Much has been made of the fact that the CiU nationalist candidate in the Catalan elections, Artur Mas, has said he would vote “yes” in a putative referendum on independence. However, having won the November 28 ballot in resounding fashion, he and his party will be worrying more about the state of the region’s economy than stoking the fires of separatism – at least in the short term. CiU won 62 seats in the regional parliament, up from 48 in 2006 and just six short of an overall majority, enabling it to govern alone for the next four years, although it will need help to push laws through. The governing Catalan Socialists saw their share of seats drop from 37 to 28 and their tripartite … [Read more...] about Economy the priority for Catalan election victors
Spain 2012 elections
Spain’s Socialist reshuffle reaches out to left
If Spain’s Socialists manage to engineer an incredible turnaround in the polls and win the 2012 general election, the chances are they will look back at October 21 of this year as the day when the comeback started. Such a result still looks a long way off, but José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s biggest Cabinet reshuffle of his six years in power was one of the boldest moves of his career and it looks certain to invigorate a party that was limping along under a leadership with shrinking capital. Zapatero’s seventh reshuffle sees six ministers depart, four new ones arrive, with two changing portfolios and two ministries scrapped altogether. While the scale of the move is noteworthy, the … [Read more...] about Spain’s Socialist reshuffle reaches out to left