This is no time for snail's paced politics in Spain. And if Spaniards were so afraid of politicians taking their time, they might decide to vote in alternative parties to the ruling Socialists who can work with awesome efficiency, or can they? The general elections are scheduled for March 2012. Spain hardly is undergoing a sort of hyperactive stasis. Slow politics might be the very undoing of the Socialist government in Spain. The results of this week's Spanish municipal elections severely restrict the Socialist Party's room for manoeuvre. The ruling Socialists under the leadership of the charismatic Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero captured only a handful of Spain's 17 regional legislatures. The municipal election results left the humbled Socialists without a single important mayor's office. In other words, this week's poll results were a veritable catastrophe as far as the Socialists were concerned. The main Spanish parties hardly had time to settle on their campaign strategies that seemed to have served the opposition Populist Party (PP) excellently. Socialist voters abstained, leaving the field open to the PP and other contenders. The PP scooped 38 per cent of the vote, the Socialists lagged behind in second place with 28 per cent, followed by the United Left with 6.3 per cent, headed by the Communists, which increased its vote. Four other parties, mostly regional spoilers, snatched the remaining 30 per cent. Populists saw their strength in the polls as support for reflexive opposition to whatever the Socialists proposed. And, the Socialists' response to the massive public protests that rocked Spanish cities appears to be muddled. Spaniards are protesting against the conditions by which they live. Europe is not immune to the uprisings besetting Arab countries. Spain's geographical proximity to North Africa and its historical links to the Arab world, coupled with its dire economic circumstances make it the perfect European candidate to catch the Arab uprising bug. The Socialists, for their part, rightly chose not to campaign on their dismal record and to be virtually silent on what they plan to do in the future. The Socialists seem to have forgotten that the Spanish electorate, even though disappointed with Socialist rule, is equally disgusted with the right-wing Populists. The Socialists miscalculated, lost many supporters, and the Populists held their own rather than garnering the protest votes. There was a lesson here: had the Socialists advocated specific policies to win public support they would have avoided such a humiliating defeat at the polls. Spain's capacity to comply with deficit reduction targets is now seriously compromised, since none of the major Spanish parties has concrete economic policies. Both the PP and the Socialists will be forced to find coalition partners from among the spoilers. Yet the Socialists say they have no option now but to try and meet the country's crippling deficit reduction targets under pressure from the wealthier northern European nations spearheaded by Germany. This will be a formidable task for the Socialist government of a country that has avoided serious economic reform ever since it joined the eurozone in 1999. Though not yet willing to go into detail about its planned economic stimulus, the Socialist government of Spain is underlining two key points. First, that the proposed stimulus is going to be exceptionally large. Second, that it will provide for massive new investment in infrastructure. But, how will the Socialists manage such an impossible task? The big infrastructure component is a dicey subject. Spain's economic burst of growth in the 1980s and 1990s was driven in part by its construction boom. The protesters could not care less if the Socialists or the Populists won. They are unemployed youth deeply concerned about their abysmal future employment prospects. The unemployment rate in Spain is 44 per cent, double the European Union average. Some five million Spaniards are jobless and most of these are young, well- educated and ambitious. Small wonder then that the Populists won their best results in municipal elections since Spain emerged as a fully-fledged Western multi-party democracy in 1978 after the demise of the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, who would no doubt have been delighted by the results of this week's poll. PP leader Mariano Rajoy was ecstatic. Indeed, the Spanish public seems to support him, but not because of his right-wing policies, but just to spite the Socialists and their leader Zapatero. The results of this week's poll provided a key indication of the extent to which the Socialist government has lost support as a consequence of failing to resolve Spain's intractable economic challenges. Why were know-it-all Socialist economists and policymakers voted in by the Spanish electorate in the first place and why did they perform so abysmally? Hopes were high when the economy was growing at a galloping speed and they were allowed the throne. And why when they assumed their throne did they pompously imagine that they were destined to rule forever? Never in their wildest dreams did the Socialists picture themselves receiving such a humiliating drubbing at the polls as they received at the hands of the Populists. Unwittingly assisted, to add insult to injury, by their traditional power-base -- the youth and the left -- who make up the majority of the protesters. They of course refused to cast their vote out of sheer frustration. The main lesson so far is a positive one: tell the public exactly what you are doing, and what you are determined not to do. The Spanish economy is contracting at an alarming rate. This might explain why the Socialists performed so poorly even in areas considered their traditional strongholds. In Andalusia, a historic bastion of Socialists, and one of Spain's largest and most populous autonomous regions with a population of seven million, the Populists won 26 out of its 29 largest cities including Seville the Andalusian capital. Barcelona, another Socialist stronghold, succumbed to the lure of the Catalan Nationalists and so did Zapatero's own home region of Castille Leon, which opted for the Populists. The Populists also added to their conquests the Canaries and Balearic Islands, as well as Ceuta and Melilla -- the latter claimed by Morocco. In Lorca, the city recently devastated by an earthquake the Populists won 60 per cent of the vote. This underlies the scale of the challenge that faces Spain. The country is at a critical historical juncture. Spain is searching for the road to economic recovery. And the Socialists no longer seem to lead the way. There is every sign that the Spanish recession will be as persistent as well as deep. And as the economic meltdown worsens so the Populists are bound to garner even more votes. Contingency plans by the Socialists need to be drawn up sooner rather than later. But perhaps it is already too late. This is obviously not a scenario that Spanish eurozone policymakers wish to debate in public. The Socialists succumbed to defeatism. And the non-partisan protesters who took to the streets, assumed the mantle of the left. They renamed Madrid's central square the Puerto del Sol Plaza Plaça Tahrir, in honour of its Cairene counterpart where the spark of the 25 January Revolution was first ignited. In Cairo, a number of Spanish residents formed a committee and 60 Spaniards signed a manifesto supporting the protesters in Spain and submitted it to the newly appointed Spanish Ambassador Fidel Fendagorta in Cairo. On Friday, a representative of the group is to fly to Madrid to deliver a list of demands initiated by the Cairo groups to True Democracy Now, the organising committee of the Spanish protesters. Like their Egyptian counterparts they include a wide cross section of society -- church affiliated groups, trade unions, youth organisations, anarchists, artists and intellectuals. The Spanish prime minister remains lukewarm on liberalisation, but it is difficult to see how Zapatero will stick to his socialist ideals in the face of such sobering setbacks. The best thing Zapatero can now do to ensure a speedy recovery of the Spanish economy is to develop a firm, but consistent socialist line -- and stick around to implement it.
