Europe | Spain's indignants

Europe's most earnest protesters

They may not know what they want, but they are starting to get it

Whatever it is, we’re against it
|MADRID

Whatever it is, we're against it

THERE was no rock-throwing or tear gas, but on July 9th Spain's polite “indignant” protesters still chalked up a victory. After being endorsed as the ruling Socialist Party's candidate for prime minister in the election due by next March, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba used his acceptance speech to propose electoral reform. This might not sound much. But Mr Rubalcaba's call for Spain to adopt Germany's voting model, so as to install proportional representation but still let people choose their local deputies, was a direct sop to the movement that spontaneously occupied city squares in mid-May, claiming that the politicians “don't represent us”.

Nor is this the only success for los indignados (the indignants). Even as police manned the barricades outside parliament on June 21st, deputies were unanimously calling for a much-delayed bill on freedom of information. A week later the government agreed, and also announced new limits on the amounts banks can reclaim from mortgage defaulters. Both measures came after pressure from Europe's best-behaved protest movement.

Yet there were often more deputies inside parliament than protesters outside. Sometimes tens of thousands have turned up to the demonstrations; at other times, just a few dozen. Nobody can blame Spanish politicians for struggling to understand the movement. The indignants, who claim to have no leaders, are themselves unclear what they stand for. Their assembly-based, consensus-seeking debates are painfully slow. Manuel Chaves, a minister, likens their meetings to those of the bickering Peoples' Front of Judea in the Monty Python film “Life of Brian”.

But politicians ignore the indignants at their peril. Up to 80% of Spaniards say they support the earnest young protesters. Even the occasional lapse into violence, such as a blockade of the Catalan parliament on June 15th, has done little to dent their popularity. Well-mannered rage is their selling point. This is not Athens.

“It is not really a movement,” says Josep Lobera, a pollster. “It is a symptom. It expresses a general feeling of concern and anger.” Conservatives rubbish the indignants as extremists. Some see a leftist group girding itself to battle a right-wing reformist People's Party (PP) government, led by Mariano Rajoy, that is likely to win power in the next election.

That analysis may be right, to judge by a recent open-air assembly on the economy, with a few dozen participants squatting on the paving stones of Madrid's Plaza del Carmen. The ideas they discussed included striking out an obscure clause in the Lisbon treaty that prevents central banks giving cheap credit to governments, and holding a referendum on labour and pension reforms. The recent “pact for the euro” was another target. Some contemplated a general strike. So far, so left.

But if this is extremism, why does support for the indignants hold up when the communist-led United Left party wins just 4% of the vote? One answer is that it is not only left-wingers who are indignant. “It is true there are many people from the far left, but there are also some economic liberals and centrists,” says Francisco Cañero, a former small businessman and now an activist. The movement is bound by complaints, not solutions.

Political parties are one concern. Spaniards rate politicians their third-biggest problem, behind the economy and unemployment. Polls show broad support for removing the statute of limitations on the corruption cases that poison regional and municipal politics. But analysts also point to a wider change of mood. Court investigations into the tax affairs of Emilio Botín, head of Banco Santander, and suspected fraud at the Spanish Society of Authors, which campaigns against internet piracy, help to fire up the indignants. Bankinter, a retail bank, has responded to fury over home repossessions by introducing the first Spanish mortgage that can be walked away from, American-style, simply by handing over the keys.

Mr Rubalcaba has begun to bash bankers. He accuses them of lending to people who they knew could not repay, and threatens extra taxes. A polite nod, perhaps, to mannerly indignation—but one that carries hints of populism.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "Europe's most earnest protesters"

Overview

From the July 16th 2011 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Discover more

Vladimir Putin blames an Islamist attack on Ukraine and America

How to use a disastrous security failure to bolster dictatorship

Why the French are drinking less wine

A younger generation is rejecting old Mediterranean habits