Word: spaining
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...leader Rajoy has taken advantage of these economic fears to rally Spanish voters against a related issue: immigration. On Tuesday night, he stated repeatedly that Spain needed “order and control” to limit the influx of workers from abroad. As he correctly pointed out, Spain has taken in more immigrants in the last few years than the United Kingdom and France combined, which has created pressures on existing government infrastructure and social services such as education and healthcare...
...Spain's electoral campaign has never been a decorous affair, but Monday night's nationally televised electoral debate between Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Popular Party (PP) candidate Mariano Rajoy was often downright nasty. For long stretches, it sank into a cacophony of insults, interruptions, and petty squabbling over who was the bigger liar. Yet in the end, Zapatero offered more concrete prescriptions for the next legislature, and that, it seems, persuaded the Spanish public to deem him the victor of this second debate, just as it had after the first, held a week...
...race is certainly tight. The Center for Sociological Research, Spain's main polling institution, released a survey on February 16 giving the Socialists a slim 1.5-point advantage over the Popular Party. More recently, Metroscopia's poll for the liberal newspaper El País put the Socialists' lead at 4.1%. Either way, says University of Murcia political scientist Ismael Crespo, the Socialists have to hope for a high turnout. "The PP's ranks are very loyal; 80 to 85% of those who voted for them in 2004 will vote for them this time," he says. "But traditionally, about...
...That's not to say that most voters across the political spectrum don't care about the issues. Spokespersons for both major parties agree that the economy has become the election's central concern. After four years of unprecedented prosperity, Spain's economy, like so many others, has recently suffered, with growth slowing in the fourth quarter of 2007 to 3.3% (down from 4.3% in the fourth quarter of 2006) and unemployment rising to 8.6%. With 35.9% of Spaniards rating the economy "bad" or "very bad" (up from 25.4% the previous year), both parties are seeking to portray themselves...
...says Gustavo de Arístegui, the PP's foreign affairs spokesperson and a candidate for parliamentary reelection. "Their economic policies have been very risky, very irresponsible, and Spanish families are paying the price." The PP has also linked economic woes to what it believes is widespread anxiety over Spain's burgeoning immigrant population. During Monday's debate, Rajoy blamed Zapatero for 2005's mass regularization of immigrants, arguing that they "couldn't all fit." Borrowing a page from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Rajoy also repeated his party's call for greater "control and order" of immigrants, promising, if elected...