Today's Spanish Elections May Say Something about the French and American Presidential Elections in 2012

Spain held parliamentary elections today and the right (the Popular Party) won an absolute majority. The socialists, in power since 2004, have now been put out of office, taking only 28.5% of the vote and losing 59 seats. The result is historic for the right because it is the largest majority the party has had since Spain became a democracy after the fall of Franco and it means that the PP will be able to rule without forming any coalitions with the Greens or other minority parties.

Spain is the third European country to oust a government that was in power when the Eurozone crisis began. The other two are Italy and Greece, where sitting governments were also tossed out.

Spain has been hit by the crisis as hard as any Eurozone country. It has upwards of 20% unemployment, higher for young people who are actually studying French and German in private schools in the hope of leaving Spain to try to find work.

The right campaigned hard on the need to put into place a rigorous austerity program to try to save the country from default by reducing the government deficit and reassuring banks who buy Spanish bonds that the country is serious about putting its fiscal house in order.     

But, even though 72% of Spanish voters turned out today, they have no illusions about the future. Voters who spoke after leaving polling places said that they know that the crisis is worldwide and that there really isn’t any viable solution in sight.  

The new Popular Party prime minister will take office on the 20^th of December, a week after the new parliament is sworn in, and his job, he says, is to try to keep Spain out of recession, and to reduce unemployment and the deficit at the same time (not an easy trick).

Next will be the French presidential election in April and May 2012, and then the US presidential election in November 2012.

It is not clear that these two results will follow Spain’s example of moving to the right. In France, especially, voters express a real resentment of the way President Sarkozy and his Gaullist party have governed. But, as the weeks tick down to voting day, my guess is that the French will probably vote for Sarkozy, although reluctantly. The socialist candidate is a former Socialist Party chairman who has no experience in governing (think Michele Bachmann) and whose party is really a coalition of many leftist factions who rarely agree among themselves. That, as one could say, is no way to win an election. And, the other interesting fact is that the extreme right Nationalist Party is polling at between 15 and 20% of probable voters. This could mean a repeat of the 2002 election when the socialists lost in the first round, being beaten by the Nationalist Party candidate. This led to a sweep for the right, when French voters who had voted extreme right edged back to the center and re-elected Jacques Chirac.

America? I would, if pressed, say that the same thing may happen there, except that there will be only one ballot. Those who are expressing very rightist preferences in presidential candidates will move back toward the center to be sure that their votes will count in preventing President Obama, who is far to the left of most Americans, from being re-elected.