Politicians fail basic tests to engage with citizens in times of need

With the economic crisis still in full swing, many Spaniards are having trouble making ends meet. This includes the Popular Party (PP) deputy for Ourense, Guillermo Collarte, who recently told La Voz de Galicia that he earns around 5,100 euros a month and still has "quite a hard time" financially. In a country filled with "mileuristas," - people who earn around 1,000 euros a month, even if they have university degrees - these statements caused a stir in the political arena and on social networks. Many citizens are upset about what they see as an evident lack of political finesse at a time when millions of families are in dire financial straits.

"This conveys the message that politicians are out of touch with reality and unaware of the needs of civil society," says Carmen Fernández, a professor of political communication strategies at Rey Juan Carlos University. Fernández called Collarte's comments "unfortunate," a term also used by his PP colleagues.

But Ignacio Martín, an associate professor at Valladolid University, went further and called it "a lack of responsibility."

Collarte apologized on SER radio station a few days later, noting that he had simply described "my own reality" and that he could not understand why he was being "skinned alive for telling the truth." He apologized again in La Voz de Galicia . But the uproar has not died down, and the deputy, who is clearly upset by the whole thing, told this newspaper that he would not be making any more statements for now.

This conveys the message that politicians are out of touch with reality"

It is not outrageous for a politician to have trouble making ends meet, no matter what he or she earns. Vicens Castellano, director of La Escuela de Inversión (a financial academy) and an expert in home economics, says that when people's incomes grow, expenses tend to grow as well.

"In order to maintain a certain lifestyle - mortgage, cars, daycare, security... - you have to pay for it," he says. But when income dwindles, as in Collarte's case (he said that he earned 12,000 euros a month in the private sector) then you need to make cuts, just like in public financing.

"It's hard for me having to reduce my former earnings by 35 percent," said the deputy, who has two mortgages and three loans (one personal loan and two others to buy cars), according to the asset statement he gave Congress when he took up his seat. Back then, in December 2011, he owed 373,000 euros to various lenders. "The key to managing your money lies in how much you spend, not how much you make," notes Castellano.

Martín, a political scientist who specializes in communications, believes this mathematical explanation helps put Collarte's statements into context. "But the people who listened to the statements were citizens who only wish they were mileuristas , and who feel that [Collarte] has been disrespectful," he says.

The Galician politician's words reminded more than one person of similar statements by Madrid regional premier Esperanza Aguirre, also of the PP, who said in a 2006 biography that she felt like a "martyr" for not receiving bonuses.

"It's not that I struggle to make ends meet by the end of the month, it's that they often don't meet at all!" she stated back then. At the time, Aguirre was making a gross 8,395 euros a month (a little over 5,800 net), which was less than what she made as speaker of the Senate. But at the time of her statements, Spain was still enjoying the last few moments of the economic boom, and so criticism was reduced to assertions by the opposition that the premier was incurring in "frivolities."

Collarte, on the other hand, spoke at a time when the jobless rate is hovering around 25 percent and more spending cuts are being announced in public health, education, unemployment checks and subsidies for dependents. The economic context matters when it comes to citizen sentiment over these types of statements.

"Language can be treacherous, it can hurt feelings quite sharply, and feelings are running high right now," notes Ramón Cotarelo, a professor of political communication at the distance university UNED. This opinion is shared by Martín, who feels that "the situation worsens [the effect of] the statements."

Castellano, who helps families manage their often meager assets, says that he understands "the indignation" felt by people who see that the deputy's economic situation does not conform to what is considered normal in Spain. And the numbers back this up. According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), the most common annual salary in Spain is 16,489 euros gross (around 1,400 a month), while the average is 22,790 euros. What this means, says the INE, is that wage distribution is very uneven: a few people earn a lot while a lot of people earn very little.

This reality does not fit in with the examples that Employment Minister Fátima Báñez provided last Friday to explain the government's new guidelines for extending checks to people whose unemployment subsidies have run out. Báñez talked about a family of four where the parents make a joint 8,000 euros a month. The example was ill-received by many citizens, and again the social networks were abuzz with talk of Báñez's statements. The income limit set by the government for a person to be eligible for the 400-euro monthly check in four-member families is less than 1,928 euros (482 euros per family member).

Some politicians' apparent lack of touch with reality only increases the gap between citizens and their representatives. "Society feels betrayed," explains Carmen Fernández. "Citizens are worried about issues that affect them directly, and the political class demonstrates that they don't know what's going on." As a result, she adds, "people don't trust them anymore."

This negative sentiment toward politicians is increasingly noticeable in opinion polls such as the Barómetro CIS, where political parties ranked third on the list of problems worrying Spaniards in a June poll. Politicians only came in behind unemployment and economic problems, and ahead of corruption or health issues.

This estrangement is also reflected on the social networks. "Statements no longer fall on deaf ears; they get talked about beyond the bar conversations," says Martín.

It happened to Andrea Fabra, a PP deputy who screamed out "¡Que se jodan!" (Screw them!) in Congress on July 11 when Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced a reduction in unemployment benefits. Even though Fabra herself later claimed that her remark was aimed at the opposition, not Spain's unemployed, one internet user considered Fabra "unworthy" of her post and made an online petition on the site Change.org to collect signatures to request her dismissal. By the time the deadline ended, 224,821 people had endorsed the initiative. For every one of them, an email was sent to Fabra's personal account.

The cost of a cup of coffee caught out Zapatero on live television

"Every politician knows that their statements have an effect, and now more than ever with social networks," says Cotarelo. Citizens are not just able to exercise their freedom of expression, they are also organizing to exert pressure. "They can ask [politicians] to step down, to apologize... There is greater movement to make people feel accountable," adds Martín.

These expressions of citizen unrest on social networks (from satirical comments and the feared Twitter hashtags to petitions) are detrimental to the political class' image in general, and most particularly to the image of politicians who are the targets of the comments.

"Their lack of prudence eventually has a cost," says Martín, who adds that popular pressure can end up affecting the political careers of politicians whose statements hurt the population's feelings. "Their words will be remembered, and it could well be that in the next elections their names are dropped from the list," he says.

But Fernández feels that the greatest damage is to the party. "Politicians personify their organizations," she says. To her, these cases denote a deficient communication strategy. "Knowing what, how and when to say it."

Ignacio Martín believes that Collarte's words are the result of inexperience. "There are people coming in from the private sector who are unfamiliar with political rhetoric," he notes, then offers the following advice: "Prepare your reply."

Carmen Fernández insists that "statements that are estranged from reality are a regular occurrence within the PP. They don't have an adequate communication strategy." Along the same lines, Cotarelo feels it is typical of conservative politicians to say that they could be making more money working in their own professions. "But nobody is forcing them to be there," he remarks.

Esperanza Aguirre said that she felt like a "martyr" for not receiving bonuses

Over in Socialist ranks, former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was the unwilling star of an episode that revealed his lack of knowledge of something as mundane as the price of a cup of coffee, even though his faux pas was much less significant.

In March 2007, Jesús Cerdán (an anonymous citizen until that day) addressed the Spanish leader on the TV program Tengo una pregunta para usted (I have a question for you) and asked him if he knew how much a cup of coffee cost. "Eighty cents," came the reply, at a time when the price range was 1.10 to 1.40 euros at any café in Spain. To the question-poser, this proved that Zapatero was out of touch with "the street."

The price of coffee also featured prominently on another highly criticized speech by politicians. "The pensioner who will pay the most for medicines will only pay eight euros a month," said the health commissioner for Castilla-La Mancha, José Ignacio Echániz, to justify the introduction of copayment in the public health system. "Eight euros is four cups of coffee. That's one coffee a week, or 20 cents a day."

What Echániz, a PP spokesman on health issues, failed to mention is that pensioners will have to advance 10 percent of their medicine bills, and be reimbursed later, a difficult layout for people who already have trouble making ends meet month to month. The next day, following an online outcry, he was forced to apologize. Was it believable? "It is precisely that type of message that is sincere," says Martín.