These last few weeks have been a real storm for the political map in Spain. While we were still recovering from the European elections, we received a bomb in form of a piece of news. The king of our sunny country was abdicating. Mind. Blown. He has spent more than 30 years in the throne (George R.R. Martin must be proud).
And now, he has said goodbye. Well, it was half of a surprise (and not a surprise at all for Rubalcava and Rajoy, who according to the media, already knew for months) for all those who have eyes in their heads and read the newspaper or watch the news. Our “elephant-slayer-democracy-bringer” is way too old for this game.
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| Pride and Satisfaction. |
Some may think our former Spanish king is following the tail of other fallen stars, like the Belgian king a year ago, or his Dutch neighbour. Others might think he is executing a smart and strategical chess move in order to make it easier for his son to reign. You know, a conservative government with full power over the country, in the middle of the term... To understand it, we should take a look at the Spanish political map.
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| Spanish results of the European Elections 2014 |
Nowadays, our government is under the control of the Partido Popular. They have power enough to pass any law without the participation of any of the others parties. Due to this situation, they have been ruling with an iron fist, passing or changing laws with a very low public acceptance, screwing mostly with those who barely have power to fight back. Sometimes, they were brave enough to mess with those who have guns, like policemen or the military. Anyway, we still have two more years of this before we can decide again via elections who will be the next to take advantage of us.
And here comes the funny part! Remember those European elections? Well, the first funny fact is that more than 50% of the population didn't give anything about the elections and stayed at home instead of exercising their right to vote. The second funny fact is that the two big parties, those in power (PP) and those in oposition (PSOE) lost more than FIVE million votes. The third funny fact is that, after several countries that participated to this elections turned to the right wing - some of them even to the extreme right (France, what are you doing? France STAHP) - Spain turned to the left. Some left winded parties got a big increase. And the fourth, last, but not least funny fact is that, PODEMOS, a tiny young self financed party, lead by an egomaniac politics teacher from Madrid, now holds 5 represents in the European Chamber, thanks to the 1.2 million votes they got. And the party was founded only five months ago. Shocking, right?
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| Today is Thursday, and I start the meetings earlier on Thursday. |
Of course, I don't want to make a fool out of myself. We can't extrapolate these numbers to the general elections. We still have two more years before that, and in politics, two years is an eternity. I wouldn't like to forget how the whole Spanish political destiny changed in only one day on that tragic 11th of March (11/03/2004).
Anyway, in the middle of that kind of political landscape, Juan Carlos I took the decision of abdicating. He also left us with a lot of questions. His first words after the announcement of abdicating were: “You never were so interested in me up until today” and that might be true, since half of our population showed over and over how they didn't give a fuck about politics, except when it hit them in their wallet, what's been happening for years now.
What's funny about the Spanish society is how we barely get out of our homes except for pointless events, such as the world cup, but this time, only a few hours after the abdication announcement, there was a massive call to gather the population for the third republic. Main squares from all over Spain (San Telmo in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, not a central square, since we don't have such a thing in a port city) were full of people at the time of the announcement, asking for a referendum Monarchy vs Republic. What they probably didn't think of before going to the streets, is that a referendum is legally pointless, since it wouldn't have impact at all on our system. Our constitution has self defense mecanisms to control these situations. If they want to ask for something, ask for a new constitution. Dream big, boy.
In conclusion, my parents and grandparents generation always blame ours for not passing through difficulties. We didn't fight in a big war. We didn't starve to death. We tweet from our smartphones while we go to school. Well, we might be members of an apathic generation, but we are living interesting times. Goodbye, John Charles the First, I hope the Spain you leave behind is better than the one you took the responsibility of leading such a long time ago, and good luck, Felipe VI, you are going to need it.
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| Well, Felipe All this mess is yours. |
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