CORRUPTION – A REAL DANGER TO SPANISH DEMOCRACY

Spaniards are not a corrupt people but sadly some of their politicians are. The problem is there is not a corrupt political party but bad apples in every party.

There has always been a low level of corruption in Spanish political society. The party in power at the town hall was always expected to look after “the family” of those who supported it. However before we Anglo-Saxons become too smug let us remember our own saying “it’s not what you know but who you know” which applies as much in Britain and it does in Spain.

The corruption that now endangers Spanish democracy is not the small “favours” but the large scale fraud that has been witnessed in Marbella, Estepona, Manilva and in town halls throughout Spain. This is largely based on illegal town planning deals that have gone to swell the off-shore bank accounts of the perpetrators including mayors and councillors whilst leaving the municipalities bankrupt with the local residents picking up the crippling tab.

In the dock working from left to right are PSOE, Partido Andalucista, Partido Popular plus GIL and post-GIL councillors of deceased maverick Marbella mayor Jesús Gil who have left their mark along the Costa del Sol. They have all been caught not with their hands in the till but with the actual till. This leaves the Spanish citizen and foreign resident at a total loss as to who to trust, who to vote for.

In my own municipality I would tend to support PSOE but because of the actions of the previous mayor I have tactically voted PA and Izquierda Unida at recent elections. However in the neighbouring municipality of Gaucín it is the Partido Andalucista that is at the very heart of the problem.

After the last election the socialists and PP formed an unlikely left-right coalition to keep the Partido Andalucista out of power. The PA mayor, Francisco Corbacho, faced trial and has since been barred from office for misusing town hall funds but is appealing the court ruling so is still a councillor. His fellow PA councillors have been accused of various town planning offences.

Recently the PP withdrew from the coalition but said it would vote with the minority PSOE administration. Then one of the two PP councillors broke ranks and last week Francisco Ruiz was elected mayor with the support of the PA councillors led by Corbacho who will now occupy the real seats of power in the municipality. The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum and Francisco Ruiz this weekend placed town planning at the top of the agenda and declared “El nuevo PGOU es vital, aquí comemos de la construcción.”

Gaucín is a rural municipality and the level of corruption is small beer when compared with Marbella and Estepona on the nearby coast. However this corruption is at the very heart of local society and those who support the PA in Gaucín back a corrupt party whilst those in neighbouring municipalities do not.

At the time of the discovery of the missing funds I lived in the same valley as Corbacho’s father. The word was that his father was beside himself with worry as he had to mortgage his home and land to raise the money to return the missing amount to the coffers. Therefore the notion that these crimes of greed are “victimless crimes” is nonsense. Corbacho’s father was a victim as too are the residents of bankrupt municipalities that owe millions, can’t provide a decent level of service, where the town hall workers are often unpaid and the municipal tax and other bills are huge.

There have already been major demonstrations in Marbella and Estepona by ordinary residents against those involved in the corruption scandals at their town halls. That is fine but the time is not far off when the people, who are being hit hard in their pockets, will be at a total loss as to who can be trusted and who can safely be entrusted with power unless drastic steps are taken by the major political parties to put their own houses in order. To date there is little sign of that despite pious words. If that breakdown in society comes it will be democracy that pays the price and we should fear even more the person who will be waiting in the wings to offer peace and stability to a traumatised nation.

NECK AND NECK

It was just a year ago that Gordon Brown became Britain’s prime minister, Labour had a commanding lead over the Tories and he was being urged to call a general election so he’d have his own mandate. A year on his party is loosing safe seats in England and Scotland, Labour’s popularity is at an all time low and his own personal rating is zilch!

The same economic crisis that has hit Britain so hard is also being felt in Spain. However whilst the popularity of the ruling socialists has dipped the right of centre Partido Popular is hardly racing ahead.

Indeed just months after the general election Spain’s two main political parties are now running at neck and neck. In April PSOE commanded 43.6 per cent of the vote and the Partido Popular 37.6 but they are now both on the 39.5 mark with the socialists ahead by a whisker.

The drop in the governing party’s fortunes has been laid at the door of the economic crisis. However whilst the socialist’s popularity has dropped by four per cent the PP has only jumped by two per cent.

The poll was carried out by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas between July 7 and 13.

On the results the vice president of the government, Fernández de la Vega said: “We are in a complicated economic situation, and as has happened in similar situations in the past, this contaminates the public’s perception.”

For its part the Partido Popular opposition through its secretary general in Congress, José Luis Ayllón declared: “It is evident that the confidence of Spaniards is in free fall and they consider that the government is inactive in the face of all these real problems.”

So has the far left Izquierda Unida benefited from the country’s economic woes? Hardly! Its support has only risen from 3.9 to 4.8 per cent over the same period. Mind you if you were a spin doctor you could claim a near 25 per cent increase. Or is it 33 per cent? No good asking me I’m just a hack and barely passed my London Secondary Schools Exam in Maths in 1965 –so what do I know?

PARTY, PARTY, PARTY

Some 25 years ago I knew a man who was a Conservative councillor. The slight problem was he was a socialist and probably still is. He knew that in the area in which he lived a Labour candidate would never be elected so he joined the Tories, became local branch chairman, then a District councillor and then a County Councillor.

As he may still hold that post I will say no more as I do not want to embarrass him. In truth I have to say that the people he represented have not done badly by him. He lives in the heart of his ward, has defended their interests and has only abandoned them to tow the party line when it was wise to do so.

All this came to mind because the mayor of the inland Málaga town of Ronda is a member of the Partido Andalucista. I was going to say he was a leading light in the party but as it was decimated at last year’s local and regional government elections that might be overstating his role.

Now the Partido Andalucista, as its name suggests, is dedicated to promoting the interests of the people of Andalucía. Hence when those same people totally reject the PA at the polls leaving it with no MPs in the Andalucía parliament then the game is up.

Recently the party elected a new leader and is thinking deeply about its future. The mayor of Ronda, Antonio Marín Lara, has another solution. He has suggested that he, along with some of his PA councillors, might quit the party, become a ‘mixed group’ on the council, before joining with the socialists of PSOE.

Now it so happens that Marín has recently formed a coalition in Ronda between his party and PSOE, so they jointly govern with the socialists holding some of the top posts. That came about after he surprised one and all, and especially the councillors of the centre-right Partido Popular, by breaking his coalition with them. They had been in coalition with Marín both before the local elections and after - they also had held some of the key positions.

Before those elections Marín had suggested that perhaps he and his councillors might quit the PA and join the Partido Popular. However the prospect was not warmly welcomed by the PP. As it happens the PA are probably more ideologically aligned with PSOE rather than the PP, a party that is a staunch defender of a centralised Spain.

Of course coalitions are formed so that a party can keep power and other smaller parties can attain power, which they’d never achieve in their own right. In politics power is everything. Politicians will jump in to bed with some unlikely partners to achieve it or retain it. They will explain this by saying they are acting in the interests of the local electors. Of course, they are acting solely in their own interest. They know that, we know that, but being politicians – they wouldn’t dare say it.