Now, you could be asking how this might affect you – you don’t follow politics in your home country so you are certainly not interested here… but imagine if you were living in Greece instead of Spain.
The terms being used that best describes the 2012 Andalusian Elections is: bitter victory; sweet defeat, as in effect, the opposition won, but not by enough and the Government lost but have not been dislodged.
Conservative candidate, Javier Arenas, has failed four times to take the presidency, which in political terms will probably have him seriously considering retiring from candidacy, as he was already known as the eternal candidate before this latest failure.
The actual President or regional first minister, if you prefer, Sr Griñan had been written off, even by his own party in Madrid, but he is still hanging on.
A ‘Healthy’ Defeat
Probably the most important way in which the results of these regional election will effect us is how our regional health service works; Motril hospital and our medical centres. The Central Government began its legislature by introducing drastic cuts to government spending and many expected worse to come, as the Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, refused to disclose the content of his annual budget until after these very same elections.Yet this postponement strategy appears to have backfired, as demonstrated by the election results, perhaps.
The keystone of the socialist campaign was that they would defend the Andalusian health system to the death from the Central Government’s feared and undisclosed cuts. Does Madrid intend to introduce copago, (health service users have to make a contribution towards prescribed medicine)? Will the Junta be able to maintain the present excellent standard of the regional health system? The answer to both is that we don’t know; time will tell.
What took a toll on the conservative effort to take the socialist’s last bastion in Spain, so to speak, was Mr Rajoy’s sincerity or the value of his word: whilst in opposition he constantly hammered away that any rise in taxes would be calamitous for the economy and that if he came to power (which he did) he would never, ever, do this. Yet, literally days after coming to power he did precisely that. For this reason his promises to not make cuts in the health and education sectors have left many uneasy.
Javier Arenas, who is without doubt rethinking his future, repeatedly pointed out, “I don’t want to win the elections; I want to win the presidency.” Nobody can accuse him of not being a realist. He knows that the left is more than just the PSOE and that he needed an absolute majority of 55 parliamentary seats to prevent a defeated PSOE being rescued by an Izquierda-Unida backed coalition.
The British are past masters at turning defeat into victory (Dunkirk) or even writing stirring poems about them (The Charge of the Light Brigade). In the same manner, the socialists are the happiest losers around. The glum faces are being worn by others…
(News: Andalucia)