Spain’s PM wary of crackdown ahead of weekend vote

Spain’s Prime Minister yesterday refused to be rushed into a crackdown on swelling protests over unemployment as his Socialist Party braced for a crushing defeat in weekend local elections.

Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero even voiced some sympathy with the “peaceful” demonstrations ahead of tomorrow’s regional and municipal elections.

The predicted rout of the Socialists in the polls would be a bad omen for the party ahead of general elections scheduled for March 2012, when the conservative opposition Popular Party is expected to romp into office.

Thousands of people have massed in city centres across the country in an expanding movement that began May 15, the biggest spontaneous protests since the property bubble exploded in 2008 and plunged Spain into a recession from which it only emerged this year.

The electoral commission late on Thursday declared that protests planned for today and tomorrow were illegal as they “go beyond the constitutionally guaranteed right to demonstrate.”

Today is by law “a day of reflection” ahead of the vote, meaning political activity is barred.

But organisers of the spearhead protest in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square called for a huge silent demonstration to begin in the early hours of today, minutes after midnight yesterday.

“We are calling on everyone to gather in Puerta del Sol and carry out the ‘silent protest’ action,” one of the organising groups, “No nos vamos” (“We are not leaving”), said in an online statement.

Protesters would put tape over their mouths and then remove it at five minutes after midnight to mime a “silent shout” of unified protest, it said in the statement.

Mr Zapatero said the protesters were reacting to unemployment and the economic crisis “in a peaceful manner.”

Spain’s jobless rate hit 21.19 per cent in the first quarter of this year, the highest in the industrialised world. For under-25s, the jobless rate in February was 44.6 per cent.

“My obligation is to listen, be sensitive, try to give an answer from the government so that we can recover the economy and employment as soon as possible,” Mr Zapatero told radio Cadena Ser.

He said the government was studying the electoral commission’s decision and would wait to see how the protests develop today.

“In any case we should not get ahead of ourselves. What we can say is that, as I think has been the case up to now, the interior ministry will act well, correctly, with intelligence.”

Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba later said police “will enforce the law” against the protesters but “in a proportional manner.”

“Police will take decisions according to developments,” he told a news conference following a cabinet meeting.

Spain’s leading daily El Pais quoted government sources as saying police will only intervene if there is violence.

“The fact that the gatherings are banned in not enough reason for the police to act” against the demonstrators, the centre-left paper said on its website.

Calling for “Real Democracy Now,” the protests popularly known as M-15 began May 15, lamenting Spain’s economic crisis, politicians in general, and corruption.

They are now camped out across the country including in Barcelona, Seville, Granada, Cadiz, Malaga, Bilbao, Valencia, Burgos, Palma de Majorca and Santander.

Even before the protests, polls forecast devastating losses for the Socialists as voters take revenge for the destruction of millions of jobs and painful spending cuts, including to state salaries.