'Super Zapatero' wins but Rajoy gains too
The ecstatically happy crowd of men and women waving red socialist flags are roaring and shouting, waiting expectantly for their man to appear at the podium in the shape of a big red 鈥淶鈥. 
The noise is so great that I can鈥檛 hear my cue from the TV studios in London and my producer, the multi-talented Sean Klein, adds another skill to his repertoire. He has to sit at my feet and bang my leg when it's time to to talk, like the owner of a performing horse.
'Super Zapatero'
The crowd chants 鈥淪uper Zapatero鈥 and it takes some minutes for the newly re-elected Prime Minister of Spain to quiet them down. When he does, he promises to govern 鈥渇or all of Spain鈥.
Super Z, with his circumflex eyebrows, may not be the most obvious superhero, but he has performed a stunning feat: when all the opinion polls were predicting he might just squeak home he has actually increased his party鈥檚 number of MPs.
But hang on, what鈥檚 this? Over at the headquarters of , Rajoy is on the platform, cuddling his wife, a big smile on his face. 
His supporters may be a little more subdued, but they are cheering and waving their blue flags with enthusiasm.
There鈥檚 not a despondent face in the crowd and a spokesman calls the result 鈥渕agnificent鈥.
Electoral maths
For the opposition have also increased their share of the vote and number of MPs. How to explain this weird (to British eyes) electoral maths? Well, some of the smaller parties have suddenly got a lot smaller.
No doubt psephologists will be crawling over the results for some time to come.
So here are some initial thoughts about the reasons for the vote. At this stage, this is guesswork and only scientific in the sneeze that these are disprovable theses.
It may be that Spain has voted for a two party system. Many observers have commented that the traditional division - socialist secularists and Catholic conservatives - has got sharper in the last four years.
Perhaps many have seen this as the real choice. Or perhaps, with the economy taking a nose-dive, people think only the bigger parties can provide the answer.
The losers
Who has taken the hit? are the ERC, a left-wing Catalan party which goes down from eight seats to three. That鈥檚 interesting because the CiU - the Catalan conservatives - increase their number of MPs from 10 to 11.
The IU, a pact of greens and communists, go from five seats to two. The Basque PNV lose one seat as do the Canary Islands Cooalition and Aragon nationalists, who no longer have anyone in Parliament. A new party, led by a former socialist concerned about more power for the regions, wins its first seat.
So perhaps left-wingers, at least, have decided that Zapatero is their best hope, and wanted to make sure the conservatives didn鈥檛 take power. It's possible that the government's policy of was enough for some, who are then happy to vote nationally in national elections.
Given that the desire of some Catalans for independence, and the real fears of some Spaniards that their country could be on the verge of flying apart, socialists will argue that their relaxed approach to regional government has paid off.
But Zapatero is still short of a working majority and taking votes from other left-wing parties won鈥檛 make the coming negotiations any easier. Spain is in for another interesting four years.
I鈥檓 Mark Mardell, the 大象传媒's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
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"Party spokesmen said the result was a clear endorsement of the prime minister's programme of liberal reforms - including a gender-equality law, fast-track divorces and same-sex marriage"
And I always thought, silly me, that governments are elected primarily to guarantee nations' security/ stability and economic prosperity.
Now I learn that in Spain socialist government is primarily in business of legislating morality and of social engineering.
No wonder Spanish economy is heading south.
Mark, why are most foreign reporters so happy to imply that in Spain we are allways voting in fear? For fear of terrorists, for fear of separatists, for fear of the economy (why has the 大象传媒 made such a ridiculous doom-prediction-article on ZP's win? the highest unemployment in the century? Please people check your sources)...
Is it so hard to understand that we are having bipartidism from the very first democratic election (at the time it was UCD and PSOE, now PP and PSOE), that nationalists have sunken because they simply were overrepresented after the 2004 elections (you mention that ERC goes from 8 to 3 seats but maybe you do not know that before 2004 they barely had 1 representative).
It is not the first time I read a reporter implying that people in some regions are voting PSOE just because they are soft on nationalism and with ZP they will have their way.
Is it realy so hard to understand that the current gobernment has been actually good and it is perceived as such by people? That most of the minority parties, comunists and nationalists (left and right) have drown in their own demagogy and eternal victimism and their voters have switched to the only two parties that have a national and coherent policy?
Rajoy "gains" MP's indeed but... so what? No goverment is no goverment, beeing leader of the oposition with more or less a handfull of MPs is absolutly meaningless.
Still, it helps keep Rajoy in PP, wich in turn means keeping PSOE in power, so I'm glad for his "victory".
...so, Zapa, what about anexing this here Portugal of mine? About time, no?
Well, you know what they say about the Spanish opinion polls: historically the worst in Europe.
About CiU: that's indeed interesting, as they win 1 seat when they've lost 70.000 votes. But that's due to the regional division in Catalonia.
The new party, UPyD, does want some power (some fiscal powers and education) transferred to the regions, but they also want to remove the 'historical rights' (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derechos_hist%C3%B3ricos) from Catalonia, the Basque country and Galicia, giving them the same status as any other region. The goal of UPyD is concluding the regional question and fixing the form of the Spanish state once and for all. A bit naive if you ask me...
What will be interesting the time to come, is the relation of the PSOE/PSC with CiU, as Catalonia is governed by a leftist tripartite (PSC + ERC & ICV, the biggest loosers in these elections) with CiU -as biggest party- in opposition. So if Zapatero will be needing support of CiU, it could end up quite tricky in Catalonia.
It's a shame that the system of constituencies in Spain favours nationalistic parties, which are strong only in a few provinces.
Is it fair that IU gets just 2 seats in the Parliament having gathered support of almost one million people, while BNG, ERC, CC-PNC get 7 seats with just over 600 000 votes?
The PP have argued bitterly that the 2004 elections were lost due to voter sentiment over the Madrid bombings, when they were most likely lost by the PP's transparent attempts to manipulate that disaster to their favour by implicating ETA, against mounting evidence to the contrary. It has taken them 4 years and many court cases for them to come to terms with the fact that ETA was not involved, although many in the PP ranks are still not convinced. This inability to accept the facts, to face up to the responsibilities of poor decision-making when in power, their arrogant "prepotencia" and their failure to acknowledge mistakes (eg.: el caso Prestige) has contributed to this second election defeat. Time for Rajoy to step down.
Whilst ZP may need help forming a majority, I'm pretty sure Mr Smoothy can pull off the same trick as he has been for the last 4 years: that of getting into bed with varying partners on an ad hoc basis.
From Catalunya our prospects for the future are far from rosy, we will continue to have to put up with a downright dreadful local train services (though many Brits might find it exquisite after what they have to suffer), an airport totally geared to servicing Madrid with no thought local needs, high-speed trains that go to Madrid ignoring the economically more important Mediterranean corridor, etc. etc.
Mirek, in this 'global' world and after joining the EU, there is little room for 芦governments [...] elected primarily to guarantee nations' security/ stability and economic prosperity禄. Look to Poland: US 'to modernise Polish military', says the 大象传媒 headlines.
Secularization of the Spanish society is making things much easier for many citizens.
芦No wonder Spanish economy is heading south禄. Well, we are southern europeans, mediterranean. We will pay the consequences of the real estate speculation world crisis.
Mirek,
it looks to me like the government was liberating people from legal restrictions in those matters - what is your problem with that?
And in what way are 'market reforms' NOT 'social engineering'?
PP is facing a time of internal struggle, as the two main currents within it, the more right-wing National-Catholics and the "moderate" Neo-Cons come to clash. Indeed the last few months saw a lot of movement among PP's "barons" (and specially "baroness" Esperanza Aguirre, President of the Region of Madrid) that could only be interpreted as an attempt to position themselves to take charge of the party when (mark you I say when and not if) Rajoy had to step down due to losing, again, the election.
Polls put Rajoy in a favourable light lately, which somehow subdued and certainly made all this moves more discreet, but we shall see what happens when PP holds their next internal forum.
As for Zapatero's win, I quite agree with Juan Carlos. Spain didn't vote Zapatero out of fear in 2004, if anything, they did vote him out of anger, anger at PP was widespread in all non-PP-voters in their last 4 years in term, and the Madrid bombing worked as a catalyst for that anger, greatly fueled by their continuous and persistent lies on the authors of the bombings. I remember that as soon as the evening of the bombings 大象传媒 and TV5 were already reporting suspicions pointing at radical islamists rather than at ETA. Friday 12th the US reported they were sending help to investigate and capture islamist terrorists, England and France already declared they were starting an alert to prevent similar attacks in their territories. And still PP kept saying it was ETA. Saturday 13th any clues on islamists were dismissed by the PP government, and Mr. Rajoy, then Minister of Internal Affairs, declared in a national newspaper that he was convinced ETA was behind the attacks. These 4 years have seen PP continue to cast suspicion on the bombings, and they got to the point that former Prime Minister Aznar said very recently that Zapatero was already negotiating with ETA back in 2002, when he was not in office, thus giving (again) the idea that there was a fabulous conspiration involving ETA, PSOE, the police forces and islamists to overturn the results in the election. Some of the media who support PP (mainly newspapers El Mundo and La Razon and radiostation COPE) indeed still comment every now and then about this and that suspicious move, document or the such that may prove them right after 4 years.
Zapatero's win last Sunday is just a confirmation to his politics. And I dare say a way of thanking him on his way of doing politics. PP is happy and eager to imply that PSOE has won votes by taking them by radical nationalist parties (such as ERC), and that indeed the good results of PP come from people who voted PSOE in 2004 and now are disenchanted with the President. They may even be right, but I think Spaniards have voted him again as a response to the repeated attacks from PP, who have been constantly denying any virtues of the government and indeed questioning its very right to be. Even now there are voices in PP saying that PSOE wouldn't have gotten as many votes if it weren't because of the assasination last Thursday of an ex-PSOE worker in the Basque Country, at the hands, again, of ETA. The two Spains are not only a thing of ideologies, but of ways of seeing the politicial process. The people at PSOE's HQ were chanting in happiness, celebrating victory, and no attacks were made against the person of Mr. Rajoy or his party. The people at PP's HQ chanted "A por ellos" (Let's get them), abounded in shouts of "Zapatero dimisi贸n" (quit Zapatero, again not accepting the truth that he has been voted once again by more people than PP) and got to the point of attempting an assault on some reporters from a TV channel considered not-friendly at PP. There are many voters in Spain who would vote Zapatero just because of that different way of doing things, regardless of ideas. I'm sure many did, last Sunday.
I was surprised at myself: I was happy that ZP won. This because I would never vote socialist myself. However the choice between > secularists and Catholic conservatives is clear to me. I think it is brilliant that Spain has moved from being a conservative dictatorship to being a global force of secularisation. Well done Zapatero: reconciling all aspects of your country is more important that listening to the some old man in Rome and your people have proven you right!
It's a good thing that the losing side seem able to count their loss as a victory. This will keep them on board the democratic game. The day before the election, there were dark hints of an anti-conservative conspiracy between ETA and the government in one right wing editorial. A seriously despondant Partido Popular might have played along with a conspiracy theory as they did after the Madrid train bombings. This would have been damaging to the country, making it very hard to establish any kind of mutual respect amongst the various threads of society. So it's good that the PP have distanced themselves from any such hints this time around.
it is worth noting that 4 of the 5 socialist gains came from Catalunya a stateless country for which ZP has very little love (apart from the Bar莽a football team) and even less intention of doing more than an absolute minimum to improve. One can only pray (faint though this may be) that the strengthened Catalan Socialist Party (PSC in it's catalan acronymn) can finally find the balls to stand up to their Spanish colleagues. I personally don't hold out much hope as they have never once voted against them.
What is more distressing is the complete disaster suffered by independence-minded parties both in Catalunya and Euskal Herria. They have a lot of work to do clearing up after the shambles they have been left in.
Don't go running away with the idea that Spain is populated by a bunch of bozos with bread between their ears. The Spanish elections were won by the socialst party for the simple reason that all in all thay haven't done a bad job over the last four years and the majority of voters realised that. The PSOE may not have an outright majority but the majority they do have in terms of actual voters is a sizeable one. Perhaps Rajoy,s continual sniping about the economy and unemployment helped the socialist vote by bringing home the fact that this is a global problem and not the fault of any single entity, least of all Se帽or Zapatero. Rajoy has only himself to blame for the PP loss. For four years he has whined, criticised, and sniped at PSOE policies yet on no occasion has he actually told us how he could or would do it better. Zapatero has shown that he "can" do the job, (whether he could do it better or not is another matter) Rajoy on the other hand has shown us nothing apart from the ability to expend large amounts of hot air. We can do without that, it's hot enough here already.I must also protest at the implication that Mr Zapatero approached the podium in the shape of a large "Z". He may be our own Mr Bean but he most definitely is not a contortionist to boot.
Zapatero deserve the win and he must think regarding Spain immigration topic, Spain should create new policies regarding skilled immigration rather then only immigration to woo skilled labour force like IT Techies ,Doctors, Engineers all over the world to make Spain as hub of research and development as most of the Spanish economy is dependent on service sector.
Don't go running away with the idea that Spain is populated by a bunch of bozos with bread between their ears. The Spanish elections were won by the socialst party for the simple reason that all in all thay haven't done a bad job over the last four years and the majority of voters realised that. The PSOE may not have an outright majority but the majority they do have in terms of actual voters is a sizeable one. Perhaps Rajoy,s continual sniping about the economy and unemployment helped the socialist vote by bringing home the fact that this is a global problem and not the fault of any single entity, least of all Se帽or Zapatero. Rajoy has only himself to blame for the PP loss. For four years he has whined, criticised, and sniped at PSOE policies yet on no occasion has he actually told us how he could or would do it better. Zapatero has shown that he "can" do the job, (whether he could do it better or not is another matter) Rajoy on the other hand has shown us nothing apart from the ability to expend large amounts of hot air. We can do without that, it's hot enough here already.I must also protest at the implication that Mr Zapatero approached the podium in the shape of a large "Z". He may be our own Mr Bean but he most definitely is not a contortionist to boot.
I moved to live and work and Spain five years ago and have been enchanted by this incredible country. What's more I really admire the government of Zapatero and PSOE. For once this is a government that did what it pledged in 2004 - bringing home the troops from Iraq and, for me as a gay man, giving serious attention to equal rights issues - just two of the policies that actually came into being.
I am also delighted that the Catholic Church has bene sidelined and no longer has a position of power and influence that it had. A well deserved second win. Viva Espa帽a!
Szymon 03:57 PM on 10 Mar 2008: either you are ill informed or you are interested in spreading a lie promoted by Spanish rightwingers. Catalan, Basque parties are getting the exact number of MPs according to their share of votes. The Spanish system punishes small parties in small constituencies. Thus leftwing IU, with a 2% of the vote in inner Spain provinces such as Cuenca, is never able to get one of the 3 MPs in the constituency. The two big parties -Socialists and the rightwing PP- are the only two over-represented parties. Just take a calculator and see: Socialists, 44% of vote, 48% of MPs; PP, 40% of vote, 44% of MPs; Catalan nationalist CiU, 3% of vote, 3% of MPs; Catalan independentist ERC, 1.17% of vote, 0.85% of MPs; leftwing IU, 3.8% of vote, 0.6% of MPs.
Felicitations to Zapatero on his well deserved win in the Elections in the Spain. It is the victory of the people who think that he can fulfill their hopes and aspirations and bring the country at par and above the other European Nations in terms of Economy, commerce and Administration. The Problemss of the immegrants and their quality and quantity not to be overlooked, as the country require their services to boost up the economy of the country. Mr. Virender Singh has well said, that country should import more and more skilled immegrants especially the techies, Doctors and commerce specialists to co ordinate and assist in the further development of the country and make it a class one economy in the continent.
Spain could have sent a message to the world it was serious about fighting terrorism by dumping Zapatero.
But by relecting an appeaser Spain has done a diservice to the world.
I found it interesting that Zapatero (who won) said he would learn from the mistakes he made in the last four years, whereas Rajoy (who lost) did not even mention the possibility of having made any mistakes in his role of opposition leader.
I think Zapatero's vision of a united Spain can work, afterall the United Kingdom is still realitively in tact albiet with regional Parliaments. However the threat of increased immigration with a stuttering world economy will provide a platform of discontent on which the right-wing will build.
I think Mr Zapatero's victory ownes as much to "those small left wing parties" as to the bishops almost rioting on the streets with the support of some people that seem to me coming back from the darkest moments of our history...and exactly with the very same shouts than 72 years ago.
I'm not too old but I have doubts about being in the future more ashamed than I was by the way the main opposition party behaved these past four years.
How many more years will they need to come to terms with the XXI century?
Thanks.
Dear Sirs,
The re election Mr. Zapatero has provided Spain an excellant opportunity, but at the same time it would be worthwhile to ruminate what to do to crush the ugly head of Extremisim and terrorism which is on the rise through out the world, how to deal with it in Spain, so that the peaceful citizen of this country do not suffer the fate as one can see in the East especially in the Pakistan. Well ! a clear cut policy has to chalked out to deal with terrorism in Spain. We shall look out that how is situation is being handled while he has assumed the control for the second time.
With best wishes to him and to Spain
Balraj Singh
Thanks Mr Mardell for an interesting bit of comment and analysis, after what seemed a long eerie silence from the 大象传媒 on this particular topic. (We had breaking news every time Obama or Clinton broke wind, despite the US elections being many months away, but virtually nada on the Spanish election until it's over... why is that? Not only is it significant news in terms of world politics, but think of the huge number of Britons who travel to Spain and make it their new or second home!)
I for one am not surprised at the result - Rajoy seems uninspiring, more interested in political sniping than considering what is best for the country, and whilst I'm not sure about all of Zapatero's reforms, he strikes me as a very rare commodity indeed, that is, a head of government with conviction and drive, who is genuinely interested in doing what he thinks is best for his country, rather than the sickening self-aggrandisement and vacuous posturing we have seen from other world leaders (not least our own dear former PM, and star-struck Sarkozy).
I sincerely hope the PSOE manages to handle the worsening economic difficulties, and that its plans in general work well for Spain. Whilst some of ZP's reforms may appear to have been handled without much sensitivity, I can understand the impulse to loosen further the stranglehold of oppression (and repression) previously inflicted on the country by those in power (both overtly and covertly), and who can argue with the verdict of the people he serves?
ZP has been brave enough to tackle some big issues that go to the core of Spanish culture and history, and the nature of its people, and now is the time for the modern Spain to show exactly how progressive, dignified and inspiring it can be.