Quote (zarkadon @ 21 Jun 2018 19:20)
Some spanish news:
As I said recently, Rajoy stepped down from his leadership of his party (PP). He has decided to return to his position of land registrator in the small town of Santa Pola, which he left 25 years ago to become a politician... even though I'm not a great fan of his job as president, I have to admit that it's a nice and humble gesture on his part, as he has preferred to return to his old job rather than retiring and enjoying the huge retirement salary all presidents are entitled to.
But this is not what this post is about.... I'm going to talk to you about his succession. For the first time in the party's history, there will be primaries to elect the next party leader. Until now, the regional leaders and their cronies would meet up in a convention and discuss who should be their leader, in a fashion similar to how the Pope is elected. This time there will be a first round of votes where all of the party members (anyone who pays the annual quota) has the right to vote, and if nobody wins with over 50% of the votes (or in over 50% of the constituencies), there will be a second round... although in this second round, only the territorial delegates will vote.
The first round of votes will be held on the 5th of July, and there are 7 candidates:
1. Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría (47 years old). She was Rajoy's Vice President and right hand. She had very few allies inside the party until Rajoy gave her all that power... now she has purged many of her opponents and has gathered support from several important members of the party. She has a very solid chance to win. Her main drawback is that she's Rajoy 2.0... at least so far, she has done nothing, and just waited for things to get fixed by themselves. She is also hated by much of the party, due to her purges. She's pretty progressive though.
2. Maria Dolores de Cospedal (53 years old). She is currently in charge of the party's organization. This position has allowed her to gather a lot of support from different regional leaders, which gives her a very strong chance of winning. Her main drawback is that she was the one in charge of defending the party in all those cases of corruption, which has seriously harmed her image among the people. She's also very cold, and is seen as "too sophisticated" and aristocratic. Another issue is that she leads much of the "resistance" sentiment against the purges Soraya made... if she won, or if Soraya won, the party could face serious internal divisions.
3. Pablo Casado (37 years old). The youngest candidate, he was one of the government's spokesmen during Rajoy's presidency. He is very liberal (in an economic sense) and pretty unitarian, always demanding a strong hand against separatists. He's supposedly pretty close to former president Aznar, who has been Rajoy's worst enemy over the last few years. The party youths seem to love him, and that should give him a solid chance to win. His youthful image should help him compete with the leader of the centrist C's (which, according to polls, has snatched around 20-25% of PP's voters over the last year), and his hardline message could hurt the right wing party VOX, that feeds on the most nationalist voters, which are upset on Rajoy's lack of action regarding Catalonia. His main drawback is that he's currently under investigation due to accusations of having faked a post-graduate title. If he turns out to be guilty, he would be finished.
4. José Manuel García-Margallo (73 years old). The oldest candidate by a mile, but also the most reformist. He's a centrist christian democrat, and has long demanded that PP should lead a movement to "adapt the constitution to the 21st century". Despite having a good relationship with the former president, he has criticized Rajoy's lack of social reforms and has a personal feud with Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, and he accuses her of his sacking as Minister of Foreign Affairs. His main draw back is that he has little support within the party... most of his allies are on Cospedal's boat.
5. Jose Ramón García Hernández (47 years old). The most conservative candidate. He defends catholic and family values. He has the support of several of the older and most conservative party members, but he shouldn't have much of a chance of getting past the first round.
6. José Luis Bayo (39 years old). Another reformist candidate. He wants to renew the party, keeping it's conservative essence, but "adapting it to the new social changes in the country". Not much is known about him beyond that, and he shouldn't have much of a chance.
7. Elio Cabanes (44 years old). The most unknown candidate. He seems very critical with the party's structure... he says there is too much bureaucracy, and advocated for greater direct democracy. I don't know much about his ideals, but his campaign is so far centered around the fight against corruption, bureaucracy and the establishment.
I personally don't plan on voting PP, but it's undeniable that this party has a strong influence on spanish politics, regardless of them being part of the government or not. I think it will be interesting to see how one of the two main parties of Spain decides to focus it's strategy towards the next elections. In an era where many right wing parties are shifting towards euroscepticism and anti-immigration, it's interesting that all of the candidates here are strong supporters of the EU (Margallo even wants our constitution to state that we are part of the EU), and most of them have openly criticized the "lack of solidarity" of the italian government during the Aquarius crisis.
Update on the primaries of PP, the main right-wing party in Spain:
Looks like they'll have to chose between either Rajoy 2.0, or the most unitary and right-wing candidate (from a liberal perspective). I don't think that either option is good for the party, and C's can hurt them if they lean more towards the right end of the spectrum, but we'll see... PP has a lot of loyal voters that will keep backing the party no matter what.