Elections

8 Nov 2011

Although the elections in the United States have been on my mind a lot lately, this blog post isn't actually about politics in the US. Instead, I'm going to write about the upcoming elections in Spain--which are less than two weeks away!

On November 20 (20-N as they say here), Spaniards will vote for new representatives in the Congress of Deputies as well as the Senate. However, the most important vote will be for the new Prime Minister of Spain.

The current Prime Minister is Luis Zapatero--member of Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol (PSOE). Zapatero and his political party has become increasingly criticized over the last year or so because the economic situation in Spain isn't improving. In fact, Spain has one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe at 21.29%.

As in the US, this year's election is highly polarized with only two real candidates--Mariano Rajoy (representing the Partido Popular) and Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba (representing the Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol).

Last night, there was a political debate between Rajoy and Rubalcaba. The headlines in the paper today said it all. "Rajoy confunde a Rubalcaba con Zapatero y Rubalcaba trata a Rajoy como si fuera el presidente" or Rajoy confuses Rubalcaba with Zapatero and Rubalcaba treats Rajoy as if he were president."

The general reaction (of newspapers and the general public) was that Rubalcaba wasn't as confident in the debate. His body language showed that he was nervous, and he made a number of grammatical errors and stuttered in his speech.

Given the current opinions of Zapatero and PSOE, many people think that Rajoy will be elected as a sort of backlash against the political party.

We'll see how everything turns out on election day!