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With his election victory, Spain's Socialist Prime Minister has clearly consolidated his hold on power, says John Chappell. Relations with the US are another matter, though.

Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, won a second term in last night’s general election, defeating his rival Mariano Rajoy of the conservative People’s Party (PP). Zapatero won 43.6% of the vote and 169 seats in the Congress of Deputies, to Rajoy’s 40.1% and 153.

Since 176 seats are needed for an absolute majority in Congress, Zapatero will have to reach an agreement with other political forces, most likely the moderate Catalan nationalist party Convergence and Union (CIU), which won 11 seats.

So what does the future hold?

First, Zapatero has won something of a mandate. He has struggled under the label of “accidental prime minister,” as he was elected in 2004 during the middle of the upheaval after the March 11 bombings in Madrid. This time, he’s been reelected with no help`from Al Qaeda.

During his first term, Zapatero governed with the help of the Communist United Left (IU) and the Catalan separatist Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC). Both these parties crashed and burned in last night’s election, and they did not win enough seats to form a majority along with the Socialists.

CiU is much more centrist than those parties, and the price for its support will be high in political terms. In practical terms, however, not much is likely to change from Zapatero’s first four years.

In foreign policy, Zapatero isn’t likely to change much. He’s a touchy-feely European Third Worlder, and he will certainly try to get his brainchild Alliance of Civilizations (which is supposed to solve all the world’s problems through dialogue mutual understanding) off the ground.

Spain’s chilly relations with the United States are not going to improve; the Bush administration has never forgiven Zapatero for unilaterally withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq, and for publicly encouraging other coalition members to do the same.

The one are where change could happen is Spain’s Cuba policy. Zapatero has led the movement to normalize European Union relations with the Castro regime, something that CiU has opposed in the past. The U.S. can’t expect a hard line on Cuba, but perhaps it can hope for a less soft one.

Domestically, CiU will demand further autonomy for Catalonia, which is deeply unpopular in other regions of Spain. The controversial Catalan statute (regional constitution) will still be the center of debate, but it’s in the hands of the Constitutional Court now, which has to rule on its constitutionality, so there’s not much Zapatero can do about it. CiU will also demand that several central government responsibilities, such as management of the Barcelona airport and control over the Catalan rail system, be transferred to the regional government.

Since CiU is a Christian Democratic party, considered close to the Church, more social liberalization laws are not expected. Zapatero has already made divorce easier to obtain and legalized gay marriage, so there’s not much more he can do anyway.

The economy will be a problem. Zapatero, of course, has no control over the world economy and the business cycle, or of the European Union’s monetary and fiscal decisions, so he can’t devalue the currency or raise interest rates. Most of his influence over economic matters lies in the national budget, which he has kept under control.

However, Zapatero made many extravagant promises during the campaign; he said he would put a day-care center in any workplace where six people requested one, provide free dental care to children, raise pensions and the minimum wage, and plant 45 million trees. He also promised tax cuts, including a $615 rebate to the entire citizenry.

Spain has enjoyed two decades of economic growth, and has done better than any other EU country but Ireland. That growth is slowing down now, though, with the collapse in the real estate and construction bubble, and Zapatero probably won’t be able to keep many of his promises.

The most important result of the election is political. With the sharp decline of the Communist Party and of the Republican Left, Spain has become basically a two-party system at the national level, with moderate regional nationalist parties in Catalonia and the Basque Country in the middle.

Defeated Communist leader Gaspar Llamazares has already resigned; PP leader Mariano Rajoy will not do so, as he claims a partial victory since his party gained five seats over the last election.

A partial victory is not enough for the PP, however. Zapatero was a weak candidate, vulnerable on many issues (inflation, housing prices, immigration, ETA, deteriorating infrastructure, regional autonomy, education), and Rajoy should have been able to defeat him. Instead, he lost his second straight election.

The party’s strategy of confrontation has failed. The PP spent the last four years aggressively re-fighting the 2004 election, and they managed to put off centrist voters with an absurd conspiracy theory about the March 11 bombings. Rajoy and the rest of the PP leadership need to step down and make way for new blood, possibly in the form of centrist Madrid mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón.

John Chappell is a translator and English teacher who lives in Barcelona. He blogs at Inside Europe: Iberian Notes.

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