Spanish Prime Minister’s plans in doubt after poll battering

To anyone who doubted his re-election strategy, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has had a simple answer: “Trust me”. 

Now, a battering in local polls has cast doubt on his plan that an economic recovery will secure him a second term later this year.

In six months’ time, when the next general election is due, the Spanish economy will be growing at 3% and half a million jobs will have been created. This was Rajoy’s message as he campaigned across Spain for his conservative People’s Party (PP) before the municipal and regional polls.

But many voters have hardly felt the recovery and, following a string of corruption scandals that have touched the ruling party, they turned on Sunday to new forces such as the anti-austerity Podemos (‘We Can’) and market-friendly Ciudadanos (‘Citizens’).

“It’s time to reflect. The party is badly hit... For sure, we’re going the wrong way. We are the party that won the most votes but voters sent us a message of anger,” said a senior PP member, who declined to be named.

“We haven’t seriously done self-criticism ... Something is not working and we have to properly diagnose what,” he said before a meeting of the PP’s executive committee.

While the PP got more votes than any other party in the municipal polls as well as in nine of the 13 regions that voted over the weekend, it suffered its worst electoral result in more than two decades.

It lost about 2.5 million votes from the last local elections four years ago and close to 5 million from its landslide victory in the 2011 general election.

Even loyal PP voters believe their party is heading for more trouble unless it changes. “They need to find a way to give jobs to the young. The message that the economy is rebounding doesn’t reach people,” said Salvador Soriano, a retired cook from Valencia. “They promised a lot, but they’re falling short,” he said.

Spanish unemployment is almost 24% and more than double that for the young. Even under the government’s forecasts, the overall jobless rate will still be 17.7% in 2017. At a local level, the PP faces a new era of coalition and compromise for which it is ill-prepared.

Rajoy - whose party must form pacts with some of the new groups if it is to retain power in a number of regions, including the Madrid community - has campaigned hard against them. Earlier this month he said they were “gangs” and a threat to Spain’s political and economic stability.

Political analysts say left-wing blocs could push the PP out of power in half a dozen regions. On top of this, the center-right upstart Ciudadanos, initially seen as a coalition partner for the PP, may avoid helping Rajoy for now.

Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez said: “It’s the beginning of the end of Mariano Rajoy as Prime Minister.”