Landing of the "spare wheels" of Spanish bipartisanship

The Spanish electoral system favors a political spectrum, called bipartisanship by some, that goes a little further. The reality is that spaces are made for the government group, the opposition group, and a third group called the Mixed group.

Until now we have suffered the alternation of the right, represented by AP or PP, the pseudo-left of the social democrats of the PSOE, under the watchful eye and the circumstantial collaboration of a left coming from the remains of the PCE that operates under the name of United Left (IU).

Faced with a general disenchantment with the government and the opposition, little by little, new political options are emerging, but now without a clear ideological definition: the dissidents of the PSOE, called UPyD, and the Ibero hippies of Podemos, who define themselves as an assembly and citizen organization, with a program more full of gaps than of contents that can identify them ideologically, which have been fed, evidently, by former PSOE voters and more; as well as that new IU that will have to debate a lot about whether to bring its position closer to the social democrats, to maintain the level or take root in the classic pseudo-Marxist discourse and risk it.

For those of us who feel in the Canary Islands, which they feel "so far away", the panorama does not change much. Only that the direct heirs of the time of the old Franco regime seem to be beginning to be displaced by other options, distributing the vote in such a way that the apparent political maturity seems to be heading towards multi-partyism, rejecting the formula promulgated by the Spain of the transition, only turning the old mixed group into the strongest.

The results of these European elections are not reliable to us and, what is more, we can describe them as insignificant. With a tiny representation of the pro-independence voter who, although he seems to come of age in each "Local" vote, the transcontinental Parliament is somewhat repulsive to him and it is logical.

However, the threats of UPyD and Podemos to do politics in the Canary Islands do have to be a wake-up call for the pro-independence supporters. Since around here more Spanish exaltations are unnecessary. In addition, those who "came from the left" and are now called UPyD have disqualified themselves with their representatives in the archipelago. Just like those who have supported Podemos, hand in hand with the circle of friends of that "progressive" judge who sentences the five union members for demonstrating peacefully in the public headquarters of the Canarian Confederation of Businessmen: the aforementioned Meri Pita and her colleague Judge Victoria Rosell. That is the people who supported a candidacy where the first Canarian appeared at number 41 on the list. And we are talking about a bank financial advisor, who in the interview that the Diario de Avisos does, when asked about the ideology of his party, responds "the important thing now is not that, but the vertical axis, those above and those below, and, in fact, people who voted for the PP also go to our circles, and many disillusioned people from the PSOE or IU".

Well, with that solidity they threaten to present themselves to the locals hand in hand with IU. And now I tremble, for the Spanish communist militants and for the disenchantment that the new invention may cause and that it reaches the locals, to end up becoming the spare wheel of the same system that we have now. Everything suggests that it could be like that... or it can be, or you can... that I'm not going to get into that.

 

Pedro González Cánovas

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