Fernando G. Urbaneja | In France, president Macron, making good arguments, although not explaining them enough, wanted to raise taxes on fuel and millions of citizens forced him to back down. In Ecuador, President Lenin Moreno has gone through such a trance for the same reason. In Chile, President Piñera is on the verge of eviction for the attempt to raise urban transport rates.
Fernando G. Urbaneja | The debate between the Spanish national political leaders (ranging from the far right to the far left) over two and half hours on Monday night, with a rigid format, and broadcast by various television and radio channels, was abrupt, with all attacking each other, many populist proposals, without inspiring or motivating ideas for the voters and without clear indications about possible alliances which could unblock the political impasse after Sunday´s vote.
Alvise Lennkh (Scope Ratings) | The imprisonment of the Catalan separatist leaders has exacerbated regional tensions, with potentially profound political consequences, although the short term economic impact of the latest separatist protests will be limited.
Fernando G. Urbaneja | The political parties’ electoral strategies will be revealed this week in the televised debates scheduled for Monday night (the five party leaders, shown by various channels) and Thursday night. Thursday night’s debate, the so-called women’s debate, is organised by La Sexta, the main channel for the left. To these two debates must be added the weather, in other words the turnout, which could cause problems for all the candidates, with theories for every taste. All want to mobilise their sleeping or fed up voters on November 10, all fear that a low turn out will prejudice them; and a rainy Sunday is not a day for voting.
Enrique Badía | Considered by many as something new, fakes have a long history with many examples. Normally, any lie, hoax or distortion of reality merits consideration. And it is under this last interpretation that the campaign for the 10 November elections seems pretty fake, not only because some lies are slipping in – that too – but because they are giving everybody a distorted image of reality. They are hiding, because they do not mention the important challenges and tasks that the government emerging from the elections will have to face, sooner or later … who knows what decisions it will take after winning power if it does not have to explain it.
The new Mortgage Credit Law in large part explains the fall in housing mortgages in Spain. According to official data, the number of mortgages has fallen 29.9% yoy, which contrasts with the 4.9% increase in the first 8 months of the year. Loaned capital has also fallen by a similar amount of 26.4% (+6% in the year).
Fernando G. Urbaneja | The appearance of Franco 15 days before a general election forms part of an electoral strategy, but there is no evidence that it will have the slightest influence on how people vote.Spaniards worry about the economy, employment, wages and public goods related to the welfare state. The Franco business is rabble-rousing, fireworks and distraction.
Spain´s unemployment rate fell to 13.92% in the third quarter, compared to the estimated 13.75% and 14.02% in the previous quarter. According to the Active Population Survey (EPA) published on Thursday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), unemployment fell by 16,200 persons in the third quarter, 5% less than in the previous quarter, leaving a total of 3,214,400 unemployed.
Fernando G. Urbaneja | Throughout Thursday all the television stations will offer the spectacle of the journey of Franco´s coffin, buried 44 years ago underneath a marble grave stone weighing more than a thousand kilo in a family vault (although property of the state) to a public cemetery, el Pardo, 36km from the basilica of Cuelgamuros en El Escorial. For some this is an act of justice against the dictator, for others an unnecessary spectacle which oxygenates those few and irrelevant nostalgic for Francoism. Perhaps an opportunity for that peculiar sentiment of necrophilia which forms a peculiar part of human nature.
Fernando G. Urbaneja | The electoral campaign from which will emerge the new Parliament and, perhaps, a government remains wrapped in this week´s “Catalunya in flames” with unforeseeable consequences, above all among the 20% of undecided voters.