SPANISH ELECTIONS: PP MUST BUILD ON SUCCESS IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MADRID 000141 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/11/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV SP SUBJECT: SPANISH ELECTIONS: PP MUST BUILD ON SUCCESS IN VALENCIA REF: A. MADRID 138 ¶B. MADRID 105 MADRID 00000141 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, a.i. Hugo Llorens for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (U) This message is the second in a series of reports analyzing key issues in select Spanish autonomous regions and the potential role the regions might play in the March 9 general elections and beyond. ¶2. (C) SUMMARY: The Partido Popular (PP) has held working control in the autonomous community of Valencia for over a decade; the PP won an enormous victory in the May 2007 regional elections and is confident it will recoup losses in the 2004 national elections. After the resignation of its regional president earlier this year, the regional PSOE branch, PSPV-PSOE, has been kept afloat through the efforts of national heavyweights, including PSOE Senate spokesman Joan Lerma, Vice President Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, and Minister of HEALTH Bernat Soria. Regional PP leaders anticipate that high-level turnover following a potential Rajoy defeat on March 9 will effectively secure Valencia's place as the heart and soul of the PP and effectively render the Generalitat de Valencia a shadow government to the next PSOE administration. Both PP and PSOE leaders admit that there are likely only three Chamber of Deputies seats in play out of 33 in the community. PSPV-PSOE interim president Joan Lerma said that any PSOE gains in Valencia would be hailed as a big success. The United Left (IU) recently endured an ideological schism at the regional level and is now running two different tickets, which will likely cost the party its lone seat in the region. Unlike neighboring Catalonia, the Catalan-speaking Valencians do not obsess over regional identity; instead, their politics focus on economic development and, above all, water. END SUMMARY. ¶3. (U) The Autonomous Community of Valencia has a total of 33 deputies at stake in the March 9 national elections. The Community is composed of three provinces: Castellon (five seats),Valencia (16 seats),and Alicante (12 seats). Alicante gains an extra seat this year due to population growth along the Mediterranean coast. Currently the Partido Popular (PP) controls all three provinces by ONE seat: Castellon 3-2, Valencia 8-7-1(IU),Alicante 6-5. In 2004, the PSOE picked up two seats here, narrowing the PP advantage to 17-14. The PP has governed in Valencia since former President Jose Maria Aznar came to power in 1996. In the May 2007 election for control of the autonomous community government, the PP won a huge victory over PSOE regional affiliate PSPV-PSOE (PP 53 percent, PSPV 34 percent). Most of the regional and municipal governments in the region are controlled by the PP, including the city council of the Community's capital city, Valencia. //PP// ¶4. (U) The Partido Popular is counting on the Community of Valencia as a place to pick up seats, forecasting a potential gain of up to three seats. The PP hopes to pick up the new seat plus ONE more in Alicante, as well as the Valencia seat likely to be lost by the United Left (IU),whose regional leadership has split over disagreements with the national party and will present two separate IU lists. It will be difficult for the PP to gain in Castellon, which neighbors Catalonia, an inhospitable region for the PP; only an overwhelming PP victory would snag a fourth of five possible seats there. ¶5. (U) The PP has three regional and national heavyweights heading its provincial lists. Former minister of defense Federico Trillo tops the list in Alicante, former minister of science and technology (and current key Rajoy advisor) Juan Costa is the standard bearer in Castellon, and current PP speaker in the Valencian parliament Esteban Gonzalez-Pons heads the list in Valencia province. Notably absent from the list is PP national spokesman and Valencia native son Eduardo Zaplana, whose national profile and public disputes with Valencian President Francisco Camps forced Rajoy to place him on the PP's Madrid list. Also absent from the Valencia list is current mayor of Valencia Rita Barbera, who declined numerous entreaties from both Valencia and Madrid to head the PP list. ¶6. (U) The PP's regional politics have focused on economic expansion via tourism, construction, and real estate development. Under PP stewardship, Valencia's economy has boomed, with unprecedented construction along the Mediterranean coast and a strong and expanding tourism and conference industry. All this, PP leaders claim, without any help from Madrid, where they say the Zapatero government has MADRID 00000141 002.2 OF 003 conspicuously left the Community of Valencia out of its biggest initiatives. PP leaders complain that the construction of a high-speed rail link between Valencia and Madrid is late in coming, despite decades-old studies showing it would be by far the most profitable and highly-traveled leg in Spain, cutting the rail journey between the two cities by more than half. In addition, the PP wins votes by playing up water scarcity concerns in the rain-deprived community. While the PSOE government has favored desalination technology, the PP has rejected desalination as too costly and favors the "trasvase del Ebro", a project that would transfer and recycle surplus water from the mouth of the Ebro river, which runs through Aragon and Catalonia before dumping into the Mediterranean just north of Castellon. Valencian insistence on this project has produced strife within the national PP, due to fierce objection by PP leadership in Aragon. ¶7. (C) PP national leadership will visit the region early and often. Rajoy's number two Angel Acebes will lead a rally next week, while Rajoy will hold a rally in late February. Local PP leaders seemed somewhat resigned to the possibility that Rajoy would not defeat Zapatero if the campaign continued without some major development. Rafael Ripoll, the Generalitat's Secretary for Institutional Relations, predicted that a PP defeat would be followed by "a short term decline in the political future of Rajoy, Zaplana and Acebes." Mariano Vivancos, the Generalitat's Secretary for Social Welfare, predicted that Valencia would emerge from the elections either as the great base of a PP victory or as the heartland of the next PP opposition; either way, the community would deliver for the PP and Valencian politicians would continue to ascend in the national scene. //PSOE// ¶8. (U) After being demolished in the May 2007 regional and municipal elections in Valencia, the PSOE has licked its wounds and sent in national stars in an effort to produce a PSOE resurgence. Former PSPV president Joan Ignasi Pla resigned in October 2007 amid disappointment over the defeat and some allegations of corruption. Zapatero tapped Joan Lerma, former Valencian regional president and current PSOE spokesman in the national Senate, to lead the party through the elections. As a clear sign of the PSOE's intent to compete seriously in Valencia, Zapatero asked Vice President Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega to head the Valencia list. In addition, Minister of HEALTH Bernat Soria heads the list in Alicante, with State Secretary for International Cooperation Leire Pajin as his number two. In Castellon, former minister of public administration Jordi Sevilla will lead PSOE's campaign. ¶9. (U) While a native of Valencia, VP Fernandez de la Vega made her political career elsewhere, and has represented Segovia in Congress until now. As such, and as she maintains permanent residence in Madrid, the PP has branded her a "cunero," which literally means foundling but translates as candidate without a constituency. Nevertheless, the VP has set up headquarters in Valencia and committed to criss-cross the entire community for the next month, announcing ONE new initiative after another in the hopes of using her star power to counteract the PP's historic control (she is ONE of the most highly-rated politicians in Spain). The contrast between Fernandez de la Vega and PP candidate Pons is stark, as Pons has made his entire career in Valencia and is a known quantity. ¶10. (C) PSPV interim president Joan Lerma did not express certainty that Fernandez de la Vega's candidacy would have any tangible impact on the results, and he would only hazard that the PSOE might have a chance at the lost IU seat in Valencia and the new seat in Alicante, but probably would not make any other gains. Still, winning either or both of these seats would be a victory for the PSOE. The PSOE accuses the PP of sacrificing Valencia's long-term interests for short-term growth, citing rampant desecration of the Mediterranean coastline by ONE monstrous construction project after another, along with turning a blind eye to real estate corruption and organized crime. Lerma told poloff that Valencia has never in its history had to implement any type of water restrictions, either for personal consumption or for irrigation, yet the PP insists on making water an issue. The PSOE also points out that the PP governments in Valencia have spent less per person on social services than any other region in Spain, which could swing immigrant and lower income votes toward the socialists. On the other hand, Lerma acknowledged that significant populations of eastern European immigrants in Valencia viewed anything smelling of socialism with suspicion and were not as susceptible to these arguments. MADRID 00000141 003.2 OF 003 //COMMENT// ¶11. (C) Word on the street nearly unanimously predicted a PP victory in the region, though not nationally. The PP cannot win nationally without success in Valencia, and PSOE politicians have tried to sow conflict by claiming (likely with some grain of truth) that the Valencia PP machine does not believe in Rajoy. Regional and local PP politicians are widely considered to be corrupted by their 12 years in power, yet they won an overwhelming victory just last year. Valencians, who speak Catalan but call it "Valenciano," are not as obsessed with regional identity and nationalism as their neighboring Catalans, but they are proud of their region and their Mediterranean culture. END COMMENT. LLORENS