Spaniards Protest in Madrid Against Austerity
Spaniards Protest in Madrid Against Austerity, Bank Bailouts
Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images
Thousands of people filled Puerta del Sol, where demonstrators have used Twitter to attract supporters to a makeshift camp in the central Madrid plaza.
Thousands of people filled Puerta del Sol, where demonstrators have used Twitter to attract supporters to a makeshift camp in the central Madrid plaza. Photographer: Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images
Spaniards marched and pitched tents in central Madrid for a fourth night to protest budget cuts, bank bailouts and the country’s electoral system ahead of regional voting on May 22.
Thousands of people last night filled Puerta del Sol, where demonstrators have used Twitter to attract supporters to a makeshift camp in the central Madrid plaza, mirroring the use of social media that fueled the recent protests in Tunisia and Egypt. They’ve plastered buildings with posters and slogans and are holding political discussions throughout the day.
Spain’s Socialist government, which faces regional and local elections on May 22, turned against its traditional base to push through the deepest budget cuts in at least three decades and overhaul labor and pension laws. The collapse of Spain’s debt-fueled property boom left the country with an unemployment rate of 21 percent, and 45 percent of young people out of work.
“The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer,” Pepa Garcia, a 34 year-old unemployed actress, said in an interview yesterday at the Puerta del Sol. “People should be indignant; some banks are getting rescued with our money while we’re almost drowning.”
Bank Bailouts
Spain’s bank-rescue fund has committed around 11 billion euros ($16 billion) to lenders suffering from the collapse of the real estate market. Savings banks need another 14 billion euros to meet new capital requirements, the Bank of Spain estimates. The government is pushing lenders to raise those funds from private investors, with the national rescue facility known as FROB acting as a backstop.
The protest movement behind the march says it doesn’t represent any political party, wants politicians facing corruption charges to be barred from running for election and for the Senate, the upper house of Parliament, to be scrapped, according to a manifesto hanging up in the square, one of Madrid’s best-known landmarks. It also seeks changes to the voting system to make it more representative and less dominated by the two main parties, said Noelia Moreno, a spokeswoman for the group.
“The management of the crisis has been directed by the markets, the governments have sold out and the measures don’t solve the problems of the people,” Moreno, 29, who is unemployed, said in an interview yesterday in Sol.
Defense Minister Carme Chacon, who polls suggest may lead the Socialists into next year’s general election after Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero stands down, said she is “listening” to the protesters’ demands. Some of their proposals are “not only reasonable but also possible,” she said in comments carried by state broadcaster TVE.
A leadership battle within the Socialists party will start after the May 22 vote, with Chacon and Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba seen as favorites to succeed Zapatero, who said last month he wouldn’t seek a third term.
Regional Vote
The Socialists are set to suffer a setback in most of the regional elections, polls show. The party will be beaten in the region of Castilla-La Mancha, which it has controlled for three decades, and may lose the city of Barcelona for the first time since Spain’s return to democracy in 1975, according to a poll by the state-run Center for Sociological Research on May 5.
Zapatero has angered traditional supporters by slashing public wages, freezing pensions and seeking to change wage- bargaining rules as part of his efforts to cut the euro-region’s third-largest budget deficit and shield the Spanish economy from the sovereign debt crisis. Even as the economy returns to growth after a three-year slump, Spain is home to almost a third of the euro region’s unemployed and the jobless rate among young people is more than twice the region’s average.
“If you don’t let us dream, we won’t let you sleep,” read one of the slogans stuck to the metro in the Puerta del Sol.
To contact the reporter on this story: Emma Ross-Thomas in Madrid at erossthomas@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net
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