Reuters
Madrid

To anyone who doubted his re-election strategy, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has had a simple answer: “Trust me”.
Now, a battering in local elections has cast doubt on his plan that an economic recovery will secure him a second term later this year.
In six months’ time, when the next general election is due, the Spanish economy will be growing at 3% and half a million jobs will have been created.
This was Rajoy’s message as he campaigned across Spain for his conservative People’s Party (PP) before the municipal and regional elections last weekend.
But many voters have hardly felt the recovery and, following a string of corruption scandals that have touched the ruling party, on Sunday they turned to new forces such as the anti-austerity Podemos (“We Can”) and market-friendly Ciudadanos “‘Citizens”).
“It’s time to reflect. The party is badly hit ... for sure, we’re going the wrong way. We are the party that won the most votes but voters sent us a message of anger,” said a senior PP member, who declined to be named.
“We haven’t seriously done self-criticism ... Something is not working and we have to properly diagnose what,” he said before a meeting of the PP’s executive committee.
While the PP got more votes than any other party in the municipal polls as well as in nine of the 13 regions that voted this weekend, it suffered its worst electoral result in more than two decades.
It lost about 2.5mn votes from the last local elections four years ago and close to 5mn from its landslide victory in the 2011 general election.
Even loyal PP voters believe their party is heading for more trouble unless it changes.
“They need to find a way to give jobs to the young. The message that the economy is rebounding doesn’t reach people,” said Salvador Soriano, a retired cook from Valencia.
“They promised a lot, but they’re falling short,” he said as he strolled among office workers in the city centre.
Spanish unemployment is almost 24% and more than double that for the young. Even under the government’s forecasts, the overall jobless rate will still be 17.7% in 2017.
At a local level, the PP faces a new era of coalition and compromise for which it is ill-prepared.
Rajoy – whose party must form pacts with some of the new groups if it is to retain power in a number of regions, including the Madrid community - has campaigned hard against them.
Earlier this month he said they were “gangs” and a threat to Spain’s political and economic stability.
In Valencia, a PP stronghold since the mid-1990s, the party again won the most votes on Sunday.
However, it is likely to be forced into opposition by a coalition of left-wing parties after it lost its overall majority on both the city council and in the regional assembly.
Political analysts say left-wing blocs could push the PP out of power in half a dozen regions.
On top of this, the centre-right upstart Ciudadanos, initially seen as a coalition partner for the PP, may avoid helping Rajoy for now.
“Parties on the left will secure deals between themselves and force a change wherever they can. But I also see Ciudadanos backing them so that it doesn’t appear to be propping up the PP and so that it can capture votes on the left,” said Jose Pablo Ferrandiz from the Metroscopia polling firm.
Although Ciudadanos and Podemos kept their cards close to their chest on potential local coalitions during the campaign, Ferrandiz said both may now want to back stable governments to reassure voters they are not a threat to Spain’s political and economic stability.
The mainstream Socialist Party, which has alternated in power with the PP since the restoration of democracy 40 years ago, may benefit from this.
Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez was quick to say after Sunday’s election that he would contact the two parties’ chiefs this week to start discussing potential alliances.
“It’s the beginning of the end of Mariano Rajoy as prime minister,” Sanchez said.