Supporters of the opposition Popular Party taking to the streets during Spain's last election.Reuters SPAIN'S Socialists are wooing lost leftist voters after being battered at local polls and while it will not help them win the next general election, they may block the conservatives from controlling parliament. In his first speech as Socialist candidate, former deputy prime minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba called for a tax on banks and distanced himself from austerity measures the Socialists have implemented to ward off the euro zone debt crisis. But analysts and politicians say Rubalcaba's gestures are unlikely to win over the Indignados (Indignant) movement of young anti-austerity protesters or other voters who abandoned the Socialists at local elections in May. The center-right opposition Popular Party (PP), led by Mariano Rajoy, leads the Socialists by 14 percentage points in polls, and Spaniards see him as a better manager of the economy, currently struggling with the highest unemployment rate in the European Union. More than one in five of the labor force are out of work. The Socialists are keen to block an absolute majority for the PP in parliament because they want to force the conservatives to have to make concessions in their reform agenda. Elections are due by March, but many commentators suspect the Socialists may bring them forward to November to take advantage of a likely summer uptick in employment. “It will be very difficult for the Socialists to win the elections because people are so affected by the downturn,” said Jose Pablo Ferrandiz, director and researcher at influential polling company Metroscopia. “People view Rajoy as more capable of overcoming the crisis. But it is probable that Rubalcaba will achieve a sweet defeat that avoids a PP majority.” Politicians from across the spectrum said Rubalcaba is a skilled negotiator who will make the most of a PP minority government if he ends up leading the Socialists in opposition. Polls show that a large majority of Spaniards are sympathetic to the Indignados movement, which has held protests in cities throughout Spain demanding cleaner politics and electoral reform to reduce the power of the two biggest parties. Ferrandiz said politicians would struggle to harness the movement. But Rubalcaba has directly targeted the Indignados with promises to look at making voting districts smaller and put politicians more in touch with the people. The Socialists have also introduced measures to make it easier for some people struggling with mortgage repayments, another issue that the Indignant movement has focused on. These moves are not seen as having a great economic impact or as undermining the government's aggressive target to cut the budget deficit from 9.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2010 to 6 percent this year and show investors it is strong enough to resist the euro zone debt crisis. “The markets will not get spooked about Rubalcaba's rhetoric. This is a reaction to the indignados. I don't think (even) Rubalcaba being elected prime minister would entail a radical shift in economic policy,” said Antonio Barroso, analyst at Eurasia Group. A pick-up in support for Rubalcaba would need to be seen soon if he were to have any chance of becoming prime minister. But the worsening euro zone debt crisis is unlikely to help him as it will force unpopular Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, in office for eight years, to stay the course with austerity measures including wage cuts for civil servants and labour and pension reforms. May's local election drubbing left the Socialists governing in just two of the country's 17 autonomous regions, and the ruling party continued to lose ground in polls even after naming the charismatic Rubalcaba as their candidate. Politicians from Spain's smaller regional parties — on whom the Socialists have relied to pass economic reforms — are skeptical of Rubalcaba's shift to the left and some would welcome an early election. “I don't think this is going to work because the economic situation is so bad. The Socialists' management of the crisis is so inefficient and clumsy that it won't get far,” said Ramon Tremosa, Member of the European Parliament for Convergencia i Unio, the ruling party in the north-eastern region of Catalonia. “The best thing to do would be to call elections for November when the economic situation is a bit better.” __
