Catalonia’s elections are only a week away. The PSOE, or Socialist party, is currently in power, in both Catalonia and Spain, but they are expected to lose a lot of power after the elections. The party is losing popularity because of the increasingly bad state of the national economy. The PSOE is the party of the current Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. If his party loses a lot of seats next week, it could mean the end of Socialist rule in Spain come the 2012 general elections.
The problems for Zapatero revolve around the economy. Spain is currently at a euro-zone high 20% unemployment rate. And it is thought that the government will need a large bail-out to help turn things around. Catalonia is not a good region for the economy right now either. It has always been on of the most powerful and prosperous semi-autonomous regions in Spain; but recently it has seen the most jobs lost during the economic crisis. The unemployment rate in Catalonia is currently at 17.4%.
Zapatero was once a favored politician, but his approval ratings, in Catalonia especially, have plunged; and not only because of the crisis. “Del Rey Morato said the fact that Zapatero denied for years that a crisis even existed and then made a major U-turn by introducing pro-business labor reforms and austerity measures has left people disconcerted.” He also promised to allow Catalonia to call themselves a Nation, but a Constitutional Court denied Catalonia the privilege of calling themselves a nation. It can be assumed that if the PSOE loses a lot of power in this weeks coming election, they will also lose control of the government in the 2012 general elections.
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