Still playing a splinter party game

The Union, Progress and Democracy party (UPyD) is gearing up for various electoral contests in the near future in which it stands to benefit considerably, if the two major parties in Spanish political life continue to lose votes. For that reason the splinter party has concluded its second convention with the message that it is aspiring to form governments, and to influence the policies of the parties that govern. But it has said very little of a specific nature about the strategy it plans to follow.

While what has recently happened in Asturias is said to be a warning, it does not really help clarify the message voiced by the party. The reason alleged for UPyD’s breaking of its voting pact with the Socialist Party (PSOE) in the Asturias regional parliament is the latter’s breach of an agreement for electoral reform in the northern region, upon which UPyD had made its support conditional.

But it is hard to see the reason for the dispute — the Socialists allege that the broad majority they had initially demanded for the electoral law does not exist — as an essential problem. At least not so essential as to endanger the stability of a regional government that has for some time been in a state of breakdown, and was on the point of being taken over by the Finance Ministry.

Nor does the case of Asturias have anything to do with affairs of state — that is, affairs at the national level, which from the beginning has been the chief rallying cry and raison d’être of UPyD. Much was repeated about the unity of Spain, and the refusal to satisfy the ambitions of the regional nationalists at the party’s second convention.

The founder and leader of the party, Rosa Díez, dramatizes to her followers the claim that she is nobody’s dupe or disciple, and that her vote and those of her party are not for sale; but politics has to be aimed, above all else, at solving the real problems of citizens.

Meanwhile, the party promises that it will never include the names of any persons charged or even formally named in connection with corruption investigations on its electoral slates, and that its elected representatives will never accept gifts. These are all no doubt very positive messages concerning the effort that has to be made to restore the moral solvency and public confidence that is now so lacking on the Spanish political scene.

Supported by the opinion polls, which give it a rising share of the vote, UPyD stands firmly behind Díez, who has been reelected by no less than 93 percent of the votes cast. Oddly enough, only a rather small proportion (25 percent) of party members actually made use of their vote, perhaps due to the absence of any rival.

Díez thus emerges from the convention reaffirmed, and her next job is to explain just what policies her party stands for. Splinter parties have to make themselves respected, of course; but the consolidation of their expectations must depend not only on the shortcomings and failures of others, but also on sending out a more concrete message of their own to citizens.