A sense of proportion

SO the PSOE finally fell on its sword and the Federal Committee agreed to abstain on the second vote to install Mariano Rajoy. A sense of proportion finally overpowered objections from Committee members like Cesar Luena, Pedro Sanchez’s organisation manager. He declared that the Committee was betraying voters, although resigned voters always take campaign promises with a pinch of salt and expect them to be broken. What Luena and the anti-abstention camp were most concerned about was the card-carrying membership who backed the ‘no means no’ mantra. Their desire to placate some – not all – of the 193,000 people who pay their dues each month was arrogantly disproportionate when they knew a third election would have relegated the PSOE to irrelevance.

The real world

MARIANO RAJOY’S strategy of letting things take their course while saying as little as possible helped him survive for five years but he’s in for a rude awakening. No more legislating by decree thanks to an overwhelming majority, no more ignoring anything said inside the parliament chamber that he doesn’t want to hear. Rajoy is about to learn what governing is like in the real world.

Policies not politics

THE PSOE went belly up in two general elections and two regional elections because its ex-secretary general gave the far Left the glad-eye in the belief that Podemos gets votes because of Iglesias’ politics. Iglesias gets votes on the strength of his policies which come under the heading of ‘give ’em what they want.’ Podemos overtook the PSOE in Galicia and the Basque region last September but this had more to do with its candidates’ strong nationalist slant than their political ideology. Only a hard core of voters know much about politics or care about them, but strangely enough politicians are unaware of this.

Something to be grateful for

IF the PSOE socialists are about to give Spain’s presidency to Mariano Rajoy it is down to one person: Pablo Iglesias. In March when Pedro Sanchez, backed by Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera, made a bid to govern, Podemos and its regional ‘confluences’ voted against him in the company of the right wing Partido Popular. Had Pablo Iglesias and his followers abstained, Spain would have now a socialist government. In fact, Rajoy has more reason to thank Iglesias than the PSOE Federal Committee.