Rajoy’s autumn

Situations such as the current one, with a prolonged economic crisis in which political decisions have a direct effect on people's lives, tend to see citizens seeking out the guilty parties on a very personal level. Nine months after winning the general elections with an overwhelming majority, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is now facing a quarter in which he will be put to the test both as a leader and as a manager. Early elections in Galicia and the Basque Country (and perhaps in Catalonia, shortly afterward) may coincide this autumn with the negotiation of conditions for a European rescue package for Spain, should the widely expected request finally materialize, and the government's presentation of the 2013 budget, which will include yet more spending cuts with the aim of meeting the deficit target.

One of the political effects that the crisis is having is a questioning of the system of autonomous regions. On the one side, there is the sovereign radicalization in the Basque Country and Catalonia, who are currently arguing that staying within the current Spanish model is actually a hindrance to emerging from the recession. Early elections in Galicia and the Basque Country will allow for a measure to be taken of the strength of that feeling. On the other side, in the rest of Spain there is a tendency to blame the system of autonomous regions for the overspending that is seeing cuts made to services for everyone. The result is that in opinion polls, the number of people who say they identify with the autonomous region model has fallen from 74 percent to 55 percent since the beginning of the crisis.

Over the last four years, all of the regional leaders who belong to the party in power in the national government have lost elections. So why then would Alberto Núñez Feijóo bring forward the polls in Galicia, where he has an absolute majority? The only possible answer is that he is thinking about March of next year, when they were due to be held, and that the situation then will be even worse than it is now. That sends out a defeatist message.

The early elections are, then, a risky maneuver, given that it will give voters a chance to punish the Popular Party (PP) for the cutbacks and for the fact that they have not stuck to their electoral promises. But it's a calculated risk: Rajoy may think that if it is inevitable that he must pass the test in some regions, then it is better that one of them be in his home region, Galicia, which is traditionally a stronghold for the PP. And if he holds on to that absolute majority, he will be in a stronger position to face other such tests.

The first of these tests will be dealing with the situation in the Basque Country, should the forecasts prove to be correct, and the radical abertzale left — which is now free from the shadow of ETA — challenge the position of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), causing a rift with economic roots. And then there is the situation in Catalonia, which is looking for a fiscal pact that will be difficult to fit within the current Constitutional framework. The region has warned that if it is not accepted, there will be early elections, with an electoral program that will stray beyond the current regional model.

These are all political problems that will have to be dealt with during a very difficult autumn. And all of this, of course, is being observed with great concern by the European institutions.