Spasmodic Spain

A stroll through Spain’s Christmas-decorated streets is enough to appreciate, at first glance, the economic upturn: reopened stores, people burdened with shopping-bags, unpredictable traffic jams and a vibrant holiday atmosphere. Conservative President Rajoy, hated by the local press, has begun to tackle the severe economic crash, putting Spain back on the European map, complying with the EU agreements and demonstrating that Spain is not a peripheral failure comparable to Greece.

Under the right-wing Popular Party, for the first time in democratic Spain, young rookies like Pablo Iglesias and Albert Rivera have been able to approach the power elite. Finally, Spain appeared to be a democratically mature country, a doubly admirable accomplishment given the high rates of unemployment and the still existing effects of the recession. But in politics doing a good job is as necessary as explaining it. Mariano Rajoy has not managed to detach himself successfully from the cloud of corruption that overhangs his party, nor has he managed to expose clearly –day by day, month by month– all he has done since November 2011, actually quite a lot.

The general elections have left the country stuck in a messy political fragmentation. If Rajoy fails to form a government, the result will be a considerable setback for Spain. The frivolity of much of the Spanish press –hysterically critical of this government for four long years– is one of the undoubted reasons for this debacle. The country’s political immaturity recurs with the hopelessness of a conservative/socialist coalition that would bring the country out of the post-electoral impasse. While an ecstatic Pablo Iglesias celebrates his triumphant entry to Parliament –with 69 seats out of 350– and a happy Albert Rivera rejoices over his minor 40-seat inauguration, world headlines talk of economical instability, weakness and chaos.