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If you can’t move elections to suit events, you have to move events to suit elections. Such has been the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy’s, approach to the regional elections in Galicia and the Basque country.

It was no surprise that Rajoy’s party, the conservative Partido Popular would hold Galicia. It is Rajoy’s homeland and has been a PP fief ever since Franco died. In fact, Galicia is home to the heirs of the Fraga family, whose name was made advising Franco and reforming the Right in Spain through the democratic transition. Galicia is so committed to the PP that voters stuck with the party even after the disastrous clean up response in the wake of the Prestige oil spill in 2002. The PP governors at the time are only now starting their trial, which has been covered up by the media now that the PP is in government and has shifted the political balance of Television Espanola (TVE) (the Spanish BBC if you like) to the Right by pushing out Ana Pastor (the Spanish Jeremy Paxman, if you like). Essentially, there was no way the PP could lose Galicia.

Despite assured success, Rajoy took no chances and the PP managed to win 3 additional seats for an absolute majority. The country has been softened up of the personal tax hike and a VAT rise which is ready now that these elections are over. It is a bitter irony that when I lived in Spain, the one piece of material I could take from the local PP was a leaflet setting out the arguments against the then Socialist government raising VAT. The main crux of this campaign has been ‘the Denmark comparison’ that Spain pays a below-EU average rate of tax, which happens to be untrue, but remains a central argument.

Rajoy was so keen to postpone the damage until after the regional elections that the Government did its best to delay the Budget. Unfortunately for him, the 2003 Annual Budget Law made such a move impossible. The Law states that if a new Budget had not been passed by the set date, then last year’s Budget would have carried over to the next year unchanged. Evidently this would have been impossible given the pressure placed on Spain to introduce more spending cuts and tax rises.

It is quite possible that this new Budget was softened to fit in with the elections, given the IMF’s warning that it was at best ‘optimistic’ and that its income prediction was too high as a result of the cuts to healthcare and employment matters that are constraining the economy.

Though Galicia was safe, Rajoy’s manoeuvres may have had more of an impact in the Basque country. In the last elections, the Basque socialists (PSE-EE PSOE) were able to take control of the presidency of the region and made Patxi López the new Lehendakari (President) thanks to an agreement with the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV). This time around, Patxi López was disliked internally and easy to dislodge when coupled with the general sense of chaos and dismay in the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) the remains decimated after the general election last year. The Socialists lost by far the most at 9 seats (25 to 16) while the PP only lost 3; an incredible achievement for the latter after a dismal year in government. Even the Nationalists lost 3 seats but remain the biggest party.

The big winners turned out to be a left-wing nationalist and separatist party called Euskal Herria Bildu, who jumped from 5 to 21 seats. Their victory will provoke grave predictions for the upcoming Catalan elections.

Rajoy’s playing for time saved his party from losing in these elections, but he has very little to play for politically in the composition of the Catalan Parliament. The question now is whether he can divide his time between dealing with calls for a bail-out and fighting calls for independence. Between saving Spain economically or saving Spain politically, Rajoy is racing against the clock.

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