Spanish reneging on agreements to elect mayors

USPA NEWS - 57 percent of Spaniards voting is declared dissatisfied with the agreements reached in most capital cities and regions for the election of mayors and regional presidents, according to a survey of Metroscopia published Sunday by the newspaper El Pais.

The survey was conducted between 15 and 17 June 1,500 through interviews with Spanish citizens eligible to vote. A majority of respondents -the 57%- declared dissatisfied with the fact that the parties sign agreements to govern, which is widespread after local and regional elections on May 24 and that allow governance of cities and regions. For the Popular Party (PP) of the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, the agreements have been signed with Citizens (C's in its acronym in Spanish), an emerging formations and centrist ideology.

For its part, the Socialist Party (PSOE its acronym in Spanish) has signed agreements with Podemos, another emerging parties but leftist ideology, thus oust the PP even in cities and regions where the Conservatives were the most voted. A practice that is not welcomed by the Spaniards, as revealed by the survey published on Sunday newspaper El Pais.

Apart from the above, the agreements still being negotiated in several regions confirm the end of bipartisanship in the Spanish local and regional level. And this because the key governance newborns the parties have benefited from the disappointment of the Spanish with the traditional parties (PP and PSOE), but that come with the intention to stay and progress.

Of the thirteen new regional governments that emerged from the elections of May 24, only two -Madrid, in the center of the country, and Murcia in the southeast of Spain- will be for the PP. The Socialist Party rule in three regions: Valencia, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha; and the rest, as in La Rioja and Castilla y Leon, negotiations continue between the conservatives and Citizens to ensure Popular Party governments. Negotiations have been forced to retire to some 'barons' of the PP regional leaders with great weight in the party, as in the case of Pedro Sanz, President of the Government of La Rioja during the last 20 years, which will not repeat as demanded by Citizens to give their support for the conservative candidate.

Meanwhile, regional parliaments are being formed and the municipalities, which were the first to be constituted, work with their new mayors. In Madrid and Barcelona, the new mayors have begun to take its first decisions of a social, as the opening of school canteens in Madrid to ensure the children of poor families who will not lack food, and negotiating with banks in Barcelona to achieve the suspension of evictions. Measures to open a new era in the Spanish municipal politics.