It's a truism that justice is never swift in any country, unless it's executed under the aegis of the mob. Spain is certainly no exception to this rule and, indeed, things may well be slower here than elsewhere. This thought is prompted by reading a report that a constructor accused of fraud 15 years ago has just had the Supreme Court annul a vast fine (€70m) and reduce his prison sentence from 8 to 2 years. Meaning he won't now have to go to jail. In Spanish terms, I doubt this is exceptional - either the time it took or the reduction in sentences handed out by a lower court. And one is always left wondering why.
President Rajoy is probably one of the least impressive political leaders on the planet. He doesn't speak a word of English - though this is not unusual in Spain; his 3 predecessors didn't either - and his televisual skills are nil. Like other things in Spain, he seems to be left over from a previous age.
Because of his manifest inadequacies, Rajoy keeps his public appearances to a bare minimum and then makes things worse by trying to orchestrate them. At which, ironically, he's usually quite successful as the media is either state-owned or complicit. Some say this is because the press, at least, would go bust without direct and indirect government subsidies. But I wouldn't know.
All that said, Rajoy's major threat is coming not from a populace disaffected by austerity or irritated by the Catholic Church-driven changes to the abortion law, but from his own party. You and I might think that the PP under Rajoy is doing quite well as a right-of-centre party but this would be to ignore that the PP is an exceptionally broad church, ranging from the centre to a far-right which in other countries would be, say, Marie Le Pen's party in France, UKIP in the UK or Gert Whatsisname in Holland. And this far-right wing is stirring things up.
Firstly there was the formation of Vox ('the moderate far-right') and now there are the actions of the last PP President (Aznar), who's making it clear he doesn't think Rajoy is sufficiently tough. This appears to mean he's not taking measures demanded by the Association of Victims of ETA and that he's being too lenient on the Catalans as they meander towards an ('illegal') referendum in November. Personally, I don't know what more Rajoy could do, short of sending in troops now. But presumably Aznar has some ideas.
As if Aznar's sniping weren't enough, Rajoy also faces the on-line exposés of El Espía en el Congreso, an anonymous web page which started up less than a year ago and already has hundreds of thousands of (Spanish) readers. In the past week there's been a post on Rajoy's croneyism and nepotism over the last 25 years and another one on his allegedly dubious private life. Part two of the latter was posted today. To be fair, all the people I've spoken to in Pontevedra - both of them - have said all this is lies. Or the first 2 posts, at least; I've not had a chance to discuss the third. Of course, the major problem of discussing this with anyone in Pontevedra is that all 80,000 of them claim to be close personal friends of both Rajoy and his entire family. Defence is thus compulsory.
My own view of why the PP party put someone so ineffective in charge of it is that Rajoy is a front man and that his strings are controlled by someone else. I just don't know who. But, I confess that might not be right. Possibly it should be 'whom'.
President Rajoy is probably one of the least impressive political leaders on the planet. He doesn't speak a word of English - though this is not unusual in Spain; his 3 predecessors didn't either - and his televisual skills are nil. Like other things in Spain, he seems to be left over from a previous age.
Because of his manifest inadequacies, Rajoy keeps his public appearances to a bare minimum and then makes things worse by trying to orchestrate them. At which, ironically, he's usually quite successful as the media is either state-owned or complicit. Some say this is because the press, at least, would go bust without direct and indirect government subsidies. But I wouldn't know.
All that said, Rajoy's major threat is coming not from a populace disaffected by austerity or irritated by the Catholic Church-driven changes to the abortion law, but from his own party. You and I might think that the PP under Rajoy is doing quite well as a right-of-centre party but this would be to ignore that the PP is an exceptionally broad church, ranging from the centre to a far-right which in other countries would be, say, Marie Le Pen's party in France, UKIP in the UK or Gert Whatsisname in Holland. And this far-right wing is stirring things up.
Firstly there was the formation of Vox ('the moderate far-right') and now there are the actions of the last PP President (Aznar), who's making it clear he doesn't think Rajoy is sufficiently tough. This appears to mean he's not taking measures demanded by the Association of Victims of ETA and that he's being too lenient on the Catalans as they meander towards an ('illegal') referendum in November. Personally, I don't know what more Rajoy could do, short of sending in troops now. But presumably Aznar has some ideas.
As if Aznar's sniping weren't enough, Rajoy also faces the on-line exposés of El Espía en el Congreso, an anonymous web page which started up less than a year ago and already has hundreds of thousands of (Spanish) readers. In the past week there's been a post on Rajoy's croneyism and nepotism over the last 25 years and another one on his allegedly dubious private life. Part two of the latter was posted today. To be fair, all the people I've spoken to in Pontevedra - both of them - have said all this is lies. Or the first 2 posts, at least; I've not had a chance to discuss the third. Of course, the major problem of discussing this with anyone in Pontevedra is that all 80,000 of them claim to be close personal friends of both Rajoy and his entire family. Defence is thus compulsory.
My own view of why the PP party put someone so ineffective in charge of it is that Rajoy is a front man and that his strings are controlled by someone else. I just don't know who. But, I confess that might not be right. Possibly it should be 'whom'.
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