POPULAR PARTY: TROUBLE IN THE HEARTLAND

C O N F I D E N T I A L MADRID 001628 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/26/2015 TAGS: PGOV SP PSOE SUBJECT: POPULAR PARTY: TROUBLE IN THE HEARTLAND Classified By: Political Officer Ricardo Zuniga; reason 1.4 (D) ¶1. (U) The opposition Popular Party (PP) is working hard to avoid losing its controlling majority in Galicia, historically a bedrock region for the center-right PP and home to both PP founder Manuel Fraga (now leader of the Galcian Regional government) and current PP leader Mariano Rajoy. The PP holds 41 seats in the 75-member assembly while the Socialist Party (PSOE) and the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) each hold 17 seats. While the PP is likely to win the largest number of votes in Galicia, polls indicate that for the first time in four election cycles the PSOE and BNG are poised to win more seats between them than the PP, enabling them to form a PSOE-BNG coalition government and push the PP into the opposition. On April 22, Manuel Fraga succumbed to weeks of pressure from other PP leaders and agreed to hold regional elections June 19 rather than in October, giving the PP a slim chance to hold on to its majority. ¶2. (U) A loss in Galicia would further demoralize a PP stung by losses in the March 14, 2004 national elections and a substantial loss of seats in Basque Region elections on April ¶17. Support for the PP in Galicia has been sliding for the last two years, beginning with criticism of former President Aznar's handling of the "Presige" oil spill disaster that damaged the local fishing industry and accelerating after the PP's loss to the PSOE in the March 2004 national elections. Infighting in the Galicia PP and Fraga's worsening health (he is 82) have further clouded the picture for the PP in a region that until this year was an unquestioned bastion of center-right power. The fact that the nationalist BNG may also lose seats to the Galician PSOE and would be the junior partner in any coalition would only amplify the apparent ascendancy of the PSOE at the national level. ¶3. (C) PP Parliamentary staffers confirmed the party's difficulties in Galicia in a meeting with Embassy officers. Economic adviser Miguel Marin noted that a loss in Galicia would represent a particularly painful blow to a PP that is already on the defensive. However, Marin said he did not believe that a loss in Galicia would lead the PP to change its leadership or its strategy as Spain's main opposition party. Marin, who was an adviser to Aznar's presidential team, said that the PP had misread the Spanish electorate during the 2004 elections and had yet to settle on a successful plan for recapturing the political center. Percival Manglano, chief foreign policy adviser to the PP Parliamentary group, was less inclined to advocate a shift in the PP's current strategy of emphasizing its core principles and aggressively attacking PSOE initiatives, but acknowledged the PP's lack of success in countering Socialist advances throughout Spain. //NATIONAL IMPLICATIONS// ¶4. (C) A loss in Galicia would prove a major embarrassment to PP leader Rajoy, both because it is his own district and because he would be seen as presiding over three major electoral losses in a row. Conversely, the PSOE would view a win in Galicia as a strong argument for calling early national elections in 2006 or 2007, when an absolute majority would be within the Socialist's grasp. Zapatero's personal popularity, and perhaps more importantly lingering voter antipathy towards Aznar, are clearly potent weapons in the PSOE arsenal and they are having an important effect in Galicia. A loss in Galicia would make clear that the current PP leadership has not found a way to distance itself sufficiently from the failures of 2004 or to otherwise seize the initiative back from the PSOE. MANZANARES