TIME EUROPE
FEBRUARY 14, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 6
Spain's Left Gets into Step
After four years in power, José María Aznar faces the surprise of a united opposition bent on victory
By ROD USHER Madrid
While the rest of Europe was looking right last week, Spain took a turn in the opposite direction, one that opens the possibility that in next month's elections left-of-center Joaquín Almunia might replace right-of-center José María Aznar as Prime Minister. With 3.7% economic growth, and unemployment down by 172,000 in 1999, and after four years of government without corruption scandals, Aznar's Popular Party (PP) appeared to be a shoo-in for a second term. Polls put him at least five points up on Almunia's Socialists, the PSOE. But a week is a long time in an election campaign, and Almunia--the successor to former Prime Minister Felipe González--has pulled off what no commentator would have predicted: a deal with the United Left coalition, which is dominated by the Spanish Communist Party. Suddenly there is talk of a government a la francesa, in the way that Lionel Jospin ousted the right through an alliance with France's communists.
Until Almunia's move, the PSOE and the United Left were bitter enemies, their long-time leaders, González and Julio Anguita, on the worst of terms. But Anguita has been sidelined by heart surgery, and González has undergone a political bypass. So Almunia decided to reach out to Francisco Frutos, the new United Left leader, and against all odds they have thawed the cold war within the Spanish left. The significance can be seen in the percentages won in 1996: PP 38.8%, Socialists 37.6%, United Left 10.5%. Combined, the left won far more votes--and six more seats--than the PP, but their enmity gave power to the right.
Almunia at first proposed to Frutos that the United Left should withdraw its candidates from 34 electorates where it has never won a seat--a proposal the United Left saw as political suicide. But at the same time, the communist-led group has been bleeding votes heavily in recent elections. One poll last month predicted its share would fall as low as 6.7% on election day, March 12. That sounded like slow death anyway.
Both sides met late into the night to finally reach an agreement. They could not cut a deal on candidates for the lower house, the Congress, but did for the Senate, and have set out a list of policies that both parties could support in an Almunia government. One of the United Left's main victories is commitment to pursuing a 35-hour week, again a la francesa. It also got a promise to raise the minimum monthly wage by 12%, to about $455. Among concessions, it had to agree not to try to pull Spain out of NATO, one of the communists' pet hates.
The PP began waving red flags, warning that under such a government taxes would soar, pensions would be endangered, even the peseta-euro link would be jeopardized. But the fierceness of the reaction served only to convince Almunia that he had done the right thing, that the PP now feared defeat. A man who rarely raises his own voice, Almunia often remarks disarmingly on his chubbiness and near-baldness--like Aznar, he can't claim the charisma of González or Anguita. The 51-year-old economist was born in the autonomous Basque region, and boasts both Arab and Jewish antecedents. He may need the skills of all his bloodlines if, with his newfound friends, he gets the chance to govern Spain.
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