The PSOE strategy for 29-N
If it wants to win, the PSOE will not have enough with tactical levers such as stating that the world has changed and that the elections in the United States, Serbia, Brazil and Hungary demonstrate this, and that the extreme right will lose more elections. In Spain, the citizenry expects changes in concrete issues, not just generic political changes. And if these concrete changes cannot be made in the short term, at least it must be explained how they will be made in the medium term. I am talking about housing, healthcare, education, more added value for our economy, transport and trains, Rodalies in Catalonia... Doing what can be done now and planning what, for whatever reasons, cannot be done now.
The centralist conception of the State is an idea promoted by the right that, for periods, the left has also adopted. We have looked, since the 16th century and especially since the 18th, to the French model. In the year 1700 we made a mistake; with the death of the last Habsburg, Charles II, without descendants, the king should have come from a state that was politically more federal than centralist, formed by kingdoms or provinces and (with all necessary reservations) with an economic model of metropolis and colonies because that was what we had. Instead of going to look for him in Holland or the United Kingdom, which met these requirements, we went to France, which met none of them. Half a century earlier, the British Parliament had executed Charles I of England and Scotland, and in the last third of the century, a new king, the Dutchman William III, made the kingdom progress and promoted the Commons. Spain, 50 years later, imported absolutism from France with Philip V. Absolutism was already an outdated idea by then and parliamentarism a modern idea. In France, the revolution of 1789 demonstrated this. The model could not hold and it exploded.
Our mistakes have been significant, and we have committed at least one every century. In the 16th century, separating from Portugal and not placing the capital in Lisbon—ideal as a port of the metropolis for colonial traffic—and thus renouncing an empire in America and Asia, the most important at the time. The Tagus is a larger river than the Guadalquivir, and Lisbon is closer to the sea than Seville. In the 17th century, getting involved in a European war to dominate the Low Countries, the heart of Europe and the richest region, and turning all the actors against us until the Peace of Westphalia, origin of the Hispanic decline. We wanted to pursue a great power policy and we were no longer one. In the 18th century, making the wrong choice in the change of monarchy. In the 19th, the war with France, which made us suffer the bloodiest and most destructive conflict in our history.
The November 29th elections could be won by the right. But for the left, the way forward is to demonstrate that there is an alternative path to the historical path I have described, and that it can be more useful and productive for Spain. We should promote a policy that is less economically centralized and more politically federal.
Specifically, regarding communications, promoting the Mediterranean corridor and the Ebro valley rather than the connection of each province with Madrid. We must improve the maintenance of the AVE and the roads that support the most traffic, and we are not doing so.
We need 80,000 homes in 5 years. This implies 12 billion euros without soil impact. The investment is possible if it is done 50% public and 50% private. It is necessary to create a listed company that builds and rents. The public investment, 6 billion with a 30-year loan at a 3% interest rate; and the private one, the same amount with an investment guaranteed by the State with a 5% indexed profitability. It is a model that I have developed in previous articles in these same pages.
We have a railway challenge with the suburban trains and with high-speed rail. The biggest problem is the corporate union, 7,000 people in Spain and 500 in Catalonia, which, for its own benefit and with the false shield of calling itself a “union”, conditions the service to the detriment of the user. The central and regional governments must remedy this. They do not dare to do so for fear of a strike. Solving the suburban rail issue involves separating its Iberian gauge network from the European gauge used by high-speed trains and freight, which must have the UIC gauge to be connected to Europe.
In healthcare, we must improve the conditions for doctors, in terms of salaries and working hours, and adjust the number of doctors, nurses, and hospitals to the population, which, due to immigration, is growing by over 3% annually. The professionalism of this group is excellent, among the top five in the world... On this point, there is nothing to be done because we already have it. We must limit ourselves to valuing it, investing in it, and remunerating the professionals better.
In education, we have a focus problem. Our high school students rarely choose the subjects that make up the English acronym STEM: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and instead lean towards social sciences. We must change the trend, partly due to teacher training, which is scarce in sciences because we have a deficit of 100,000 engineers, and this affects the profitability of our economy in the medium and long term. Negotiation is between the union and the administration when it should be between teachers and school management.
There are left-wing leaders, like Ada Colau, who want to impose more taxes on the rich for the simple fact of being so. The problem, however, is not that Mr. Amancio Ortega earns a lot of money per year, because he creates a lot of employment and wealth: the problem is incentivizing him to invest it. On the other hand, the left should not fall into the temptation of defending only minorities. This strategy leads to losing votes, and elections are won by appealing to majorities. One must take care of minorities but not turn them into the center of politics.
It is time for the PSOE to propose a new economic and social model for Spain. It would be useful, and electorally it would be profitable because the right wing does not have one.
