SPAIN: The Socialist Party, Between Crisis and Change

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jun 2 1995 (IPS) - The governing Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) is on the brink of crisis, unless its leadership implements changes in party policy and in the government.

Mid and high-level PSOE leaders differ in their proposals following the party’s defeat in the May 28 regional elections, but all agree that they have been dealt a major blow, and that the party must shift towards the left.

On the eve of a meeting of the PSOE Federal Committee to be held on Saturday, the general secretary of the party and head of Spain’s government, Felipe Gonzalez, is being questioned from both inside and outside the party.

Gonzalez’ biggest external problem comes from Catalonia, the autonomous community governed by the moderate nationalist Jordi Pujol.

Gonzalez depends on Pujol’s support to hold a majority in parliament, but the Catalonian leader has given signs that he wants to get out of a committment that has made him lose votes in his region.

If Pujol withdraws his support, Gonzalez will be forced to step down and call early general elections, an option being pushed for by both the United Left (IU) coalition and the conservative Popular Party (PP), the most widely voted on Sunday, and current opinion poll favourite.

However, Gonzalez’ most serious problem comes from within his own party. For the first time since he became PSOE general secretary, the charismatic leader is being criticised by other high-level members who up to now had bickered among themselves, but had consistently backed Gonzalez.

One of Spain’s long-time socialist leaders who has always supported Gonzalez, Luis Yanez, said “the generation of Suresnes” (the French town where the party congress was held in which Gonzalez first became general secretary of the PSOE in 1974) must take a step back.

The leader of Valencia’s socialists, Joan Lerma, who will step down as president of his region in July because he lost in Sunday’s elections, said changes are necessary, much more in the central government than in the party.

Lerma added that “without the corruption scandals, the results would have been better,” an expression that echoes the general feeling among regional and municipal PSOE leaders who polls indicate are popular, but who lost the May 28 local elections because of the discredit of the central government.

Another socialist leader, Juan Carlos Rodriguez Ibarra, who for the third time became president of the Extremadura region, said that since a year and a half ago, the PSOE has been unable to reach the social sectors that have traditionally supported the party.

And a member of the Federal Committee, the director of the magazine “Themes for Debate”, Jose Felix Tezanos, suggested that Gonzalez be replaced.

In an article that will come out in next Monday’s edition of the magazine, Tezanos writes: “a new general secretary capable of revitalising the PSOE should be elected.” This “would lead to new leadership, in both the government and the party.”

Rodriguez Ibarra even proposed the name of a possible replacement for Gonzalez at the head of the government: current minister of public works, transport and the environment, Jose Borrell.

Immediately following the elections, those close to Gonzalez hurriedly issued an optimistic message, announcing that the PSOE Executive Committee had unanimously rejected any move by the general secretary to leave his post at the party’s disposal, implying that Gonzalez had offered to resign.

However, former vice-president of the government and PSOE number two, Alfonso Guerra, rapidly clarified that “at no moment” and under no circumstances had Gonzalez offered to step down.

Aside from the conflicting versions, the issue will be the central one in Saturday’s Federal Committee meeting, because even if none of the above-mentioned bring it up, the leader of the Socialist Left – a minority sector of the party – Jose Garcia Santesmases, announced that he will do so.

The big question is what attitude Gonzalez will take. A political cartoon published on Friday by the moderate Barcelona daily ‘La Vanguardia’ seems to reflect general opinion.

In the cartoon, Gonzalez sits with a stern face on a sofa in front of a portrait of himself standing in a Napoleonic pose.

Standing near him are Guerra, the vice-president of the government Narcis Serra and foreign minister Javier Solana, who respectfully tell him: “the rank-and-file are asking for changes in the party leadership.”

To which Gonzalez responds, looking straight ahead, “then change the rank and file.”