[phsyalcvqh]

Brussels, Belgium
May 20th, 2011

[Anneskobsen]

Fuente Dorada Square, Valladolid
May 20th, 2011

[kaysions]

Spanish Embassy, Oslo. Norway
May 20th, 2011

[Natashasuw]

Muntayeta Square, Alicante
May 20th, 2011

[Deribasov]

City Hall building, Valencia
May 20th, 2011

[Pataacculako]

Plaza Porticada, Santander
May 20th, 2011

[Enjknsua]

Puerta del Sol Square, Madrid
Live Broadcast 24 hours

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/motionlook

[tofRobbroolve]

Spaniards Take to Streets Before Vote


By RAPHAEL MINDER

MADRID — With elections set for Sunday in Spain in more than 8,000 municipalities and 13 of its 17 regions, thousands of people, most of them young, have taken to the streets in Madrid, Barcelona and other large cities this week, calling for an end to suspected longstanding corruption among established parties. Fueling the demonstrators’ anger is the perceived failure by politicians to alleviate the hardships imposed on a struggling population by a jobless rate of 21 percent.

At sit-ins, street protests and on social media networks, the protesters’ message is that of an alternative campaign that could eclipse that of the established parties and result in a decline in voter turnout on Sunday, from 63 percent four years ago.

Some of the youth groups have made the fight against corruption their battle cry, like NoLesVotes, or “Don’t vote for them,” whose manifesto starts with the warning that “corruption in Spain has reached alarming levels.” The group recently published a Web site map pinpointing localities where more than 100 politicians seeking election were also under judicial investigation.

Other protesters are fielding alternative candidates, like the Pirate Party in Catalonia, founded 18 months ago, which is hoping to win about 7,000 votes across Catalan municipalities. One of its candidates in Barcelona, the 27-year-old Francesc Parelleda, said political corruption was a consequence of a “political system in which there is simply zero transparency and democracy within the main parties.”

José M. de Areilza, dean of the IE Law School in Madrid, said, “I don’t think that political corruption is necessarily worse in Spain than in other European countries, but I do think that the economic crisis is now generating a lot more anger and resentment here toward politicians.”

On Sunday, Francisco Camps is expected to be re-elected as head of the regional government of Valencia, which includes the third-largest city in Spain and some of the most popular Spanish resorts.

By the end of the year, however, Mr. Camps is also likely to be in court facing bribery charges, as part of a vast corruption investigation, dubbed the Gürtel case, that has also targeted several other politicians from the main center-right political force, the Popular Party.

Mr. Camps was charged in February for allegedly receiving tailor-made suits in return for granting public contracts, with further possible financial irregularities still under investigation. Nine other politicians standing for the Popular Party on Sunday in Valencia are being investigated or have been charged with fraud. Mr. Camps and his fellow candidates deny any wrongdoing.

For now, the corruption allegations have not hindered Mr. Camps’s re-election bid, according to the latest opinion polls. Like Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister who is engulfed in scandal, Mr. Camps has portrayed himself as the victim of a witch hunt by political opponents, judges and left-leaning media. Asked in December to comment on some of the allegations, he said that “nobody should believe Soviet-style propaganda against everything that has been achieved in Valencia.”

In fact, “many people in Valencia now talk about the Berlusconization of our society,” said Ferrán Bono, a Socialist lawmaker who represents Valencia in the national Parliament in Madrid. “Some people have seen so many political scandals that they just treat them as banal, but I think many also genuinely believe the conspiracy theory that Camps has been so actively promoting.”

The Gürtel investigation, which also targets some Popular Party politicians in Madrid, involves more than €120 million, or about $170 million, of public funds misspent by politicians in return for alleged kickbacks, according to a summary of the charges presented by the prosecution this year. Its alleged ringleader, Francisco Correa, is in jail awaiting trial.

But corruption investigations have not spared other main Spanish political parties, starting with the governing Socialists of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Socialist politicians stand accused in several of the property-related fraud inquiries that have mushroomed amid a collapse in the Spanish construction sector. Since April, the Socialist party in Andalusia, the largest region in Spain, has also been shaken by an inquiry into whether party officials provided fictitious early-retirement packages to friends and family members.

Mr. de Areilza, the law school dean, said: “We have built a democracy with political parties somehow disconnected from society, who have accumulated a lot of internal powers and have not been regulated in very important areas like their financing — and unfortunately they are also the ones who are in charge of pushing through any reform of the system.”

Mr. Camps’s anticipated victory in Valencia is expected to be part of a countrywide sweep by the Popular Party at the expense of the governing Socialists, whose popularity has plummeted because of the economic crisis.

Whatever the outcome Sunday, Mr. Zapatero announced in April that he would not seek a third term in office, paving the way for the selection of a new Socialist leader ahead of the general election, expected in March 2012.

In their campaigns, many regional and municipal politicians sought to distance themselves from the policies of Mr. Zapatero’s central government in Madrid in order to bolster their own prospects. In the case of Mr. Camps in Valencia, “the message has been that everything that works in Valencia is his doing while everything that is wrong, like a jobless rate that is four percentage points above the national average, is the fault of Zapatero,” said Mr. Bono, the Socialist lawmaker.

The reverse, however, has not been true, with national party leaders careful not to antagonize powerful regional politicians who could influence their chances next March.

For much of last year, Mariano Rajoy, the Popular Party’s national leader, refused to confirm his support for Mr. Camps because of his ties to the Gürtel corruption scandal. On Tuesday, however, Mr. Rajoy went to Valencia to join Mr. Camps at the city bullring. “You are a great president,” Mr. Rajoy told him in front of a cheering audience. “The people vote for you because they love you.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/wo...ewanted=1&_r=1

[newshep]

Washington Square, NYC
May 21st, 2011

[Zzvukttz]

Spire, Dublin. Ireland
May 21st, 2011

[JulieSmithXIV]

Frankfurt, Germany
May 21st, 2011

[GlarlraTpople]

Berlin, Germany
May 21st, 2011

[k5wTvu9f]

I'm sorry, but is this a thread or a blog?

[Imalaycle]

We are trying to figure out what's mean the political ideas defended by these people. In Spain no one understands. In fact, in yesterday's Spanish local elections has been a high popular participation, against the request of the leaders of the Spanish Revolution movement that called for people to do not go to the polls. This morning, they have continued their camps in the streets of many cities in Spain and they say they will not be removed till coming weeks . It is assumed that the police have to intervene to dislodge them by force.

It is a social phenomenon of civil disobedience to the law and is surprising to people in Spain, because its popular support is minority in number of followers ... but has spread to many countries and cities quickly. When this movement will end the street fight? I don't know, because they live in a imaginary planet called "Utopia" and they aren't a real political party. They have broken electoral rules in the last days with several illegal meetings on the streets. For them, democracy = no laws and no limits.

This situation is irreal, but in Spain there are many irreal situations every day in the last times. For example, Spanish Prime Minister Rodríguez Zapatero (ZP) and his family during a visit to USA last year (2010).

No comments...



Image courtesy of http://jonkepa.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/zpaatero.jpg

[Ganoshenko]

Looks like The Addams Family

[Immarsecice]

lol!

[Enalsebeerkawl]

Spain’s Governing Party Suffers Heavy Losses


Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press
Thousands of protesters gathered Sunday for an eighth consecutive day in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid as well as the main squares in other cities to demand political reforms in Spain.

By RAPHAEL MINDER

MADRID — The governing Socialist Party suffered heavy losses on Sunday in regional and municipal elections, even as tens of thousands of Spaniards calling themselves the “indignant” said they would pursue their protests to force an overhaul of the country’s political system.

Conceding defeat on Sunday night, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said that his Socialist Party had been understandably punished by voters for overseeing an economic crisis that had left Spain with a 21 percent jobless rate, more than twice the European average.

“These results are very clearly related to the effects of the economic crisis that we have been suffering for almost three years,” Mr. Zapatero said in a televised address. “Almost two million jobs have been destroyed and I know that a lot of Spaniards are facing serious problems. Today, without a doubt, they have expressed their discomfort.”

Meanwhile, underscoring how they have unexpectedly seized the initiative from established political parties, trade unions and other institutions, thousands of protesters gathered Sunday for an eighth consecutive day in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid as well as the main squares in other cities.

The youth-led movement, the first to manifest in any meaningful way since austerity began to bite in Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, has caught Spain’s traditional politicians flat-footed. At the same time, some of the campaign’s participants have been struggling to come to terms with their own success and grappling with the need to give more coherence to their wide-ranging grievances in order to keep their campaign alive beyond the election.

The demonstrators, who insist that they have no party affiliation, want a more representative democratic system and are demanding an end to political corruption. Their anger toward established parties has been fueled by the debt crisis and the surge in joblessness, but their grievances also include a call for a cut in military spending, the closing of nuclear power plants and the end of some laws, like recent legislation aimed at punishing digital piracy.

The groups that have turned Madrid’s Puerta del Sol into the epicenter of the nationwide movement plan to remain there until at least next Sunday. The protests in Barcelona, the second-largest Spanish city, are expected to culminate in a major march on June 15, to end in front of the Catalan Parliament.

“If you had told me a few months ago that thousands of people would take to the streets to complain about our political system,” said one protester, María Subinas, “I would have found it hard to believe, because it looked like we were an apathetic generation that was incapable of responding to a crisis even when it was destroying our jobs like a tsunami.” Ms. Subinas, 33, who has been in Puerta del Sol since last Sunday, added, “The message has surely gone through to politicians that they can’t just keep ignoring our frustrations and pretend that nothing has changed.”

The Popular Party won 37.6 percent of the votes on Sunday, compared with 27.8 percent for the Socialists, according to preliminary results released at midnight with 98 percent of the votes counted. Despite popular discontent with established parties, turnout rose to 66 percent from 63 percent four years earlier.

Mr. Zapatero, who has been in office since 2004, announced in April that he would not seek a third term, and the extent of the Socialists’ loss suggests that, even with a new leader, the party will struggle to hold on to power in the general election, expected next March.

Among smaller parties to make notable gains on Sunday was Bildu, a Basque independence party, which won 1.4 percent of the national vote and could secure control of San Sebastián and some other Basque town halls. Bildu was allowed to take part in the election only after a court ruling, amid concerns over its suspected links to ETA, the violent separatist group.

The Socialists lost control in Barcelona and Seville, two of the nation’s largest cities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/wo...r=1&ref=europe

[cookiemonster]

Euro contagion fears hit Spain and Italy
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e8fbc...#axzz1NCyIBv4c

[EscaCsamas]

The Wall Street Journal
Vote Jars Spain's Ruling Socialists
Party Suffers Losses in Local Elections
Amid Widespread Protests Over Continued Economic Crisis
By JONATHAN HOUSE

TOLEDO, Spain—Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Socialist Party suffered historic losses in Spanish municipal and regional elections on Sunday, as discontent with a dire economic situation boiled over into nationwide protests.








European Pressphoto Agency
Popular Party supporters celebrate early municipal and regional election results
in front of the party's headquarters in Madrid on Sunday.
With nearly all of the ballots tallied, the opposition Popular Party, led by Mariano Rajoy, had 37.55% of the municipal vote across the country, nearly 10 percentage points more than the Socialists, the largest difference between the two parties since the local elections of 1991. In addition, with more than 75% of the vote tallied, the PP had commanding leads in both Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura, regions the Socialists have ruled for decades.




Spain's Socialist Party suffered historic losses in elections on Sunday, as discontent with a dire economic situation boiled over into nationwide protests. Stephen Bernard looks at the implications for that country's debt crisis.

"The PP has won the elections in Castilla-La Mancha," said Maria Dolores de Cospedal, the conservative party's candidate for regional president, told supporters gathered in Toledo, the capital of Castilla-La Mancha.

Sunday's vote in 13 out of Spain's 17 regions and in all of its more than 8,000 municipalities is seen as a warm-up for national elections Mr. Zapatero must call by March 2012.

At the Socialist Party's headquarters in Madrid, Mr. Zapatero acknowledged his party had "clearly lost" the elections and congratulated the PP on its gains. He told journalists the defeat was "very clearly related to the economic crisis."

Spain's Socialists Trounced



Paul White/Associated Press

More photos and interactive graphics


Analysts have warned that a big reversal for the Socialists could undermine Mr. Zapatero's minority government at a time when it is trying to push through a sweeping program of economic overhauls and budget cuts.

Mr. Zapatero, however, ruled out early elections. He said his party will turn to its usual parliamentary allies for the support necessary "to carry out the economic reforms the country needs."

In the week leading up to the vote, pre-election jitters drove up Spain's risk premium, as measured by the spread of its 10-year government bond over the German benchmark, by around 0.2 percentage point, to 2.43 points.

In a note to investors Friday, Citigroup economists said "a political defeat for the Socialist Party would reinforce our doubts" about Spain's ability to achieve its "too optimistic" targets for budget-deficit reduction and economic growth.



Getty Images Demonstrators gather at sunset after another day of protests
at Sol Square on Saturday in Madrid.

Even worse, some local economists and business leaders forecast changes to regional and municipal governments could lead to the discovery of piles of undeclared debt, as happened in Catalonia. After moderate Catalan nationalists dislodged a Socialist government in the wealthy northeastern region in November, incoming officials said the local budget deficit was twice as big as previously thought.

Hidden-debt concerns played a central role in campaigning in regions like Castilla-La Mancha, where the PP and local business leaders said the region hasn't booked 90,000 unpaid invoices of around €1 billion ($1.42 billion). Ms. Cospedal, has pledged the first thing she will do if elected is commission an audit of Castilla-La Mancha's accounts.






In Madrid, youths continued to crowd the central Puerta de Sol Square as part of a weeklong movement that has brought out tens of thousands of protesters in several large Spanish cities. Exasperated by Spanish politicians' inability to find solutions to a deep economic crisis and an unemployment rate of more than 21%, they are asking for new aid for the unemployed, elimination of politicians' privileges and housing support for young people.

Still, the number of protesters isn't unusual by local standards, in a country where single-city rallies often attract thousands to protest against terrorism or in favor of international or social causes. And they don't seem to have attracted a big following in smaller cities.

"In Toledo, they haven't had an impact," said Nicolás Moragón, a 24-year-old student. "Their ideas are too idealistic."




Tens of thousands of people gather in Madrid's central Plaza del Sol on the seventh day of protests
against high unemployment and austerity measures. Video courtesy Reuters.

Spain's electoral commission had declared the gatherings illegal during the election weekend, though the government shied away from ordering police to disperse the large gatherings in cities like Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.

The protests were expected to boost nonmainstream parties at Sunday's vote.
Outside a Madrid polling station, Natalia Molinos, 31, said she had voted for a party called Citizens for a Blank Vote. "I didn't want to vote for the PP or the Socialists," she said.

The protests didn't seem to have undermined voter turnout, which rose slightly compared with 2007 local elections.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...LEFTTopStories

[sherrferris]

Los Indignados.

I like that.