It's warm in Seville, Spain with fresh mornings and
heat-laden afternoons. The sky is a bright blue, and the sunlight has a
luminous quality that intensifies colors and deepens shadows. Stories flash out
of the cool mists that bathe the cafe/bars and filter up out of the tiled
surface of the Alameda de Hercules park, too tempting not to saunter into a
drenching on a hot afternoon, weaving though the droplets and cavorting (no
other word for it) students.
The stories that come to mind try to reflect the brilliance
of light and color, but the shadows seems to insist on a tinge of menace.
Snatches of conversation heard around the dozens of cafe tables echo with concern,
sometimes passion and often anger: there's an election on 26 June to elect the
full parliament of Spain. It's the second general election in less than 7
months and is necessary because none of the several political parties won a
clear majority. Various attempts by the
major parties to form a coalition government failed, in part due to inability
to reconcile policy differences and come up with compromise positions. Some of
the coalition attempts disgusted once optimistic voters. "How could Party
X try to join with Party Y? I can't vote for Party X again after that," a
friend told me. "I don't know who to vote for now."
 |
| The PP campaigns in Seville (2016) |
Corruption scandals and economic difficulties are causing
further pressures on the still developing democracy in Spain. The country's deficit--claimed
to have been exacerbated by a tax cut in an election year meant to draw voters
to the then-ruling party, the Partido Popular (PP)--prompted the IMF to call for
increased austerity which caused budgets to be slashed at all levels;
unemployment stands at around 21%.
There are fewer comments about the 23 June vote in Britain
on whether to stay in the European Union (tagged "Bremain") or leave
(tagged, "Brexit"). For many in Europe, it's unthinkable that Britain
would really withdraw. For Brits, not so much. According to the British
newspaper The Independent of 11 June,
among probable voters in the UK, 55% support Brexit, while 45% favor staying in
the Union. The worry in Europe about Britain's withdrawal is that if Britain
leaves, others unhappy with their place in the Union will follow. Some voices
add that Britain's departure would spur additional splintering (in Spain, the
worry is that Catalonia will increase its pressures for independence).
The imagination boggles: so many plots and counterplots are
suggested by these events. Vigilante groups seem to be growing in some European
countries, ostensibly to protect against immigrant incursion... except there
are few immigrants of any stripe in the areas where they're forming (See
"Vigilantes Patrol Parts of Europe Where Few Migrants Set Foot,"
by Miroslava Germanova, Boryana
Dzhambazova and Helene Bienvenujun, NYT,
10 June 2016). The extreme right in France has been gaining strength. In the
aftermath of recent floods and the series of strikes that preceded the floods,
further destabilization--such as what could follow a successful Brexit
vote--could threaten French liberalism.
The Austrian electorate barely avoided electing a President
from the right-wing Freedom Party of
Austria (FPO) who ran on a platform voicing strong opposition to “forced multiculturalism, globalization and
mass immigration," essentially, "Austria First!" The election
was close enough that the FPO has challenged the results in Austria's
Constitutional Court. (See https://www.rt.com/news/345856-freedom-party-austria-election/)
And then there's Putin, not above using old dog's tricks on
new platforms, like news agencies that are just legitimate enough to give some
credence when a misinformation story is slipped in to their mix.
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