There was a time (I’m sure that
there was a time) when Corporal Jones’s hysterical injunction in Dad’s Army “Don’t panic!” was
funny. We could laugh at his over
reaction to all and every situation as he blindly staggered around in all
directions! Now his gibbering proclamations
seem to be the absolute norm as each new day brings in news of yet another
backward, self-harming, political disaster.
The seemingly inexorable slide to the right of people as they feel that traditional
politics has done nothing for them is horrific.
The latest backward step has been
taken in Spain, to be specific in Andalusia in the south of the country. This region is the most populous in Spain and
has been ruled by PSOE (the so-called Socialist party of Spain) for over thirty
years. As with all political groupings
that have had power for so long, Andalusia is full of crony-corruption and the
word “socialist” is the title of the party is a grotesque misnomer.
Years of mismanagement came to
head in the local elections on Sunday.
Added to mismanagement of the region, you could consider the fact that
this is the first real opportunity to give a reaction to the “Socialist” Prime
Minister who has taken over from the irredeemably corrupt PP group of
conservatives; an opportunity for disenchanted (ha!) PP voters to move over to
another right-wing party like the sluttish Ciudadanos party who will link with
anyone if they can get a whiff of power and, for the first time since the
demise of the dictatorship in Spain, an extreme right party Vox.
Both PP and PSOE have lost seats,
so the only way that the party can retain power is by joining with another
party. Podemos is the most left-wing
mainstream (sort of) party in Spain, but even if PSOE and Podemos joined together,
they would not be able to gain a majority.
On the other wing, the three parties of the right and extreme right
would have a majority if they decided to work together.
| Seats | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSOE–A | 30.28% | |||
| PP | 23.85% | |||
| Cs | 19.27% | |||
| AA | 15.60% | |||
| Vox | 11.01% | |||
| Popular vote | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSOE–A | 27.95% | |||
| PP | 20.75% | |||
| Cs | 18.27% | |||
| AA | 16.18% | |||
| Vox | 10.97% | |||
| PACMA | 1.93% | |||
| Others | 2.38% | |||
| Blank ballots | 1.58% | |||
In response to the situation in
Catalonia and the strength of the independence movement there has been a marked
growth in nationalistic politics in Spain with much waving of the Spanish flag
and chanting of ¡Viva España! Both PP
and Ciudadanos have moved substantially to the right with the new leader of PP
actually saying that colonialism was not a bad thing, but was the creating of a
Greater Spain! Ciudadanos has become
more stridently anti-immigrant, and I am ashamed to admit that this discredited
party actually has the largest number of seats in Castelldefels – though no
majority and they are therefore not in power as all the other parties have
combined to keep them out. Quite rightly
too!
But it is a national disgrace
that a party like Vox has managed to gain seats in any regional
parliament. The Constitution of
democratic Spain (flawed though it is) is only 40 years old. Franco died in 1976, this is not ancient
history, how has the reality of the dictatorship become so blunted that people
can vote for a party like Vox? But they
have. And we will have to deal with the
movement that could well become a national phenomenon.
As in so many countries around
the world politics is now so divisive that reasonable discussion seems to be
beyond virtually everyone. Fact based
evaluation seems to be passé nowadays as we live in a post-truth environment
where opinion is valid and is proof enough in itself without relation to the
wider world of reality.
Vox is the shadow of fascism
rising again. Their hate filled rhetoric
utilizing all the tropes of the extreme right are depressingly familiar with
anyone who has read the history of the twentieth century.
I suppose that one of the major
differences between past situations in the twentieth century and the here and now
is the abdication of the “leader” of the free world from a collaborative
engagement as an ally with the people of the democratic world, to a detached, petty,
Twitter dominated, isolationist nationalism.
And as if the world situation was
not dire enough, I get the results from my first Catalan examination tomorrow!
