The Socialists' victory in Spain guarantees some security from social and ideological dictatorship, reports Serene Assir Spain's Socialist party, the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), secured a second term in office in Sunday's general and parliamentary elections. In so doing, it fended off a threatened return of the right-wing Partido Popular (PP), under Mariano Rajoy. Among Rajoy's electoral promises had been to introduce legislation that would compel would-be migrants to learn Spanish and to respect Spanish traditions if they sought residence in Spain. The PSOE's and the now re- elected Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had termed the proposal as "xenophobic". More crucially, it was the PP, under then president Jose Maria Aznar who joined the US and the UK in illegally invading Iraq, against the overwhelming anti-war opposition of the Spanish. Upon election in 2004, Zapatero fulfilled his party's pledges to immediately withdraw. Internally, the PSOE's victory seems to usher in more of the same as what Spain has been undergoing over the past four years, which is essentially a down-scaling of the retreat towards conservatism that the country had suffered for eight years under Aznar. This process has been most deeply felt, no doubt, in the politics of the social. Legislation permitting homosexual marriages passed under the PSOE, for instance, spoke not only of the realisation of the left's goal of social emancipation from the Catholic Church, but also of a direct attack against the right's ideology, which, as the electoral results proved once again, remains strong in Spain. So too did the law of historical memory, whose stated goal is to address the massive scars that continue to resurface from the Civil War and the ensuing Fascist regime under General Francisco Franco. But there are legitimate concerns. In the 30-year anniversary since the first democratic election to be held in the wake of the Fascist regime's demise, the political polarisation that the country suffers speaks not only of disagreement, but also far more deeply of an increasingly entrenched bipartisanism. As the US and UK's experience of this reveals, there is more to party polarisation than harsh words, and that is an effective merging of the two warring parties' politics, to the extent that one can barely tell the difference between left and right. In Spain this is problematic because it corners the left. While perhaps the policies of the PSOE over the past four years, particularly with regards to the social, have been deemed to be sweeping, the strength of the links between the PSOE and the economic establishment are a cause for concern. Also a difficulty is the perception that the PSOE has in fact not implemented real policy reform except in the sphere of the social. Other less visible areas of politics remain untouched since the demise of the PP, which calls into question just how strong the down-scaling process of the PSOE has really been at its core. "Zapatero has, over recent months, resorted to populism, which I find problematic," said 26-year-old Agustina Briano, who lives in Madrid and did not vote this year. "He promises to assist youth in securing their rent, for instance. But this is a band-aid solution. We need real, profound solutions to profound, long-standing problems." To others, the PSOE, whose name in full translates to the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, has gradually forgotten its mandate under the pressure of competition with the right, rather than strengthen it by maintaining ideological and actual ties with other leftist movements and parties -- of which there are many in Spain. Such questions have particular relevance today because, in 2008, the relative youth of Spanish democracy means that in fact the possibility still exists for the people to push for more from the left, and in particular from the PSOE -- whom, after all, they voted for. Perhaps the greatest responsibility now lies in the hands of the PSOE, not so much to compete with the PP, but rather to understand just why the Spanish people made sure they won.
