US embassy cable - 04MADRID817

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MADRID 000817 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/09/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, SP, Spanish Election March 2004, Popular Party, PSOE - Socialist Party 
SUBJECT: SPANISH NATIONAL ELECTIONS: VIEWS BEYOND MADRID 
 
 
Classified By: Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Political Counselor, for Reasons 1 
.4 (b) and (d) 
 
1. (C) Summary:  Spanish regional leaders in Valencia, 
Asturias, Andalucia and Extremadura from both the Socialist 
and Popular Parties believe the Popular Party will gain the 
most seats in the March 14 national elections.  But most of 
them - except for two Socialist party members in regional 
Socialist strongholds and one PP operative - believe the PP 
may not win the absolute majority it needs to govern on its 
own.  These leaders also indicated that foreign policy, 
including Iraq, will not be a deciding factor in the 
elections; economic and local issues touching directly on 
Spaniards' lives, will be the key issues.   Their views 
comport with conventional wisdom prevailing in Madrid less 
than a week before the elections, set for Sunday, March 14. 
The last polls permitted before the national elections came 
out on March 8 - each with slightly varied results depending 
on the political affiliation of the polling organization. 
Indications remain that the PP will form the next Spanish 
government, but will have to fight until the waning hours of 
the campaign to try to win an absolute majority.  End Summary 
 
2. (SBU) Embassy political officers visited four important 
regions in Spain to take the pulse of regional leaders and 
gauge the impact of regional issues on the national 
elections.  Two of these regions - Andalucia, and Extremadura 
-- are governed by well-known Socialist party bosses, both of 
whom are also frequently cited as possible replacements for 
Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) leader Jose Luis Rodriquez 
Zapatero if their party loses badly in the national 
elections.  The regional Asturias government is a coalition 
of the Socialists and the radical United Left (IU) party. 
President Aznar's Popular Party (PP) governs the Valencia 
region and Valencia city's mayor is a prominent PP 
personality.  Valencia has been identified, however, as a 
region the PP must target to win over undecided voters.  None 
of these regions poses the kind of separatist or regional 
autonomy challenge of the Basque or Catalonia regions.  But 
each prides itself in its distinct regional autonomy, 
characteristics and history. 
 
ANDALUCIA:  SOCIALIST STRONGHOLD 
 
3. (SBU) The Popular Party is seeking to break the 
Socialists' 22-year hold on the Andalucian government in 
regional elections March 14.  This will be the only regional 
election that coincides with the general election.  However, 
polling indicates that the PP will have a difficult time 
dethroning Socialist "Baron" Manuel Chavez, the region's 
long-serving President.  Indeed, some polling indicates that 
Chavez and the Socialists will win an absolute majority in 
the regional elections and thus be able to govern without 
coalition partners for the first time since 1994. 
 
4. (SBU) Socialist, PP, and Andalucian Regionalist (Partido 
Andalucista) politicians with whom Poloff met in Seville on 
March 3 noted that Andalucia has historically deep leftist 
roots that work strongly in favor of the PSOE.  They expect 
this to play out in the voting for the national election as 
well as for the Andalucian regional elections.  The PP does 
well in urban areas and controls six of Andalucia's eight 
largest cities.  However, the countryside, with its legacy of 
exploited peasants, remains solidly in the PSOE camp.  If 
trends continue, this should allow the PSOE to carry the 
region in the national election on March 14.   Both Zapatero 
and Rajoy have campaigned extensively in Andalucia. 
 
5. (SBU) The PP hopes to narrow the gap, and ultimately 
overcome it, by appealing to the sentiment that the Chavez 
government is an inefficient patronage-based regime that 
stifles economic growth.  However, many poor farmers in the 
countryside live off the patronage system (most notably an 
agricultural welfare system known as PER) and are fearful of 
reform.  The Chavez government also controls the regional TV 
station, Canal Sur, the only source of news in some rural 
areas.  Canal Sur's message is unabashedly pro-Chavez and 
pro-PSOE.  While the polling outlook for the PP looks tough, 
PP strategists hope for a "hidden vote" in their favor since 
Andalucians are reluctant to admit to pollsters that they 
support the PP. 
 
EXTREMADURA:  SOCIALIST REGION, LOCAL ISSUES 
 
6. (C) Extremadura's Socialist regional governor, Jose 
Ibarra, is one of PSOE's key party leaders.  His Chief of 
Staff, Ignacio Sanchez-Amor, indicated that Extremadura 
voters are less motivated by the issues that dominate the 
agenda of the national campaigns of both parties. 
Sanchez-Amor said that though unemployment is an important 
element in the national elections (with the PP able to claim 
a significant decline in unemployment since they took 
office), the issue is unlikely to bring voters out in support 
of the Socialist party nationally.  He also admitted that the 
PP has actually done a good job of creating a good investment 
climate to reduce unemployment in Spain.  He believes voters 
credit the PP for plans to extend the Madrid-Seville 
high-speed train all the way to Lisbon, which would benefit 
Extremadura.   Though tolerant of PP national government, 
Extremadura's Socialists remain staunchly loyal to Juan 
Carlos Ibarra, President and Secretary General of the 
regional Socialist Party.  Sanchez-Amor said voters admire 
Ibarra's willingness to speak out against PP "excesses." 
 
7. (C) Both PSOE's Sanchez Amor and the Popular Party 
parliamentary candidate for the city of Badajoz warned us 
that national public opinion polling can be less than 
reliable.  Sanchez-Amor dismissed polling that indicates a 
majority of Spaniards would like to see a change in 
government, saying that if this were true they would be far 
less passive this electoral campaign.  He also discussed the 
composition of the some 23 percent who remain undecided.  He 
said that most of the older undecided voters consist of 
conservatives, those who have no strong ideological position, 
or those who will chose a candidate at the last minute. 
However, younger voters, who were not active in the last 
elections and who have strong ideological tendencies, are 
likely to turn out in greater numbers in support of the 
Socialists. 
 
8. (C) The PP's Pia-Sanchez believes the national polls are 
unreliable because voters tend to misrepresent how they 
intend to vote in informal telephone surveys, on which most 
Spanish polls are based.  She also expressed concern that 
polls favoring the PP might discourage potential PP voters or 
mobilize potential abstainers who are against the PP. 
Finally, she states, the polls satisfy the interests of the 
party who requests them rather than reflect how people will 
actually vote. 
 
9. (C) According to Sanchez-Amor, Spanish voters worry that 
Spain's support for US policies in Iraq created tension with 
their traditional EU allies.  Nevertheless, Spain's foreign 
policy is unlikely to be deciding factor in this election, he 
said.   Voters ideally want Spain to have influence within 
the EU while maintaining friendly relations with the US, no 
matter which party is in power after March 14.  Pia-Sanchez 
said that Spain under the PP would remain a close ally of the 
US and an active partner in Iraq.  However, she believes a PP 
government would focus more attention on cooperation with 
Latin America and the Middle East. 
 
ASTURIAS:  LINGERING TENSIONS FROM FRANCO ERA 
 
10. (SBU) In the 1980's Asturias could be counted on to vote 
PSOE in national elections, but the PP edged even in 1993 and 
1996, and pulled ahead in the 2000 congressional vote by a 
wide margin.   The Asturias regional government is formed by 
a PSOE-IU coalition, marking only the second time since the 
restoration of democracy that the Socialists have not ruled 
alone at the regional level (the other being a four-year term 
of PP control in the 1990s).  Of its nine Congressional 
seats, the PP currently holds five, the PSOE four and the 
United Left one.  This year, because of Asturias' stagnant 
population growth, the region will receive only eight seats 
in Congress. 
 
11. (SBU) Asturias' Autonomous Region President's Chief of 
Staff, PSOE member Maria Jose Ramos, told us that local 
concerns will dominate Asturias' voter choices in the 
national elections.  These include the need to improve 
transportation links (especially those with its neighbors, 
Galicia, Cantabria, and the Basque region), solving the 
financial burden caused by unfunded mandates from the 
national government, employment and reducing home prices. 
She also said the region suffers because of its strained 
relationship with Minister-level officials of the PP national 
government.  She said she expects the PP to win on March 14 
(though without an absolute majority), but hopes that Rajoy's 
ministerial appointees will be more cooperative than Aznar's. 
 
 
12. (C) PSOE representatives, including the party's leading 
congressional candidate Alvaro Cuesta Martinez, echoed the 
same PSOE themes and cited the region's strained relationship 
with the national government as the main issue in Asturias 
for this election, closely followed by transportation 
infrastructure and housing prices.  They said they were 
expecting a PP victory nationally, and seemed resigned to the 
possibility that the PP would be able to govern with the four 
seats promised to them by the Canary Islands. 
 
13. (C) The PP's top regional candidate, Alicia Castro, 
placed terrorism at the top of Asturias' issues, with 
employment issues a close second.  She blames the Asturias 
region's "failings" on "incompetence" at the regional 
government level, stating that the PSOE local officials are 
slow to act on programs and projects that the national 
government has funded.  In the national elections, she said 
she was confident of an absolute majority for the PP, stating 
that she expected around 177-178 votes for the PP, with even 
180 as a possibility. 
 
14. (C) Both political parties made a point to remind us of 
old grievances dating from the Franco era (Castro noting how 
the Communists burned Oviedo's cathedral in the 1930's, and 
Cuesta Martinez pointing out an interview excerpt in which an 
Aznar official purportedly expressed his admiration for 
General Franco).  Because of its mining, steel and iron 
industries, the region has a long history in Spain's labor 
movement (with the local PSOE party celebrating the 100-year 
anniversary of socialism in Asturias), and the PP and PSOE 
camps appear to have a particularly bitter relationship. 
 
VALENCIA:  PP COUNTRY 
 
15. (SBU) The PP won a convincing victory in Valencia in the 
2000 elections, capturing 9 seats versus 6 for the PSOE, and 
hopes to repeat that feat in 2004.  The PP benefits in 
Valencia, one of Spain's most economically dynamic regions, 
from the charismatic mayor of Valencia city, Rita Barbera. 
Barbera has won four terms and has a national reputation as 
one of Spain's best mayors.  She recently helped Valencia win 
selection as site of the next America's Cup (since the 
previous winner, Switzerland, can't host). 
 
16. (SBU) DCM and Poloff met with Barbera in Valencia in 
February.  Barbera was confident that the PP would maintain 
its edge in Valencia on March 14.  Political analysts Poloff 
met with in Valencia, including Socialists, shared this view. 
 They conceded that the PP had governed well in Valencia and 
that this did not give the PSOE much of an opening.  The PP 
has been pushing a national water plan that works to 
Valencia's benefit and this has won PP popularity as well. 
Nonetheless, some polls indicate that the PP's margin may 
drop by one seat on March 14, reflecting a general tightening 
of the race nationwide.  Rajoy addressed his largest rally of 
the election campaign in Valencia on March 8, speaking before 
a crowd of up to 20,000. 
ARGYROS