back against the wall. Indeed, with a general election still three years off, he may have time to see the recession through. Even the glummest economists do not see it lasting until 2012.
Spain takes over the six-month rotating European Union presidency in January, offering Mr Zapatero photo opportunities galore with world leaders. His party machine is already trying to sell him as “Europe’s Obama”. He has serious business to attend to at home—which an absence of elections should make easier. First is the parlous state of some savings banks. Spanish banks may have avoided subprime excesses, but home-made poisons are floating to the surface. The Caja Castilla La Mancha was only the first to fall; more may soon be in trouble and a €9 billion ($13 billion) rescue fund is in the pipeline.
A longer-term task is to transform Spain’s low-tech economy. Mr Zapatero promises a sustainable-economy law but has given few details. He has no desire to confront the unions, so radical labour-market reform is unlikely. Real change might require him to make enemies. He has shown no appetite for that.