By Muriel Pilkington The local voice
It's wicked because a lot of important little tidbits of news tend to get lost in a welter of inconsequential pieces from reporters whose minds are not really on the job (because they have to work when everyone else seems to be at the beach). For example, Sr Zapatero – who's trying to set a good example by not going on holiday (except that nobody else is around to see it) – had a working lunch with King Juan Carlos at his summer palace, the Marivent, in Majorca on Tuesday and let slip that there would be worse economic news before year's end. The reporters who covered that failed to mention that this snippet is at odds with his repeated predictions that it's all going to come up roses in the near future.
And the Socialists in Madrid are so bored that they've set Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez to run against the party's Madrid leader, Tomas Gomez, in the hope of unseating the PP's “Iron Lady”, Esperanza Aguirre in the next regional election. Now, you've heard of little grey men – well, Gomez is a perfect example, even if he's not so little. He might have done a lot to reorganise the party after Aguirre smashed it at the polls in the last regional election but he's no match for her. And she must be watering at the mouth just thinking of running against “la Trinidad” - who ended up in tears the last time she ran for Madrid premier in 2003. The Socialists simply can't accept that Madrid is a very PP town and that the Madrileños are quite happy with the way Esperanza and Madrid mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon, also of the PP, are running their city for them.
Jimenez's qualification for the job of Madrid premier is that she is supposed to have handled the 2009 swine flu non-epidemic brilliantly but all she did – like other health ministers all over the world - was order millions of vaccines which weren't needed, which she then gave to the Latin Americans – who were probably receiving millions of unwanted vaccines from other countries as well. Of course, she was the driving force behind the last-minute campaign that made Zapatero – another little grey man from Leon – party general secretary back in July 2000, when the strong favourite was Speaker and former defence minister José Bono. So Zapatero has great faith in her, and put her in charge of Spain's relations with Latin America after he won the 2004 general election.
If Jimenez wants to win the Madrid regional election, she'll have to keep quiet about her activities during those years so as not upset Marid's rather conservative residents. She's well to the left of the left-wing of the Socialist Party and couldn't get enough of kowtowing to the likes of Venezuela's great “revolutionary” Hugo Chavez, swallowing his lies wholesale. She also backed all his little protegées to the hilt - Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. This happy little band of revolutionaries led the offensive against brave little Honduras, which preferred to become an international pariah rather than let Chavez interfere in its internal affairs. The Honduran military, with the support of a majority in Congress, overthrew the government of Manuel Zelaya who, advised by Chavez, was trying to perpetuate himself in power. We don't hear much about that little debacle anymore and Jimenez would be wise to let it die a natural death. In any case, the whole internal Socialist fight for Madrid could be nothing more than a smoke screen to detract attention from more important matters – like the economic situation - as Izquierda Unida's coordinator Cayo Laya maintains.
But the most exquisite tidbit involves the Cuban dissidents who were recently let out of jail and expelled by the Castros, who are desperately in need of economic help from the international community. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Last week, the Cubans said they intended to sue the Spanish government if it does not grant them the status of political refugees that they are demanding. Now, Foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos played a key role in getting the dissidents out of jail – but only because he wants the EU to soften its anti-Cuba stance. So their demand for political refugee status puts him and the government between a rock and a hard place. They don't want to upset the dissidents, nor do they want to upset the Castro brothers. It will be interesting to see how they wriggle out of this one. I think Zapatero and his merry band of men (and women) are about to find out how obstreperous those ungrateful Cubans can be. They make your average anarchic Spaniard look like like child's play. I'm looking forward to the show.
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