Spanish elections, seen from down under
By glazou on Monday 15 March 2004, 09:48 - General - Permalink
I think our colleague Ben Goodger, who has already expressed in the past interesting opinions about european socialism, has it totally wrong about the recent spanish elections:
" Rather than think rationally, the Spanish population has acted out of fear. The general election should really have been postponed. When you let terrorists alter the way you live, you concede defeat. "
- First Ben, you can't tell Spaniards how to think or react. In fact, you don't even have any right to tell them. You don't live there, you did not live the attacks, you are too far away from the daily spanish life. Spain is a modern democracy, despite of being a kingdom, where the citizens express their will and that's the real greek concept of democracy. What _you_ are looking for is a different system. What _they_ are looking for is what they have.
- Second, postponing the elections was a way of conceding defeat. I am quoting your own words: "When you let terrorists alter the way you live, you concede defeat". In Spain, 900 people (not counting the recent 200) lost their lives in terrorist acts in the last 25 years. Europe has lived with terrorism without pause almost since the end of WW2. Spain deals with terrorism, separatism and a quite recent fascist history. So again, who are you to tell them how they should react? The answer is that simple: they react how they want.
- Then, according to many spanish political observers, JM Aznar's government really used last week's blasts in Madrid as a political mean of decreasing the Basque Separatist influence and increasing the glory of the Popular Party in its fight against terrorism.
People voted against the government for two reasons:
- most Spaniards feel the attacks are the result of the spanish involvement in the iraqi war with the US; the street was totally opposed to the war. I was in Spain at that time, I saw it. Even in small villages, people were demonstrating against the war. You can't go against the will of a so wide majority of your own population without facing trouble if you fail. Spaniards feel Aznar failed.
- most Spaniards, including many from Aznar's own party, are very upset by the political use of the blasts
So people did NOT vote like that because of fear, you totally missed the point: they voted like that because of anger. I do believe that what we saw yesterday in Spain is the sign of a healthy democracy, that Aznar played with fire against the will of the citizens. I also do believe that the Spaniards thought very rationally, and the vote is the direct continuation of the anti-war demonstrations that happened a year ago. Whether you like or not the result of the vote is another problem.
Comments
- happy that voting can be used as sanction. I despised the way Aznar's group released informations, while asking the public channel to put a documentary against ETA on TV Friday night (I think it was that day), but already having official anti-terrorrists from Maroc as early as Thursday on their terrorritory.
- not happy that the election is not based on merit but on sanction. It's like having a president elected with 80% votes, because the other candidate is an absolute no-go.
It gives you a bad taste in the end.
Too bad for Aznar, he missed his exit. Some people say: you're as good as your last job. Let's see what Aznar will do next. I heard he was to be involved in some USA-Europe interaction group.
Wonder what's this will do to George Bush elections.
[Please apologize, i barely speak english to express ideas...
]
) en Espagne. Pourtant, je me pose une question : pourquoi diables les Espagnols, qui sont contre la guerre en Irak, allaient-ils voter pourtant pour le PP comme l'indiquaient les sondages ?
Je suis content de la victoire de Zapatero ("chausurres"
Ce n'est pas le fait d'avoir été méprisé lors de l'intervention en Irak qui a été sanctionné, mais les conséquences du soutien à Bush, et le mensonge éhonté à la fin.
C'est donc bien malheureusement de l'émotion. La colère est de l'émotion. Heureusement que les voix ne se sont pas tournées vers l'extrême droite. Les Espagnols se rappellent encore de Franco, ça doit être pour ça.
I could comment in English, French, or even Dutch, but Spanish seems to be more appropriate. Excúseme para mis faltas
Mi esposa es Colombiana, y mi familia ha sufrido cada día bajo terrorismo de extremistas izquierdos y derechos. Muchos parientes y gente que conocían han muerto. Pero nunca han dado para arriba.
La observación sobre 'defeat' es típico por un gringo, alguien que nunca ha sufrido de guerra o de terrorismo. Los españoles han actuado correctamente, votando contra un governemiento que ha elegido no hacer caso de la voluntad de la gente. He estado mirando TVE todo el fin de semana, y estaba muy claro que la PP intentara influenciar los periodistas y el opninion público hasta el Domingo mañana. Uno de sus ministros llamó la demostración contra el governement de Aznars ilegal. Ésa no es democracia.
Saludo a la gente española, para tomar una decisión sabia. Ésa es democracia de verdad.
Congratulations Daniel, you have really understood what has happened in Spain this weekend.
The people didn't have fear at all of AlQaida or ETA, we've been living with terrorism for over 30 years and the people is of course afraid of such criminals, but the defeat of PP was due to their abuse and control of the media. Despite the facts that quickly showed up pointing to AlQaida as the origin of the attack they keept on saying that it was due to ETA because they knew that people would be willing to vote for them if it was ETA, but being AlQaida changed everything. People didn't want any secret pact with Bush based on lies although due to the media control the government has been able to almost "silent" any fact that showed up against them being the war against iraq, corrupt politicians or a disaster like the one of the Prestige.
But this bunch of lies was just too much they kept on saying "we're sure that it's ETA", "I have no doubt about it", while it was knew that a van with some tapes of the Coran had been found. In the public media they kept on saying that the investigations was all around ETA, and almost nothing at all was told about AlQaida.
The friday when everywhere else in the world was pointing to AlQaida the people of the PP was really upset when there was no mention of ETA, there are forums where the people was banned for saying that ETA didn't have any relation.
Even today in their page they keep an article claiming that it was ETA: www.pp.es/PartidoPopular/...
(As a side note: you can't get an .es domain with only two letters, of course unless you're the one that controls everything)
So now Spain will call back their forces from Irak as it was promised by the PSOE during the campaign, but it isn't a victory of the terrorists: Spain shouldn't have helped at all to USA to attack Irak so if you want a president that lies to the people then vote again to Bush, or we can send you Aznar there, his future it's over in Europe.
Hopefully the british will also get rid of their Bliar. I guess the PP wouldn't have lost the elections if they wouldn't have lied so blatantly. It also should be a lesson to other liars, if the truth is so distorted that people, who would otherwise not vote, start voting, they will loose the elections.
A warm welcome to "Old Europe".
I hope the right people will be sentenced...
side note: Alfonso, you can get 2 letters domains, whatever country you are from, with solid arguments. Here in france tv channel "m6" got m6.fr. It's not easy, but its doable
mat:
yes, in civilized countries you can get a 2 letter domain, but not here:
www.nic.es/ingles/rules.h...
down in 3.2.-Syntax Rules:
c. The minimum permitted length for a second level domain name is 3 characters (in order to decrease possible problems, the minimum advised is 5 characters)
Also the web that the PP created for their candidate wasn't very clear according to they rules: (sorry in Spanish)
www.internautas.org/artic...
www.internautas.org/artic...
Daniel,
What you said about Aznar does not really make sense. In all polls before the terrorist attack, Aznar's PP was ahead. This changed after the attack. So you are saying that the spaniards all of a sudden woke up and blamed Aznar for dragging them into the war? Unlikely. Since PP was ahead before the blasts, it is likely that the war wasn't a huge topic, given Spain's minor involvement. More likely is that the populace as a whole, instead of being defiant, chose to say to Al-Qaida: "Please don't hurt us". Terrorists decided this election, plain and simple.
So in a way, Ben G. is right. Maybe some more reflection may have been needed before the election.
rizzo: the spanish are not afraid, they are angry at aznar.
* because he did the war while a overwhelming majority of the population opposed it (demonstrations against the war topped almost 10% of the population, 3 to 4 million people);
* BUT ESPECIALLY, and that's what that the bombings changed, because the government tried to hide the truth by lying and saying that "they have no doubts" ETA did it.
my humble opinion. people don't like liars. no fear here.
> a overwhelming majority of the population opposed (to war)
More than 90% according to spanish media.
Rizzo:
One of the main reasons against Aznar and the PP was their lies. When they brought us to the war they said that the data against irak was the one offered by Bush, so "they didn't lie", it was a lie by Bush as it has become clear latter. But in every moment after the thursday's blasts they kept on saying that it was due to ETA, even they forced the UN to sign a resolution saying that: www.dailytimes.com.pk/def... www.alertnet.org/thenews/... although at that time the government already knew that the right track was AlQaida as they found the tapes with verses from the Coran some hours ago.
I don't think that any spaniard voted at all with fear, we know that we are only a little country and if AlQaida is gonna do a big attack then it will be against USA or UK, not us. We didn't sent any soldier to the war, the countries that sent soldiers should be much much afraid than us, and sincerely we aren't afraid at all. We are tired of the PP controlling the media. Another fact: in the sunday night after the elections they quickly cutted the TV broadcast and put a movie. It seems that a change of government isn't interesting at all.
Of course all the time since that night the media cotrolled by the PP has been saying that this was an attack against them, it's incredible the things that they are saying.
To emmanuel and Alfonso:
Ok, I'll buy that the spaniards partly voted against PP because of the post attack spinning. The other part also has to be that "this guy squared us against al-qaida and now see what happens. Let's vote against the other guy who won't be as combative".
But that just confirms what I was saying: the earlier commentary that spaniards were angry at Aznar for having dragged them into the war is silly, since PP was ahead in pre-attack polls.
Also, the thing with "they quickly cutted the TV broadcast and put a movie" is silly as well. There are about a zillion satellite dishes on spanish homes and the central channel is not the only source of info as it was before.
rizzi: See the UPI story here, www.upi.com/view.cfm?Stor...
Independent polls already suggested the PSOE taking a minor lead.
> There are about a zillion satellite dishes on spanish homes and the
> central channel is not the only source of info as it was before.
That's a joke I presume ? The cable/satellite penetration in Spain in very low, and the national hertzian channels are the source number 1 of information for the vast majority of the population.
About PP and PSOE : the _polls_ before the attack indicated that PP was leading, and less than 3 percents, down from more than 10 a month before. And???? During the french presidential elections in 2002, the _polls_ were indicating that Jospin would win over Chirac on 2nd vote day. These are only polls. And polls in Europe often got it totally wrong recently.
Furthermore, Aznar had 91% of his own population against him on the war. ***91%***. That's FAR beyond the 44% who voted PSOE, right? So I am taking polls for what they are: nation-wide extrapolations made by eggheads based on the opinion expressed by more or less one thousand persons considered "representative of the country". Right, ONE THOUSAND PERSONS. Now, what's the margin error when you extrapolate from 1000 to 41,200,000 ? Here, such polls have a margin error of 3-4%. So the margin error and PP's advantage were of same magnitude... Since 2000, in US phraseology, that's "too close to call". I am pretty sure the elections **without attacks** could have been won by PSOE too. The attacks just increased the thing, imho.
> And???? During the french presidential elections in 2002, the _polls_ were indicating that Jospin would win over Chirac on 2nd vote day.
Well, you have to be honest, you cannot take that as an example of fucked polls. Because nothing can tell you if Chirac would have been elected if Jospin was on the 2nd turn instead of Le Pen... The only way to show fucked polls is to compare one with FACTS (and in the present case, the pollers advertised that Le Pen could possibly reach the 2nd turn, even if nobody wanted to believe it...)
Anyway, 73.42% of polls are crap.
Bravo Espana!!!! Let us hope the US rids itself of the liars....
rizzo: there is no other part. there is no "let's be nice to al-qaeda".
believe it or not, there are other things happening in spain besides al-qaeda bombings. i'm not living in spain, but i understand that aznar's economical results are outstanding (biggest growth of all europe for years). people were always pissed at him due to irak.
but they said "ok, he didn't listen to us, but then again, in the end, consequences for us weren't that bad. and he did good things otherwise".
but then, when they had to pay in blood for HIS fuck-up, this irak issue became A LOT more important. and economics were not so important anymore.
again, my opinion.
Heard this morning during news report: 30 hours after the attacks, Aznar's government told the german government they had "an irrefutable proof" the ETA was guilty for the attack...
I think that the Spaniards went to vote with a mixture of emotion and cold determination. If you look at the numbers of the election, a record number of people went to vote, the concurrence was almost 10% up, which certainly is a triumph for democracy. However, everyone here is talking about PP being penalised by the voters, the fact is that PP lost less than 700.000 votes, but because most of the new voters voted to the PSOE, this party got almost 3.000.000 new votes, overpassing the PP.
Perhaps the polls were right and the bombs gave people the incentive to go and vote, exacerbated by the denial that the PP did about Al Qaeda. I don't think PSOE would have won without the attacks, but the race would have been quite close.
I think that overall Aznar did quite a good job, and he took some decisions that in the end cost him dearly, but again, I rather prefer a leader who sometimes takes risks than one that will be trying to please the people at all time.
However I don't think that Zapatero will be bad for Spain, alternance is good for a democracy, and now the PSOE and the PP know that they cannot take anything for granted.
Excerpt from AFP (sorry that's in french... babelfish it):
Cités par la chaîne de télévision publique ARD, ces responsables ont accusé Madrid de leur avoir fourni au moins à deux reprises de fausses informations concernant l'explosif utilisé, pour tenter d'impliquer l'organisation séparatiste basque ETA au détriment de la piste Al-Qaïda.
Sous couvert d'anonymat, un fonctionnaire de haut rang des services de sécurité allemands a confié à la télévision qu'il n'aurait "jusqu'alors jamais imaginé" qu'un pays allié puisse transmettre de telles fausses informations.
De leur côté, plusieurs médias espagnols se sont plaints d'avoir subi, juste après les attentats, des pressions du gouvernement pour qu'ils donnent du crédit à la piste ETA. Des correspondants étrangers ont également fait état d'un appel du secrétariat d'Etat à la Communication leur enjoignant d'écrire dans leurs articles que l'ETA était derrière les attentats.
www.lemonde.fr/web/articl...
is very interesting.
babelfish is babelfish.altavista.com/b...
I think it's quite difficult from afar understanding how things went in Spain, so it's easy to come to Ben conclusions. In fact if you read first hand spanish reports you won't find the faintest sign of fear in their decision. Aznar attitude and media complicity have augmented uncertainity in a critical situasion. As soon as things started to clarify, note that has not happened all of a sudden, confusion and grief turned in anger against Pp. At the point that i would reverse order of Glaz suggested reasons: first Aznar bad attitude in managing the crisis, second opposition to the war.
Coffeebreaks: it's always bad to vote in such a awful situation, and it's not easy to win or to lose in similar conditions. But that part of reality and it's unavoidable and it's upon reality which after all the vote is based. Or to use your words, this is part of the merit.
Rizzo: Aznar and Berlusconi involvement in the struggle against terrorism can't really be defined as combative. They adhered to the coalition to please the ally and without posing to many questions themselves, even having little interest in how things evolved in Irak. This quite the opposite of facing a menace with responsability, consciousness of the risks and firm conviction of the reasons to do it.