SEVILLE, Spain — Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez received’t be on the poll when Spaniards vote in native elections Sunday — however he may as properly be.
Everybody within the nation sees this weekend’s municipal votes as a gown rehearsal for the nationwide election, which needs to be held by the tip of the 12 months.
That’s unhealthy information for Socialist candidates like Antonio Muñoz, the mayor of Seville who simply needs to be reelected on his personal advantage — however might find yourself shedding his publish as a result of Sánchez is so unpopular.
In an interview with POLITICO, Muñoz complained that the nationwide framing of the election — and the conservative occasion’s critiques of Sánchez — had undermined the potential of actual debate over the right way to enhance Spain’s fourth-largest metropolis, the capital of the nation’s Andalusia area.
“If you wish to simply generate noise and have a debate about nationwide politics: run for parliament, not mayor of Seville,” Muñoz mentioned. “Me, I’ve stayed trustworthy to my slogan in these elections — Seville and solely Seville — and I believe that’s what voters need to hear about.”
In any abnormal election season, Muñoz is perhaps proper.
The brazenly homosexual, 63-year-old economist is an unusually fashionable mayor in Seville, a metropolis that when had a popularity for being inward-looking and socially conservative.
Elected to town council in 2011, Muñoz has labored to redefine town’s identification and reinforce the concept there’s extra to it than bullfights, non secular processions and flamenco — whereas being cautious to not alienate Seville’s traditionalists.
As town council member accountable for the highly effective urbanism, tourism and tradition portfolios, he wager on a extra various, vibrant imaginative and prescient of Seville — selling digital music and indie movie festivals; and lobbying to steal main occasions just like the Goyas, Spain’s model of the Oscars, away from Madrid.
It was underneath Muñoz’s watch that Sport of Thrones got here to city, when the dragon-packed extravaganza used the luxurious Alcázar palace as a stand-in for the dominion of Dorne. The producers of Netflix’s The Crown additionally handed via, utilizing the palatial Alfonso XIII Resort as a double for Beverly Hills and filming Mohamed Al-Fayed’s Egyptian wedding ceremony in Seville’s luxurious Casa de Pilatos property.
On the identical time that he’s proven off town heart — famed for its slim, winding streets, whitewashed properties, inside gardens and Moorish structure — he’s additionally promoted newer components of Seville. These embody the high-tech Cartuja Science and Know-how Park, the place the European Fee not too long ago inaugurated the headquarters of its new European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency.
He’s additionally an enthusiastic booster of the eclectic Fibes Convention Heart, positioned within the working-class Sevilla Este district, which this 12 months will host the 2023 Latin Grammys, the first-ever to be held outdoors the US.
“Through the subsequent time period, we’ll be doing much more to consolidate this metropolis as a Spanish and European reference level for tradition, the inexperienced financial system and the digital transition,” mentioned Muñoz. He turned mayor early final 12 months when his predecessor stepped right down to run for workplace on the regional degree.
Whereas crafting a extra trendy picture of Seville, Muñoz has been cautious to not neglect town’s basic cultural scene.
He is probably not a member of any non secular brotherhood, however he has no downside becoming a member of non secular processions throughout Holy Week. He is probably not a bullfighting fanatic, however he’s pleased to socialize with well-known toreros. And whereas he might not have a ardour for flamenco, he’s an virtually omnipresent power on the metropolis’s annual April Honest, the place neatly dressed males spend per week dancing with girls in lengthy, ruffled, polka-dot clothes whereas downing pitchers of rebujito, the signature Andalusian cocktail.
“You possibly can like these occasions extra, or much less … however they’re part of our historical past, our lifestyle,” mentioned Muñoz.
The talent with which Muñoz has walked the road has performed properly amongst sevillanos, particularly those that work within the hospitality sector and have been delighted to see the variety of vacationers within the metropolis increase. Some 6.5 million in a single day stays had been registered final 12 months.
“I’ve all the time been pleased with my metropolis, however proper now I really feel that Seville is at a brand new degree as a vacation spot, as a model,” mentioned restaurant proprietor Emilio Gimeno. “I believe lots of that has to do with the mayor as a result of he’s all the time selling town, he by no means stops.”
“I like that he’s a traditional man who lives within the metropolis and doesn’t transfer round in an official car or surrounded by bodyguards,” he added. “In case you’re opening up a brand new bar, he’s the kind of one that will make time in his schedule to point out up on the inauguration, the kind that wishes issues to work out and go properly for you.”
The Sánchez downside
The difficulty for Muñoz is that when Sevillanos head to the polls, they’re be making their alternative based mostly not simply on his efficiency — however on the popularity of his occasion.
“The polls counsel that three out of 4 Spaniards intend to base their vote on native issues, however 1 / 4 admit their vote will depend upon nationwide points,” mentioned Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III college. “That’s problematic for some mayors as a result of Sánchez is such a polarizing determine.”
The native election will happen simply months earlier than Sánchez’s fragile left-wing coalition authorities — the primary in Spain’s historical past — is about to finish its four-year time period in December.
Regardless of the devastating impression of the COVID disaster and the financial impression of the struggle in Ukraine, from the skin, Sánchez’s administration seems to have weathered the storm properly.
Spain’s gross home product has been rising at a fee above the EU common, and unemployment has dropped to ranges not seen since 2008.
The nation’s residents pay among the lowest energy costs in Europe, due to the Iberian Exception power value cap. The European Fee has applauded Spain for environment friendly dealing with of its share of the bloc’s pandemic restoration money.
And but, inside Spain, notion of the federal government is destructive, and all the events within the ruling coalition have suffered a steep drop within the polls. Since Might of final 12 months, Sánchez’s Socialists have trailed behind the nation’s conservative Common Celebration, which is presently 7 share factors forward.
Simón, the political scientist, mentioned that some Spaniards mistrust Sánchez for having entered right into a coalition authorities with far-left events with which he mentioned he’d by no means govern. To not point out that, like most political leaders, the prime minister’s status took successful throughout the pandemic.
“The federal government’s insurance policies — the upper minimal wage, the fundamental revenue, the nation’s function in Europe — are broadly fashionable,” Simón mentioned. “However at a private degree, he isn’t.”
Juan Espadas, Muñoz’s predecessor in Seville’s metropolis corridor and present chief of the Andalusian Socialists, admitted that the prime minister’s unpopularity had turn out to be an element within the native elections.
“The suitable has realized that they’ll’t problem him on his politics, so now what they’re attempting to do is to discredit him on a private degree,” he mentioned, including that the Common Celebration had centered on casting Sánchez as “an egoist” prepared to do something to carry on to energy.
“Their solely aim is to make it so that individuals received’t go vote as a result of they don’t just like the individual behind the occasion,” he mentioned.
The ghost of ETA
Along with invoking the unpopular prime minister, the Spanish conservatives have been reminding voters of the coalition authorities’s cordial relations with pro-independence events within the nationwide parliament.
When the Basque pro-independence occasion EH Bildu included 44 former members of the terrorist group ETA in its official lists for the native elections earlier this month, the Common Celebration seized on the problem and turned it into a serious speaking level in its marketing campaign in cities throughout the nation.
In Seville, José Luis Sanz, the conservative candidate for mayor, rallied supporters by declaring that his neighbors “couldn’t perceive how Muñoz’s Socialists have surrendered to the heirs of ETA.”
Like different Socialist candidates, Muñoz has denounced this line of assault, stressing its irrelevance in a marketing campaign that needs to be in regards to the menace posed by housing insecurity or excessive warmth — not a terrorist group that ceased to exist greater than a decade in the past.
“I believe what the [Popular Party] is doing is enormously disrespectful towards voters,” he mentioned. “As an alternative of speaking about what’s wanted on this metropolis’s poorest neighborhoods, about what we are able to do to advertise tradition, about how we must always handle tourism, they need to discuss a celebration that isn’t up for election in Seville.”
However what politicians need to discuss and what voters are listening to appear to not often be the identical factor.
Within the middle-class Los Remedios district, 83-year-old María Camacho Rojas has adopted the marketing campaign and determined she received’t give her vote to the mayoral candidate of a celebration led by Sánchez, a politician she believes to be “a compulsive liar.”
“[Sánchez] does offers with ETA, he doesn’t care about Spain, and I — like most Spaniards — am nervous in regards to the state during which he’s going to depart our nation,” she mentioned.
She added she’d vote for Muñoz in a heartbeat if he belonged to a different occasion. “I just like the mayor, I like how a lot he does for town, how a lot he cares about Seville,” she mentioned. “I’m not going to vote in opposition to him however I received’t vote for him: I’ll forged a clean poll on Sunday.”
In Seville, the newest polls predict a technical tie, with Muñoz’s Socialists profitable 12 or 13 seats within the metropolis council and the Common Celebration taking 12. That would go away the 2 mainstream events depending on the help of extra excessive components, the far-right Vox occasion on one facet and array of left-wing teams on the opposite — with these two ideological blocs additionally almost tied.
Regardless of the consequence, the fallout shouldn’t be more likely to stay contained inside metropolis limits: Muñoz’s Sánchez downside might simply turn out to be Sánchez’s Seville downside.
Shedding town — the most important municipality managed by the Socialists — can be a extreme blow for the prime minister simply months forward of the nationwide elections.
“One metropolis received’t determine a normal election,” mentioned Simón. “However it could make the result simpler for some, and all of the tougher for others.”
