Spanish General Election 2011

[Niemeyerite]

Polls show that Zapatero is the most hated president in the history of modern democracy in Spain. he's at 3.3/10 in the last CIS (best poll here in Spain).
 PP's president, Mariano Rajoy, who soundly lost to Zapatero in 2004 and 2008, leads him by an average of 13 points, but he's also hated by spanish people (latest CIS put him at 3.87/10).
In the lattest CIS, PP had 44.1% of the vote and PSOE 34%, but other polls show rajoy leading by 13, 15 or even 17 points.
The only politicians who Spanish really approve are vice-president Alfredo Perez-Rubalcaba (5.6/10) and Minister of Defense Carme Chacon (5.1/10).

We were expecting for a Zapatero announcement since last year. a majority of people thought he would not run again (me too). Today, he's officially announced he's not running again.
Rubalcaba is the most likely nominee, but PSOE might have primaries because Chacon has presidential ambitions and Jose Bono (president of the congress) too (Bono barely lost to Zapatero in 2000's primaries).

Polls also show that we prefer Rubalcaba or Chacon over Rajoy as president. That doesn't mean they're leading in polls (for the moment, there aren't any polls Chacon vs. Rajoy or Rajoy vs. Rubalcaba).

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/Zapatero/voy/ser/candidato/proximas/elecciones/generales/elpepuesp/20110402elpepunac_2/Tes

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/9124254/spanish-pm-says-will-not-stand-in-2012-elections/

I will campaign for Rubalcaba. I don't think Chacon will run against him because he's beloved by the base. But if it's rubalcaba vs. chacon, I may support her. I don't know.

[Tender Branson]

President ?

Please rename it to "Parliamentary Elections".

Spain has a King and an Prime Minister, not a President.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Presidential ?

It's the wrong day for April fools, you know ?

[Middle-aged Europe]

Strictly speaking, Spain doesn't have a prime minister either. Zapatero's official title is Presidente del Gobierno (President of the Government). However, since he's not directly elected by the people there's still no such thing like a presidential election in Spain. Only a parliamentary one.

David Cameron and François Fillon are called "Primer ministro" in Spanish btw, so they do make a distinction in title between prime minister and president of the government.

The translation of the Spanish "president"'s title into English raises an interesting point though. Why is the German Bundeskanzler translated to chancellor instead of prime minister, while the Spanish Presidente del Gobierno is translated to prime minister instead of president?

[Antonio the Sixth]

President of Government is fine. Italy's head of government is called Presidente del Consiglio too, even though since the last decade Italians have started calling it "Premier" which means nothing.

[Hash]

Yeah, call it parliamentary. Even though the presidential candidate in Spain plays a major role and is pretty defining, more so than a simple party leader like here.

[minionofmidas]

President of Government is fine. Italy's head of government is called Presidente del Consiglio too, even though since the last decade Italians have started calling it "Premier" which means nothing.

Beat me.
Of course, Italy also has a "normal" President.

I wonder if calling the Spanish President that is something of a formulaic compromise from the late 70s, when the reintroduction of the monarchy was far from universally accepted.
Wikipedia tells me that until 1939, the Spanish prime minister was called "President of the Council of Ministers", ie the exact same title as the Italian one. Franco was "President of the Government" (ie the modern title) and "Caudillo" until 1973, which is reminiscent of, and probably modelled on, Hitler's double-title as "Führer und Reichskanzler". After that he served "only" as Caudillo, partly out of old age and de facto inability to govern, partly as part of the transition to a monarchy (conceived to be less direct than Franco's rule had been, even though not by any stretch as the democracy Spain would become by a gradual process begun right after Franco's death and not really finished until after the 81 coup.)

[Antonio the Sixth]

Beat me.

Why should I ?

[minionofmidas]

Beat me.

Why should I ?

It's past tense. You made the point about "Italy too" before I could.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Beat me.

Why should I ?

It's past tense. You made the point about "Italy too" before I could.

Oh, ok. LOL

[Niemeyerite]

Yes, Zapatero is president, not prime minister... I'd call it Parliamentarian elections... but really, here in spain we talk about "elecciones presidenciales", not "elecciones del congreso", so I think it's fair to call them presidential elections... I know the name may be wrong, but if you ask here in spain if they vote for a candidate for president or if they're electing a new congress, more or less about 90% of people will answer they are voting for their new president.
The thing is, do you think PSOE will be able to recover??

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yes, Zapatero is president, not prime minister... I'd call it Parliamentarian elections... but really, here in spain we talk about "elecciones presidenciales", not "elecciones del congreso", so I think it's fair to call them presidential elections... I know the name may be wrong, but if you ask here in spain if they vote for a candidate for president or if they're electing a new congress, more or less about 90% of people will answer they are voting for their new president.
The thing is, do you think PSOE will be able to recover??

So Spain is a parliamentary democracy in name only ? Too bad, they don't know how lucky they are not to live under a presidential autocracy.

[Hash]

Yes, Zapatero is president, not prime minister... I'd call it Parliamentarian elections... but really, here in spain we talk about "elecciones presidenciales", not "elecciones del congreso", so I think it's fair to call them presidential elections... I know the name may be wrong, but if you ask here in spain if they vote for a candidate for president or if they're electing a new congress, more or less about 90% of people will answer they are voting for their new president.
The thing is, do you think PSOE will be able to recover??

So Spain is a parliamentary democracy in name only ? Too bad, they don't know how lucky they are not to live under a presidential autocracy.

I don't see how Spain's parliamentary system with party leaders and PMs playing a dominant role is any different to Canada, the UK, Italy or other countries. It's not as if the leader's stature plays no role in those countries, especially Italy.

[minionofmidas]

Things certainly were very different in Italy pre Tangentopoli. (Though they started to change in the 80s.)

[Antonio the Sixth]

Still, that's quite depressing to imagine that people, when they elect their MPs, say "I'm voting for Presidential elections !". But you're right, the executive's growing domination in parliamentary regimes is quite depressing.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Yes, Zapatero is president, not prime minister... I'd call it Parliamentarian elections... but really, here in spain we talk about "elecciones presidenciales", not "elecciones del congreso", so I think it's fair to call them presidential elections... I know the name may be wrong, but if you ask here in spain if they vote for a candidate for president or if they're electing a new congress, more or less about 90% of people will answer they are voting for their new president.
The thing is, do you think PSOE will be able to recover??

So Spain is a parliamentary democracy in name only ? Too bad, they don't know how lucky they are not to live under a presidential autocracy.

Actually, wouldn't it be a presidential election in name only... since it is in fact a parliamentary election?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There. A neutral term. If somewhat anachronistic.

[ag]

Spain is a parliamentary democracy, and the title given to its prime minister is "President of the government". "Prime minister" is a British term; in many other countries they use something else formally, but then say PM informally. For that matter, official title of Putin is "Chairman of the Government", but I never heard him referred to as "Chairman Putin", not even in Russian.

[Middle-aged Europe]

There. A neutral term. If somewhat anachronistic.

I guess it's ok, because Wikipedia uses it as well (and the Spanish Wikipedia too for that matter).

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elecciones_generales_de_Espa%C3%B1a_de_2012

Spain is a parliamentary democracy, and the title given to its prime minister is "President of the government". "Prime minister" is a British term; in many other countries they use something else formally, but then say PM informally. For that matter, official title of Putin is "Chairman of the Government", but I never heard him referred to as "Chairman Putin", not even in Russian.

Not the case in Spain though. Zapatero is indeed known as "el presidente" there, since president is used as a short form for president of the government.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I've even heard Berlusconi called "Presidente" a couple of times too. Though our elections are "elezioni politiche" (which makes me wonder if other elections were supposed to be apolitical, LOL ).

[Niemeyerite]

yes, zapatero is my Presidente, not my primer ministro hahaa... and here 99.99% of the people don't know who they're voting for =/.
I don't like this system, because nationalist such as CiU, which got 300,00 votes in 2008, have 10 seats in the congress, while Izquiera Unida had 1 million votes and only 2 seats.

[minionofmidas]

It sounds seriously stupid to not vote tactically much given the election law... yet I have a feeling that lots of people in Spain might and don't. Greece is even stranger in that respect.

[Niemeyerite]

Yes, I know a lot of people who identify theirselves as communists and only vote PSOE (over IU) because they're afraid their vote will be useless and PP will win. That happened in 2008, when PP was leading in polls...
look at CiU and PN: they are centre-right nationalist parties which always win regional elections. but more than 50% of their voters voted PSOE in 2008.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The PP was leading the polls in 2008 ? How comes ?

[Niemeyerite]

The PP was leading the polls in 2008 ? How comes ?

yes, they were tied until the month before the elections. but the impression was that PP was underpoilling. I remember a majority of people thought rajoy would win by a close margin until the presidential debates, where zapatero crushed rajoy.