The end of a political cycle

It is never easy to step down at the end of an era, and the present circumstances of Spain do not make the task any easier. Ever since the prime minister raised doubts about his continuity by way of a breezy, irresponsible remark late last year, events have snowballed, for the worse.

Now we are looking at a country threatened with financial ruin, with serious problems of social and even territorial cohesion, and where disillusionment has been spreading among people of every ideology and social class. There are real reasons for concern, obvious both in the Indignation camp-outs in public squares and in the recent regional and local electoral results.

The turbulent international debt markets have battened onto Spain with an intensity that not only threatens to strangle the country's public finances, but is also stifling Spanish companies by rendering their financing more expensive, thus darkening the prospects for prompt financial recovery.

The path toward the precipice, previously walked by Greece, Ireland and Portugal, is now quickly being traveled by Spain, for all the well-intentioned statements by the authorities, and the continual announcements of initiatives and reforms that then fizzle out due to the insufficiency of their initial ambition, or the tardiness and continual delays in their implementation. The latter certainly applies in the case of the pending reform of the Spanish financial sector, whose urgency called for extreme dispatch in resolution. Neither the government nor the Bank of Spain have been equal to the task.

It would be unfair to blame all the evils on our authorities. A not inconsiderable part of our afflictions have their origin in Europe as a whole, and therefore require solutions that transcend the present national borders. But it is impossible not to admit to the paltriness of Spain's contribution to any such pan-European responses. Quite apart from the EU's powerlessness to solve its problems, the loss of public confidence in Zapatero's management seems irreversible, and the growing doubts about Spain's governability in these circumstances now threaten to aggravate our ills. The crisis is not only an economic one but also, and perhaps only, a political one.

For some time now, Prime Minister Zapatero's responses to the challenges facing Spain have hardly merited any serious consideration by the public. Opinion polls have consistently shown this (a recent one places the Spanish government as the least-valued institution in a list of 39), and the prevailing skepticism and perplexity were confirmed by the humiliating rout of the Socialist Party in May's elections, with demonstrations of discontent proliferating in the street all the while.

Apart from any considerations on the origin of the May 15 protest movement and on its legitimacy or its intentions, its generally favorable reception amid public opinion is obviously rooted in the profound malaise now felt in a country where five million people are on the unemployment lists, where 300,000 families have lost their houses in the last three years, and where the top political leader is incapable of offering any reasonable hope of relief in the foreseeable future.

Leadership void

Zapatero has all the moral and constitutional authority he needs to last out the legislature if he so wishes, and nothing in the law obliges him to dissolve the chambers of parliament. But upon the announcement, made in March, that he will not run again for election, this newspaper maintained that his intention to last out the legislature was only morally and politically justifiable if he were to culminate and implement the indispensable reforms necessary for the country's political and economic stability, so that it might approach the elections in the best possible conditions.

This has not happened; worse, his incapacity for management, the meager results of the barely initiated reforms, added to the impotence of a lame-duck legislature, augur a further, irremediable deterioration that has to be cut short as soon as possible.

In this respect, the date suggested by some Socialist leaders for holding elections (the end of November) is entirely too late. If José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero really wishes to render a last service to his country, he must do so by stepping down from power as soon as possible, and by acknowledging the urgent need for the Spanish government to recover its lost credibility. The Spanish public in general, and the Socialist voters in particular, will thank him for it.