PREVIEW: Spontaneous protest movement sweeps Spain ahead of polls

By Sinikka Tarvainen May 18, 2011, 11:08 GMT

Madrid - The campaign for Spain's local and regional elections had, until recently, followed a familiar script with the right and left lambasting each other. But a spontaneous citizens' protest movement, which sprang to life a week before Sunday's poll, has alarmed political parties.

'We are not merchandise in the hands of politicians and bankers,' demonstrators chanted as the movement brought tens of thousands of people to the streets in more than 50 Spanish cities on Sunday.

The demonstrations have continued since, with thousands marching in Madrid and other cities late Tuesday. The organizers have announced more rallies and sit-ins right up to election day, when Spaniards are to elect elect municipal councils all over the country and regional governments in 13 of 17 semi-autonomous regions.

The elections are seen as a key test for Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialists, who are expected to lose heavily to the opposition conservative People's Party (PP).

After taking over power in 2004, Zapatero presided over liberal social reforms such as gay marriage and fast-track divorce, but his second term has been marked by the economic crisis.

Impacted both by the global financial crisis and the meltdown of Spain's key construction sector, unemployment has soared to 20 per cent - the eurozone's highest - while growth remains slow.

The Socialists could lose even some of their traditional strongholds, such as the central region of Castile-La-Mancha, opinion polls indicate.

Zapatero has tried to limit his party's expected defeat by slamming the PP as representing a 'rancid' far right.

The premier also announced that he will not seek a third term in the 2012 parliamentary elections, in an attempt to prevent personal criticism of him from dragging down the entire party.

Now, however, the Socialists are fearing an even bigger defeat because the new citizens' movement could absorb many potential voters of the left.

The nascent movement has several names - M-15, in reference to May 15, the day the rallies started; The Indignant Ones; or Real Democracy Now, after the name of the association that launched it on the internet.

It came to life only a few months back, partly inspired by the popular uprisings that are changing political and social equations in the Arab world, organizers said.

'The will and the goal of the system is to accumulate money, placing it above the efficiency and wellbeing of society,' reads the manifesto of Real Democracy Now, the group that is the driving force of the movement.

'We denounce the lack of real democracy and the tendency towards an institutional two-party system, where corruption ... reaches scandalous levels,' Fabio Gandara, a spokesman for the movement, told the daily El Pais.

Like 'anti-globalization' movements in other European countries, M-15 brings together hundreds of heterogeneous groups representing the unemployed, people with precarious working conditions, those unable to pay mortgages, ecologists, opponents of internet copyright laws, critics of neo-liberalism and others.

Governments have become mere instruments in the hands of banks, for whose benefit they impose austerity policies and undermine social rights, demonstrators said in Madrid.

'This is the first time that the left, without the big parties and trade unions ... takes to the streets to announce the bankruptcy of the (current political) model,' organizer Ramon Espinar said.

'Young people feel betrayed because we have a false and crippled democracy,' said Cayo Lara from the far-left party Izquierda Unida, which is hoping to capitalize on the widening discontent.

The protest movement, however, does not back any party, nor has it called on voters to abstain. As Real Democracy Now said in its manifesto, it only seeks an 'ethical revolution.'