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INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MADRID 000105 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR EUR/WE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV SP
SUBJECT: SPAIN:  ELECTION UPDATE FEBRUARY 1 
 
REF: A. MADRID 55 
     ¶B. MADRID 84 
     ¶C. MADRID 73 
 
¶1. (U) Summary:  This cable continues our effort, started 
with ref a, to provide the flavor of the Spanish general 
election campaign.  Politicians and pundits have said 
repeatedly the three key issues on March 9 will be the 
economy, terrorism, and regional autonomy.  Events in the 
last two weeks have kept all three in the news.  End summary. 
 
Economy 
------- 
 
¶2. (U) The plunge in the Spanish stock market (ref b) was bad 
news for investors, but it may have helped Popular Party (PP) 
candidate Mariano Rajoy with his message that he is better 
able to manage the economy than Spanish Socialist Workers, 
Party (PSOE) candidate Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.  The 
PSOE has blamed the economic problems on events beyond its 
control, principally in the U.S. and the rise of 
international oil prices. 
 
Terrorism 
--------- 
 
¶3. (U) In the unlikely event anyone in Spain had forgotten 
the stakes, the January 19 arrests in Barcelona of suspected 
jihadists (ref c) was a sober reminder.  Predictably, 
journalists supportive of the PSOE saw a law enforcement 
success where PP supporters saw a lack of interagency 
coordination hampering the effort. 
 
¶4. (U) The Fourth International Congress of Victims of 
Terrorism was held in Madrid January 22-23.  Although the 
event was formally launched by the Prince of Asturias with a 
call for "unity and firmness" in the face of terror, it took 
on partisan overtones.  Despite being a member of the 
Congress,s "Committee of Honor," Zapatero did not attend. 
Instead, the government was represented at the secretary of 
state level.  Some Spanish terrorism victims, associations 
also reportedly stayed away because the event had become 
politicized. 
 
¶5. (U) The PP, including Rajoy, turned out in force.  Echoing 
a Rajoy campaign theme, a number of participants strongly 
criticized Zapatero for his attempts to negotiate with ETA. 
Former President Aznar spoke, saying some had stayed away 
from the event due to "an overabundance of arrogance and a 
lack of courage, an overabundance of partisanship and a lack 
of talent."  Aznar also said Zapatero had admitted lying 
about continuing negotiations with ETA following the December 
2006 Barajas Airport bombing (ref a). 
 
¶6. (U) For its part, the government is publicly supporting 
Judge Baltasar Garzon,s efforts to ban two Basque political 
parties because of ties to ETA.  The parties are the Basque 
National Action (ANV) and the Communist Party of the Basque 
Lands (PCTV).  Another party (Batasuna) was banned 
previously.  On January 22, First Vice President Maria Teresa 
Fernandez de la Vega said "he who breaks the law pays for 
it."  The PP also supports the action against ANV and PCTV, 
but complains the government should have moved sooner. 
 
Regional Autonomy 
----------------- 
 
¶7. (U) On January 20 Rajoy said if he elected he would make 
Spanish the language of instruction in schools throughout 
Spain.  Unsurprisingly, this stance proved unpopular with 
Catalan politicians, who were quick to accuse the PP of 
playing politics with a volatile issue.  It certainly will 
not make Rajoy,s job any easier should he be in the position 
of trying to pull together a coalition post-March 9, a point 
made publicly by the Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida, leader of 
the principal Catalan political group, CIU. 
 
¶8. (U) Catalan socialists may have given Rajoy some 
inadvertent help January 21 by proposing that Catalonia be 
given more favorable treatment when it comes to distribution 
of government finances.  What they see as disproportionate 
revenue sharing from the central government to the Catalan 
and Basque regional governments is a sore point for Spaniards 
from other regions. 
 
Gallardon Saga 
-------------- 
 
¶9. (U) Although the stock market gyrations helped push it off 
the front page, the story of Madrid Mayor Alberto 
 
MADRID 00000105  002 OF 004 
 
 
Ruiz-Gallardon (ref a) is not dead.  Speculation continued 
over whether Gallardon will leave office, leave politics, or 
just leave the PP after March 9 (or none of the above).  He 
has supposedly skipped some PP public events, although he and 
PP rival Esperanza Aguirre (President of the Autonomous 
Community of Madrid) were on stage together at the Fourth 
International Congress of Victims of Terrorism.  PP founder 
and grand old man (and vocal Gallardon supporter) Manuel 
Fraga has appealed for unity.  The PSOE has continued to use 
the issue to paint the PP as radical right (Gallardon is a 
centrist).  Media sympathetic to the PSOE reported that 
Aguirre stalked out of a January 29 business awards dinner 
when she realized Gallardon was presenting the grand prize 
(supposedly after trying unsuccessfully to convince the hosts 
to let her hand out the award). 
 
Foreign Policy 
-------------- 
 
¶10. (U) Center right newspaper El Mundo echoed a PP campaign 
theme (that Spain has lost international prestige under the 
PSOE) with a January 30 front page showing on one side the 
leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and the EU 
gathered to discuss the European economy and on the other 
side Zapatero meeting with the visiting President of Yemen. 
The caption made stinging mention of Zapatero,s claim last 
September that Spain played in the "champions, league" of 
the world economy.  Also on January 30, Rajoy joined French 
President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Merkel in Paris for 
an event organized by Sarkozy's party to discuss the future 
of the EU.  The conservative Spanish press reported gleefully 
that Sarkozy had wished him great success in the campaign 
while Merkel predicted the PP would return to government 
"something she wanted and supported with all her heart." 
Rajoy also scored a photo of the three of them holding hands. 
 El Mundo juxtaposed that picture on its front page with one 
of Zapatero at a campaign event with his around a young man 
with a spectacular mohawk haircut.  The conservative press 
noted Rajoy was being briefed by Sarkozy and Merkel on the 
results of the European leaders economic meeting before 
Zapatero.  Merkel traveled to Palma de Mallorca January 31 
for a Germany-Spain summit where in a joint press conference 
with Zapatero she said one must accept that Zapatero's heart 
beat for the Social Democrats in Germany and she feels closer 
to the PP.  Zapatero for his part said he was sure Merkel 
agreed that the best for Spain was whatever the Spanish 
voters decided.  There is payback here.  Zapatero made no 
secret of his preference for Sarkozy's socialist opponent in 
 
SIPDIS 
the French elections, and he once referred to Merkel's 
electoral performance as a failure.  Perhaps Merkel also 
recalls Zapatero's role in blocking a German company's 
attempt to acquire Spanish electric utility Endesa. 
 
¶11. (U) Although the U.S. has not become an electoral issue, 
there have been occasional nods in our direction.  On January 
21 PSOE foreign policy secretary Elena Valenciano criticized 
U.S. detentions at Bagram and Guantanamo.  On January 19, 
Zapatero shrugged off questions about the Spanish economy 
with a comment about the failure of U.S. "neoconservative" 
economic recipes. 
 
A Chicken in Every Pot 
---------------------- 
 
¶12. (U) We will report more fully on the party platforms and 
their ramifications via septel, but the following gives an 
idea of what the candidates are offering voters.  Zapatero 
has promised: 
- a 400 euro tax rebate; 
- 300,000 new day care spaces; 
- a 200 euro increase in the minimum wage; 
- a 200 euro increase in pensions; 
- a reduction in the inheritance tax 
- 1.5 million more housing units; 
- 5 billion euros for additional commuter train lines for 
Madrid; 
- closing and not replacing nuclear power plants as they 
reach the end of their service life; 
- creation of congressional seats to represent the 1.5 
million Spaniards living outside Spain (presently their votes 
are counted in the provinces where they are listed in the 
census); 
- four weeks paternity leave for same sex couples; and 
- a constitutional reform to allow a female to inherit the 
crown. 
 
Rajoy has promised: 
- an income tax exemption for those making less than 16,000 
euros a year; 
- 2.2 million jobs 
 
MADRID 00000105  003 OF 004 
 
 
- 400,000 new day care spaces; 
- a reduction in unemployment to 6.5 percent by the end of 
2011; 
- 3.8 percent annual growth; 
- an increase in the budget surplus to three percent by 2011; 
- a 150 euro pension hike; and 
- lower taxes for businesses and working women. 
- a change in the name of the "Law of Homosexual Marriages" 
to make clear the unions are not marriages. 
 
¶13. (U) Zapatero was quick to accuse the PP of opposing equal 
rights for women when the Constitutional Tribunal on January 
29 rejected a PP challenge to a law which guarantees gender 
parity on the parties' electoral lists.  Although the law is 
on its face gender neutral, its purpose was to get more women 
into politics.  There could be an interesting sequel to this. 
 On March 8, the day before the election, campaigning is 
banned.  This is to allow a national day of reflection before 
the vote.  However, March 8 also happens to be International 
Women's Day.  It would not take much imagination for the PSOE 
to use the PP's opposition to the gender parity law to turn 
the Women's Day rallies into pseudo-campaign events. 
 
Catholic Church 
--------------- 
 
¶14. (U) The controversy between the Catholic bishops and the 
PSOE reported in ref a continues.  On January 30 the 
Permanent Commission of the Spanish Episcopal Conference 
released a letter which, while not naming parties, left 
little doubt about the bishops' sympathies.  Urging voters to 
take moral issues in account, the bishops referred directly 
or indirectly to same-sex marriage, abortion, divorce 
express, civic education oriented towards secularism, and 
negotiations with terrorist groups (meaning ETA).  The PSOE 
responded with a press release noting all organizations had 
the right to express their political preferences.  They noted 
the bishops and the PP had spent the entire previous 
legislature protesting civil rights laws passed by congress. 
The PSOE said it was immoral and hypocritical for the bishops 
and the PP to use terrorism as a campaign issue.  The PSOE 
noted every Spanish president since the democratic transition 
had talked to ETA, adding that Aznar had done so using a 
bishop as intermediary. 
 
Image 
----- 
 
¶15. (U) The PSOE has reportedly contracted the advertising 
agency Sra. Rushmore, the same company that handles the 
Coca-Cola campaign in Spain.  Meanwhile, Rajoy is getting 
image advice from Spaniard Antonio Sola, who also advised 
Mexican President Felipe Calderon. 
 
¶16. (U) Working the suggestion that the PP is the party of 
negativity and confrontation, the PSOE has come out with a TV 
spot featuring a character gratuitously delivering bad news 
and unwanted predictions (e.g., telling patrons waiting to 
enter a movie theater that the protagonist dies at the end or 
telling a man waiting to see a doctor that surely he has 
cancer).  Rajoy is not mentioned, but the allusion is clear 
enough given the PSOE's recent allegations that Rajoy's 
warnings on the economy were unpatriotic. 
 
Election Polls - To be Taken With a Grain of Salt 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶17. (U) In addition to all the usual caveats about polling, 
the general election in Spain is really 50 different races in 
50 different provinces (plus Ceuta and Melilla).  Polls which 
simplify this to one set of numbers may be of limited use in 
predicting the outcome.  Also, the Spanish media, which 
sponsors many of the polls, is blatantly partisan. 
 
¶18. (U) An IPSOS poll published in the conservative economic 
newspaper Expansion, based on 1,000 telephone interviews 
conducted January 11-13 (before Zapatero,s admission the 
government continued talking to ETA after the December 2006 
Barajas bombing, the Gallardon story, and the stock market 
jitters), showed the PSOE getting 41.5 percent of the vote to 
the PP,s 39.5 percent.  Voter turnout was predicted at 68 to 
70 percent.  The poll also showed 60 percent of Spaniards 
pessimistic about the economy.  The margin of error is 
unknown. 
 
¶19. (U) A poll published by the leftist newspaper El Publico, 
based on 4,007 telephone interviews conducted January 14-24 
(the period when the three stories mentioned in the preceding 
paragraph were breaking) showed the PSOE with 44.5 percent of 
the vote and the PP with 38.7 percent.  The margin of error 
 
MADRID 00000105  004 OF 004 
 
 
was plus or minus 1.3 percent. 
 
What Are Spaniards Thinking? 
---------------------------- 
 
¶20. (U) In a poll conducted by the government's Center of 
Sociological Investigations (CIS) December 18-27 (released 
February 1) 44.1 percent of respondents said the country's 
economic situation was regular, 35.9 percent said bad or very 
bad, and 19 percent said good or very good.  Asked where the 
economy would be in a year, 42 percent predicted no change, 
34.7 percent said worse, and 9.8 percent said better.  On the 
political situation, 40.2 percent said regular, 36.7 percent 
said bad or very bad, and 15.5 percent said good or very 
good.  Terrorism was identified as the principal problem in 
Spain followed by unemployment, the economy, housing, and 
immigration (in that order).  When asked what problems most 
affected them personally, it was the economy followed by 
housing.  The results were based on interviews of 2,472 
Spaniards across Spain and had a margin of error of plus or 
minus two percent.  The poll did not inquire about voting 
intentions but did ask respondents who they voted for in the 
2004 general election.  32.4 percent said PSOE and 19.5 
percent said PP.  Interestingly, previous CIS polls showed 
better numbers for the PSOE in response to that same 
question.  In 2007, the PSOE got 36.5 in April, 32.2 in June, 
35.8 in July, and 37.3 in October.  The PP got 20.1 in April, 
19.8 in June, 21.5 in July, and 21.2 in October. 
LLORENS