Oct
19
(c) 2012, Bloomberg News.
MADRID — Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy may hold on to power in his home region of Galicia even as fallout over austerity saps his support elsewhere, in local voting that may ease an obstacle to a Spanish bailout request.
The People’s Party may hold on to its 38 seats in the 75- member regional assembly in voting this weekend, maintaining the majority it’s held since 2009, a poll by the state-run CIS indicated on Oct. 5. If it falls short, Socialists and Galician nationalists would seek to govern in a coalition. The Basque Country, where the PP has never won an election, also votes on Oct. 21, and polls signal nationalists in the lead.
Rajoy is counting on the outcome to show he can still win votes even after implementing the deepest budget cuts in three decades. The end of the campaign may also reduce political pressure on the premier to delay a European bailout request and free his hand to make deeper deficit cuts.
“If they keep their majority, Rajoy’s first message will be we can implement austerity and still win elections,” said Antonio Barroso, an analyst at Eurasia in London and former Spanish government pollster. “He’ll gain breathing space.”
Rajoy is implementing about 100 billion euros ($131 billion) of budget cuts, prompting unions to announce today that they will hold a general strike on Nov. 14, the second since the government came to power in December. Galicia, run by the PP’s Alberto Nunez Feijoo, has one of the smallest deficit of the 17 regions and isn’t tapping the central government’s bailout fund for cash-strapped states.
Even after cutting spending, Feijoo has the backing of 35 percent of Galicians for the president’s job compared with 12 percent for Socialist leader Pachi Vazquez, the CIS poll showed.
Support for the PP is even stronger in other surveys. A poll by Sondaxe for the Voz de Galicia newspaper indicated the PP would win 39 seats, clearing a majority, and a poll for national newspaper ABC showed they would win 40-41 seats.
The end of the campaign may also remove one obstacle to Spain seeking a European bailout, said Alejandro Quiroga, a political scientist at Newcastle University in Britain and Alcala de Henares University in Madrid.
“It’s the same thing as they did with the Andalusian elections, not presenting the budget until after the vote,” he said in a telephone interview.
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