After their defeat in Germany and France a year ago and with the fast dwindling electoral base in Britain, the European social democrats are on the backfoot. Precisely, therefore, the spectacular triumph of the socialists in Spain's parliamentary election last month gives them some succour. Within days of the Madrid victory, socialists in neighbouring France won crucial mayoral posts in Paris, Lille, Toulous and Starsburg. Madame Segolene Royal, who just missed to be France's first woman head in the 21st century, has reasons to feel elated.
The Spanish parliamentary election gives message to the depressed socialists in Europe what one of their defeated kings (Bruce) had centuries ago learnt from the spider. Given the political will and a well designed election campaign, voters can be swayed by focussing on issues of mass concern. Jose Louis Rodrigues Zapatero and his Socialist Workers Party did only this. His voters displled his conservative rival Popular Party chief Mariano Rajoy's notion that
Zapatero was a "prime minister by accident." In the last election (March 2004,) an Al-Qaeda bomb blast on a Madrid train just four days before polling had moved the voters in socialist favour. (Like in Kerala in the May 1991 Assembly poll when despite pre-poll surveys favouring the Left Democratic Front, Congress victory came as Rajiv Gandhi fell to a LTTE human bomb.) The sympathy vote is not exclusive to India.
But this month's election confirms beyond doubt that Zapatero is not a prime minister by fluke. Grim and dour Rajoy never smiles so voting for him means making Spain joyless, was the socialist rejoinder. The conservatives have enough reasons to be despondent with the mass of Spain's 36 million electorate. They had campaigned for a powerful Centre, unwavering leadership to curb secessionists, like the Basques, and end of labour-intensive economy. Rajoy's party hoped the Spnish youth would stay home and not come to the polling booths. They were disenchanted because of stagnant economy, rising
unemployment and crisis in the construction industry. On the contrary the youth turned up in full strength. Generally the youth has been for socialists in Spain, as elsewhere. The appeal by the all-powerful Church to vote out the immoral who made same-sex marriage legal also did not cut much, ice. Two thirds of Spain favours gay marriages, says a survey. The American presence is all pervading in Spain and George Bush is angry with Zapatero. His first act in 2004, after assuming prime ministership, was to recall Spanish soldiers from Iraq where his pro-US predecessor Mariano Rajoy had sent them to join the European bangwagon against Saddam's socialist Iraq.
Apart from the question of mass focus on popular issues an important factor for the socialists was that the Spanish intellectuals, including lawyers, journalists, academicians, litterateurs, theatre and film personalities, appealed for voting socialists. They organised themselves into PAZ (peace) to plead with the masses to "preserve the soul of Spain." They said "no tension, no confrontation." They recalled the fascist era of Gen. Francisco Franco (1936-75) when Spain had supported neighbouring Italian fascism of Benito Mussolini and Hitler's Germany. That the
Ango-Saxon powers later supported fascist Franco for economic gains is another story. The voters' spirit was well delineated by dance company director Carmen Salinas, 73, who said : "For me voting is very important. I could not vote till I was 44." Needless to repeat that the vote was for Zapatero. Women voted for socialists overwhelmingly. Zapatero had announced equal pay for equal work, thus removing the 20 per cent differential between the
earnings of a female and a male worker. He doubled paternity leave to help husbands tend their wives.
On his part Zapatero, an advocate of conflict resolution through dialogue, never feared to negotiate but as John Kennedy, said, "not negotiated out of fear" with the Basque seperatists and the Catalans. His action of legalising the bulk of immigrants in Spain must open the eyes of the Marathi outfit in Mumbai which brands Indians as illegal immigrants.
The Spanish parliamentary elections for Indians is purposeful and significant for two reasons. A major issue before Spanish voters was whether the Church and the State should be seperate. In the 30-year-old democracy in Spain the Church has been dictating State policies, Another was should religious education in schools be limited. (Something akin to madarasas
in India.) The Spanish people gave an adverse verdict. "This is a victory for the idea of politics that defends dialogue, plurality and cohesion," said socialist spokesman Jose Blanco. Indians in the next Lok Sabha election will soon have to decide whether secularism means that the law is equal for all Indians and, not merely, that all Indians are equal before the law.
K Vikram Rao
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