"Matriuskas y Caricaturas : Tretas Publicitarias del PSC - PSOE"

Recientemente los originales chicos del PSC han presentado estas Matriuskas Rusas para ejemplificar gráficamente que Rajoy está dominado por el ala dura del PP, y especialmente por el demonizado Aznar.

En el fondo es otro patético intento de distraer la atención de los problemas que realmente importan de cara a las próximas elecciones, pues si los ciudadanos se concentran en rememorar al odiado Aznar, en lugar de evaluar detenidamente la gestión del PSOE, sin duda sus intereses electorales se verán recompensados.

Y es que el PSC, difícilmente pueda dar alguna justificación loable de la nefasta gestión de las infraestructuras en Cataluña: no puede pasarle la pelota a otra administración, porque tanto la estatal, la autonómica y la municipal están gobernadas por el PSOE. Por tanto, nada mejor que resucitar fantasmas del pasado para distraer.

No obstante, la cruda realidad se empeña en abofetear a Zapatero, y esta semana The Economist nos muestra al gran “Presidente del Talante” lidiando con la crisis económica, ya saben, esa que según él no existe, y de la que solo hablan los antipatriotas. Procedo a poner la caricatura zapateril, así como el artículo del semanario británico:

THE surprise ingredient in the Spanish election of March 2004 was the Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 commuters just three days before the vote. Thanks to the clumsiness of the outgoing People's Party (PP) government, which tried to blame Basque terrorists, not Islamist radicals, the bombs provoked an unexpected change. What had looked like a PP shoo-in turned into a Socialist bounce-back, handing victory to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, now Spain's prime minister.

Four years on, Mr Zapatero is seeking re-election. This time, too, a surprise ingredient has arrived ahead of the March 9th poll. But, despite the recent arrest in Barcelona of 14 Muslim immigrants suspected of planning fresh attacks, it has nothing to do with Islam. After four years in which Spain's politicians have argued bitterly about almost everything else, the new ingredient is the economy.

Few would have predicted this even six months ago. An economy growing at a healthy lick of 3.8% seemed to be one of the strongest of Mr Zapatero's weapons. But since then Spain's housing bubble has burst and inflation has risen. Global financial turmoil now threatens to turn a hoped-for soft landing into something much harder. And the PP, seeking to avenge its 2004 loss, smells blood.

For voters who were not already worried, this week's stockmarket panic was a rude awakening. Few Spaniards are feeling the pain yet, but many expect to. A weekend poll showed three pessimists for every two who are optimistic about the economy, a sharp reversal from July. The political question is whether voters will punish Mr Zapatero for their gnawing sense of uncertainty, or prefer him as the man to lead them through hard times.

His opponents are in no doubt. “The government thought this was their strong point,” comments Alvaro Nadal, the PP's employment spokesman. “The economy had little impact for several years. Now it is very important.” The burst housing bubble is already slowing growth in a country heavily dependent on construction. Unemployment began to rise in 2007 for the first time in four years.

So far, though, nobody is talking of recession. The government predicts 3.1% growth in 2008 (The Economist's consensus forecast is 2.4%). Mr Zapatero claims that the budget surplus has reached a record-breaking 2% of GDP. A surge in the workforce, mainly from immigration, has swollen the coffers of a social-security system that has gained 2.7m more contributors. The government thinks it has a large fighting fund to spend its way out of trouble, if it needs to. “We must wait and see,” says the Socialists' chief economist, Inmaculada Rodríguez-Piñero. Even the PP sees room for early tax cuts.

If the polls of voting intentions are at all reliable, Spaniards are slowly but surely drifting away from Mr Zapatero. A Socialist lead of five points in 2004 is down to only two in some polls. It is no surprise to find that many Socialists wish they had fought the election last year, before the world economy wobbled. They have watched in dismay as fast-growing GDP in the past three years has been matched by fast-growing economic pessimism. Indeed, Mr Zapatero has performed a kind of reverse alchemy, transforming economic gold into political lead.

With the economy now weighing so heavily, two unlikely campaign champions have emerged. On one side is the solid, if unglamorous, figure of Pedro Solbes, the finance minister. Mr Zapatero is pushing this former European commissioner as the safe pair of hands that Spain needs. “He was born to do this,” he said, when Mr Solbes agreed to stay on after the election.

On the PP side is Manuel Pizarro, best known until recently as a former president of Endesa, an electricity utility. He endured much government meddling in a takeover battle that raged for most of the past four years. Now the party leader, Mariano Rajoy, has hired him. Some say he could be the PP finance minister. Mr Pizarro, a forthright liberal, has the charisma that Mr Solbes lacks. But he is also a political novice. A proposed debate between the two men is being billed as the big event of the campaign. Mr Solbes wants to help his opponent to “clarify some ideas.” Mr Pizarro retorts: “Bring them all on.”

Yet the PP has a mountain to climb to get near the Socialists. The opinion polls point to a narrowing gap, but not yet to a PP win. Mr Zapatero has much higher personal ratings than Mr Rajoy, and Mr Solbes is one of his more popular ministers. And the PP has done far too little to woo key voters in the political centre. Mr Rajoy treats global warming as a joke. His party backed the unpopular Iraq war. Social and religious conservatives have become increasingly visible within the party, protesting against Socialist laws to bring in gay marriage and quick divorces or to take religion out of the core school curriculum. Angry debates over the government's attempted peace deal with ETA, the Basque terrorist group, and its granting of more powers to Catalonia have pulled some voters into the PP camp. But the furiously nationalistic tone that the party has employed has put others off.

Nor has the treatment of one leading PP centrist, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, a popular mayor of Madrid, helped. Mr Ruiz-Gallardón was kept off the party's list mainly to make room for Mr Pizarro. Some see this as part of the jockeying for the party leadership if Mr Rajoy loses the election and is forced to quit. Mr Rajoy was hand-picked as leader by the previous PP prime minister, José María Aznar, who stepped down in 2004 because he had pledged to serve no more than two terms in office. Critics say Mr Rajoy lacks the strength of a candidate who has had to fight to the top.

All this, however, may weigh less heavily on voters' minds on March 9th than the economy. Spain is staging what amounts to the rich world's first big post-credit-crunch election. Politicians heading for the polls in other countries that are feeling the fall-out from global financial turmoil are watching carefully.