Conservatives eyeing La Mancha maverick's scalp

Josele is a card-carrying member of the Socialist Party (PSOE) who lives in Castilla-La Mancha, where the key battle of the May 22 regional and municipal election campaign is being fought. A year ago, when Socialist leaders in this region already knew that they were in for trouble, given the impact of the economic crisis and the belated acknowledgment of the scope of the problems on the part of the Zapatero government, Josele became one of their 2,500 canvassers.

He was sent out to stop the conservative tide in the most hostile of territories: Guadalajara, in the so-called Henares Corridor, an area that runs along the river of the same name and is home to some of Madrid's middle classes - those that moved to the periphery to spend less money on maintaining a social status that they could not possibly afford in the capital. They work in Madrid, go out in Madrid, get their news from Madrid and only go home to sleep, and sometimes vote.

The government has pumped billions into the region, but it could be to no avail

The Socialist Party of Castilla-La Mancha deployed these agents across the 32 municipalities that hold 60 percent of registered voters, to the new residential estates built on their outskirts, to go door-to-door and solicit the vote for the incumbent, regional premier José María Barreda. They and another 10,000 volunteers of the activist platform "Vecino a vecino con Barreda" (or Neighbor to neighbor with Barreda) thought they could break down the lack of communication by personally informing these new residents that they now enjoyed better health and education services than they would in Madrid or many other regions of Spain.

Socialist leaders in this region still thought that the central government's massive investments in infrastructure would sell themselves. Since Zapatero moved into La Moncloa in 2004, the executive has pumped nearlyseven billion eurosinto Castilla-La Mancha to install the AVE high-speed rail network, which now links the region with all the provincial capitals and brings the Mediterranean coast closer. Besides that, the government released another1.6 billion euros to build a major highway and upgrade the waterways. But it was no use.

In the final stages of the campaign, the party has now opted for mass SMS messages, PowerPoint presentations and posters hanging from freeway overpasses. There are 176,000 registered residents in Guadalajara who could well determine the future of their region and of the whole of Spain. But many of them simply do not feel part of the community. Their hearts are elsewhere.

Barreda and Cospedal know that, just like their parties do.

The main Socialist and conservative candidates return to the province of Guadalajara time and again. They have to split eight regional assembly members between them, and it always ends up in a tie, with four going to each side. The Popular Party (PP) wins because it's got an easier time of it from a sociological point of view. But in order to break the tie, it needs a 10.5-point advantage over the PSOE. Right now, it is winning by seven or eight percentage points. Dolores de Cospedal, the PP candidate to the regional premiership, appears here regularly in the company of party leader Mariano Rajoy, while last week former Prime Minister José María Aznar showed up at her Guadalajara rally.

But the PSOE also has aces up its sleeves. In Guadalajara, internal voter intention studies show, the party is gaining ground on a daily basis. Besides, there is always the Socialist bastion of Ciudad Real, where the PSOE edges out the PP by seven points, and could break the traditional 4-4 tie in its favor. In both places, the race is down to a handful of votes.

The latest political poll carried out by CIS, the state-run center for sociological studies, dates back to March. At that time, the picture was dismal for the Socialists of Castilla-La Mancha, who seemed set to lose two of its 26 assembly members, while the PP theoretically won four more for a total of 25 and an absolute majority. These days, that scenario appears to have changed.

And it also turns out that Barreda, who learned the ropes from party heavyweight José Bono, may not be as much of a populist as the latter, but is still quite tough and is unwilling to accept defeat lying down. The same poll shows that he is currently the regional premier with the highest approval ratings (5.92), well above his counterparts in other regions, and Cospedal. He is working hard to avoid defeat. By the end of the campaign he will have covered a good 2,000 kilometers. There are days when he shakes hands in up to 10 villages.

When Zapatero was still undecided about announcing whether or not he would run for a third term, Barreda went out on a limb - much to the central party's dismay - and asked the prime minister to say he was out of the race as soon as possible. Barreda became an uncomfortable figure, even if nearly everyone followed his lead later on. His future now lies in the balance.