Deja vu - again!

 

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!