Socialists' sprinter settles in for marathon campaign

In 1968, a promising young athlete named Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba slumped to the ground at Madrid's Vallehermoso stadium, injured and in severe pain. He knew at that moment that his obsession with breaking the 100-meter record was finished. Within a year he had made a new commitment - to politics. Prompted by the death in police custody of his school friend Enrique Ruano, he joined the Socialist Party.

Forty-three years later, after a career first in academia and then in key ministerial and party posts until taking on the deputy premiership in October 2010, Rubalcaba will now lead the election campaign against a Popular Party (PP) with a more than 14-percentage-point lead in the opinion polls.

"I was obsessed by the idea of running, but I wouldn't have got far"

"He knows he is the only man in the party who can prevent a landslide"

Following Prime Minister Zapatero's decision not to run for a third term, Rubalcaba's only opponent for the top job was Defense Minister Carme Chacón, who quickly stood aside. Rubalcaba is respected, if not to say feared, by the right, and PP leader Mariano Rajoy knows that the race to next year's elections will be long and hard against the former sprinter who has turned out to be an inexhaustible marathon runner.

A disciplined, organized man who rises early, Rubalcaba's first task will be to rally the party faithful in the aftermath of the disastrous May 22 regional and local elections that turned the political map of Spain PP blue.

"Rubalcaba is a smart guy, a wily political survivor, and somebody who tells you what he wants you to know, and who gets you to tell him what he wants to know," says a former party colleague who despite her differences, says she still holds him in high regard.

Virgilio González Barbeitos, his former athletics coach, says that he can see something of the tension and competitive spirit of the young man obsessed with breaking the then 11-second barrier in the 100 meters sprint. "To use a sporting metaphor, I would say that he is ready for the race," he says.

Talking to Rubalcaba at the Socialist Party's Madrid headquarters, the deputy prime minister picks up on the sporting analogy. When the election race really begins, will he be first out of the blocks, leading from the front, or will he pace himself, keeping something back for those last 20 meters?

"You can set off at top speed, but you always have to hold something back, because it is always in those last few moments when you lose. One hundred meters is a long race, and eight months in politics is even longer: everything can change in that time," he says, half smiling, in reference to the scheduled date for the next general election.

Surprisingly for such a good communicator he says he is wary of press interviews, perhaps because he cannot control the final outcome. He comes over as relaxed, and skilled at getting his message across through a combination of body language, gestures, facial expressions and verbal emphasis. He says that his famed irony is open to misinterpretation when written down, which might explain the paucity of print media interviews.

Born in the small Cantabrian town of Solares in 1951, Rubalcaba was initially attracted by the Catholic Church, rising early during the summers as a choirboy to help the nuns prepare mass. "They were a closed order, but another choirboy, Santi, and I would watch them when they attended communion. We used to play at putting a face to the voice, and then one day we decided to sneak into the convent so that we could see a particular nun who had a lovely voice. Santi went in first, but couldn't see anything. Then, suddenly, there was a nun standing there, horrified. 'You are very bad!' she told us. We were completely wrong about her. She had the nicest voice, but was the oldest in the convent."

Rubalcaba is comfortable with the religious education he received, and says he respects the board that ran the Catholic Church-run school where he studied for allowing him not to attend mass when, at aged 16, and one of the school's top students, he began to question his faith.

"Around the age of 16 I really got into athletics. I would train in the afternoons, and on May 1, 1968, I managed 11.1 seconds on a cinder track under the rain. That meant that under ideal conditions I could manage 100 meters in 10.7 or 10.8 seconds. Then I got injured. We had not been given enough time to warm up. I ruptured a muscle and was unable to run for a year, because my parents refused to allow the doctors to operate on me," he says.

- Is it still painful to remember that day?

- I was crying for half an hour after I crashed out. Eventually I started running again, and started training, but it was too late, although I did manage a 10.9-second 100 meters. But the injury never fully cleared up.

- Which would you rather have been: a 100 meters champion, or a member of the government?

- A career in athletics would not have been good for me, because I was obsessed, poisoned, by the idea of running, and I'm not sure I would have got much further.

In his race for the premiership, Rubalcaba trails his opponent by 14 points. Rajoy has everything in his favor, and is now buoyed by recent electoral success. The deputy prime minister is wary of sending out a defeatist message, but it is clear that he is aware that the chance of outright victory is a slim one.

- Looking at the Socialist Party's performance in last month's elections, in all honesty, there doesn't seem like much you can do to slow the PP down.

- This time round the fight won't be simply between the Socialist Party and the PP. The elections will take place in a different context: the electorate is now deeply concerned about the future, and voters will take the time to really think about which party can make a difference. But they will have to decide between Rajoy and Rubalcaba.

The Socialist Party realizes that its best chance against the Popular Party is in a one-to-one contest. Rubalcaba is a brilliant public speaker and is skilled at getting his message across to television viewers. "Alfredo is at the zenith of his career. If we really get behind him, anything could happen," says Ramón Jáuregui, head of the Prime Minister's Office.

Jáuregui believes that over the next eight months, the Socialist Party can put pressure on the Popular Party, forcing Mariano Rajoy to discuss his plans for the economy. He harks back to former Socialist Prime Minister Felipe González, who held off the Popular Party's leader José María Aznar in 1993, and when the Socialists were in greater disarray than now.

"In 1993, Felipe clawed back eight points, and in Germany, Gerhard Schröder overturned an 18-point deficit," says José María Maravall, a former minister of education, although it should be added that the German leader's handling of a flood emergency played a major role.

"Game on," is Socialist Party veteran and former NATO secretary general Javier Solana's competitive assessment. Talking to the Socialists' great and good, it is clear that there is widespread backing for Rubalcaba, and a belief that he can at the very least prevent a landslide win for the PP and reduce its majority in Congress. "I think that he knows he has been given a mission impossible, but he has accepted it because he knows that he is the only man in the party who can prevent a landslide. He will go into battle as the last act of service to the party," says the outgoing head of the regional government of Cantabria, Miguel Ángel Revilla.

The belief that only Rubalcaba can prevent an electoral catastrophe for the Socialists has become so entrenched within the party that at a recent meeting of regional leaders, the former head of the regional government of Extremadura, Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra, felt the need to warn his colleagues that Rubalcaba was not "disposable." Ibarra pointed out that if the deputy PM didn't succeed in winning votes, as well as in keeping the party unified, then his career of 37 years would be finished overnight.

So why would a man who has been dubbed the prince of darkness, Machiavellian, and a cold, calculating political operator, risk near-certain political suicide? Why didn't he stand aside and let Chacón take the hit, and then step in after the elections to pick up the pieces? Perhaps because he is aware that many in the party see him as the best option against Rajoy, or perhaps because within the party he is widely respected, and able to bring together a disparate, and often conflictive collection of egos in a common cause. Perhaps he was simply tired of waiting in the wings, and felt that his time had finally come...

- Many of your colleagues believe that if you can pull off a decent performance in the elections, you could take the party leadership.

- Right now, my focus is on the elections, but my plans are long term, and will continue, regardless of the election result.

- Your decision has surprised many. There was a belief that you were happier with a behind-the-scenes role.

- I wanted to do this, because of the challenge, and because of the sense of responsibility I feel toward the party and the country. Now I can be myself, and put together ideas and plans that I have long wanted to implement, but haven't been able to. I will no longer simply be talking on behalf of the government, but for myself.

- But you've always supported Zapatero when it comes to the big decisions.

- We have worked together, but we're different, naturally. And I can tell you that I won't be taking any notice of the pundits when they say that I should distance myself from Zapatero. I'm not looking for any artificial breaks.

- Do you accept your share of the blame for the mistakes this government has made?

- I feel a sense of responsibility, obviously, but the current situation is not the same as it was a few years ago. If we had not implemented reforms, Spain would now be facing the same kind of situation as Greece, Portugal or Ireland, and that would have been a disaster for an entire generation of Spaniards.

- What would you say are the biggest mistakes you have made?

- We should have carried out labor reform eight years ago.

- What kind of reforms?

- We should have given businesses more flexibility when things were going well. We didn't do that, and now we are in a situation when a company can very quickly get into trouble. We have to do everything possible to make sure that laying people off is a company's last resort.

- More than 20-percent unemployment, and most people think that their politicians are a major problem. What does the 15-M movement have to teach you?

- Among other things, it is an expression of the deterioration of our democracy, a rejection of corruption, and the constant fighting between the two main parties. Only a dunce would deliberately not listen to the movement.

- To what extent are Spain's politicians part of the problem?

- We are a problem because we are seen as a problem, and that perception has heightened over the course of the crisis. Last year, I said to a group of PP deputies in Congress after one particularly bitter clash, what must an unemployed person watching us think?

- What do you think about Bildu's performance in the elections, taking control of Guipúzcoa province?

- I was never in favor of such a rapid legalization, but at the same time, you have to accept that Bildu wouldn't exist unless we had been so successful in shutting down ETA. I always knew in the end that the end of terrorism would benefit the nationalists in the Basque Country, and would see a resurgence of demands for independence. We have won the war - we can't allow them to win the peace. We cannot allow them to rewrite history; we have to continue fighting.

- How does it feel to step into the limelight?

- Over the course of my career I have written a lot of speeches for other people; I have helped put together electoral programs and design campaigns. Now it is my turn, and I see that as a personal challenge, and an intellectual one, and that is a good thing.

- What is the secret of being indispensable?

- The cemetery is full of people who thought they were indispensable.

A teacher, a politician, an organic chemist (in 1982, he was chosen by now defunct newspaper Diario 16 as one of the country's most promising researchers) and an athlete: Rubalcaba is a complex, brilliant, multi-talented man. An avid reader, he can switch from a clear explanation of the government's energy plan, discuss the pros and cons of biotechnology, or converse on tax revenue, and retains something of the university lecturer he once was.

But his position in the party, and the government, is down to his willingness to roll up his sleeves and get down to the task in hand, whether that is putting the government's message over effectively, or addressing and solving multiple problems. What's more, he is highly socially skilled, and an adept manipulator of the media. No intellectual, and much less a party theorist, he is uninterested in politics in the abstract, but rather deadly in close combat. No screen idol, he also connects well with women.

"I would say that his appeal lies in the fact that he is clearly an intelligent man, capable of analyzing and solving problems. He comes over as committed to his cause, and is a convincing speaker. It is rare to find such an intelligent politician, but there is also something seductive about him. He gives the impression he is seeking your complicity," says Mercedes Cabrera, a former education minister and longstanding friend of Rubalcaba.