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Spanish politics

Losing his grip

Spain’s prime minister faces a minor insurrection within his own party

Aug 26th 2010 | MADRID

You’re the one that I want

IT IS a brave act of defiance. It is also a sign that José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s prime minister, is losing the iron grip he once held on his Socialist Party. A row has erupted over Mr Zapatero’s attempt to impose a candidate to lead the party into elections for the Madrid region’s parliament next May.

Mr Zapatero’s candidate for the post, one of Spain’s 17 powerful regional premierships, is Trinidad Jiménez (pictured), Spain’s health minister. She is opposed by Tomás Gómez, the pugnacious leader of the Socialists’ Madrid branch, who wants to stand himself. Rather than bow to his boss’s demands, as expected, Mr Gómez has forced a party vote, which will be held in October.

Party squabbling ahead of the vote has already begun, much to the glee of the opposition People’s Party (PP). The PP’s candidate, Esperanza Aguirre, a party favourite who has run Madrid since 2003, would probably have stormed to victory anyway, so the Socialist dust-up comes as a bonus.

All this would seem no more than a silly-season spat were a larger question not hanging in the air: will Mr Zapatero stand at the next general election? That is due no later than 2012, although the fragility of the prime minister’s minority government may force him to bring the date forward.

Rumours abound. Some say Mr Zapatero knows that his unpopular economic reforms, including austerity measures to reduce Spain’s budget deficit, have made him a toxic figure, and that he will be obliged to fall on his sword before the election. Others say his wife, Sonsoles Espinosa, is tired of life in the official Moncloa Palace residence, where the first couple have lived since Mr Zapatero took office in 2004. Whatever the truth, Spaniards appear to have tired of their prime minister. A recent poll found that only a third of Socialist voters want him to run again.

Mr Zapatero chose Ms Jiménez over Mr Gómez because she does much better in personal polling—but that might lead some to ask why similar logic should not apply on the national stage. Among the members of the government that Spaniards say they find more enticing than the prime minister are Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the interior minister, and Carme Chacón, the defence minister. José Blanco, who has the transport portfolio and is Mr Zapatero’s number two in the party hierarchy, is a rising star but may take the rap if Ms Jiménez goes down in flames.

For the moment, however, there is no public jostling for position, not least because the Socialists’ standing is so low; they trail the PP by ten points in polls. Few politicians seek to lead their party to defeat. And don’t count the prime minister out just yet; one Zapatero ally describes the prime minister as “a top-class political athlete,” ready for anything.

Mr Zapatero’s only consolation at the bottom of the polls is the company he keeps: Mariano Rajoy, leader of the PP, fares even worse by some counts. One view gaining ground is that victory at the next election will go to whichever party is brave enough to ditch its leader.

Mr Zapatero will be damaged if his own party publicly snubs him in October. But Mr Gómez, a little-known former mayor from a dormitory town near Madrid, will emerge fortified, whatever the result. Expect a bright future for the first politician from within Mr Zapatero’s own party to stand up to him—particularly if, as seems likely, the prime minister limps out of office in two years’ time.

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