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đ„ This Week in a Nutshell: The first general election in Spain to ever be held in the middle of summer is finally here. Hold on to your butts.
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The moment weâve all been waiting for/hoping to be done with is finally here. Millions of Spanish voters will head to the polls on Sunday to decide whether they want center-left Pedro SĂĄnchez (PSOE) to continue to be Prime Minister or they prefer center-right PP boss Alberto NĂșñez FeijĂło to take the reins.
Most polls (in fact, all except one*) predict that FeijĂło will win and likely form a coalition government with far-right Vox, led by Santiago Abascal.
One poll* by the Center for Sociological Investigations (CIS) predicts SĂĄnchez will win and form a coalition government with left-of-PSOE Sumar, led by the charismatic Yolanda DĂaz. Then again, the person who runs the CIS poll was appointed by the current government and has been wrong. A lot.
So, with three days to 23J, hereâs whatâs happened this week and what we can expect to see this Sunday.
Last night, three of the four major PM candidates (all those above minus the PPâs FeijĂło) clashed in a live televised debate on TVE.
FeijĂło decided not to participate because he claims the public network lacks objectivity (something the network has denied) and criticized that the PNV, ERC, and Bildu (regional parties from the Basque Country and Catalonia) had been âvetoedâ from the debate. He said they should have been included because they were âcrucialâ for governance, in reference to how all three have repeatedly sided with SĂĄnchezâs coalition government.
Pundits also believe that after his relatively good performance during his one-on-one debate with SĂĄnchez last week, FeijĂło simply wants to avoid having to deal with three attackers at the same time.
The debate was largely a clash between potential deputy prime ministers DĂaz and Abascal. While SĂĄnchez remained calm, DĂaz was energetic and confrontational toward the Vox leader. She repeatedly said the PP and Vox were the same, criticized his stance towards what he calls âgender ideologyâ and his climate change doubts. She also asked him to âstop laughingâ at women several times. Pundits agreed she was the clear winner of the debate.
NĂșñez FeijĂło has been laying low this final week, which in many ways hasnât gone as planned. The PP leader participated in an interview on TVE public TV on Monday that was arguably disastrousâor at least didnât really go as expected.
The PP boss stated during the interview that his party had "always" revalued pensions "in line with the CPI [inflation rate]," despite the fact that in 2012, 2013, and 2017, under Mariano Rajoyâs PP government, pensioners lost purchasing power because the increase in retirement benefits was lower than the CPI rate.
When RTVE journalist Silvia Intxaurrondo claimed his statement wasnât true, FeijĂło demanded an on-air correction from her, questioning her data. (Ahem, he was wrong.)
He later said on Twitter that his intention was to point out that the PP "had never frozen pensions" and downplayed his incorrect statements calling them âinaccurate informationâ.
NĂșñez FeijĂło announced Wednesday he was suspending his campaign due to lower back pain, a result of intensely hitting the campaign trail. He was also scheduled to speak at a rally in the Canary Islands, but decided to cancel it out of respect for the people of La Palma who were still fighting a massive fire.
El PaĂs data journalist Kiko Llaneras, whoâve we mentioned before and who does a generally excellent job crunching the data, finds that the elections have a 55% chance of leading to a PP+Vox majority, with the PSOE+Sumar (and regional nationalist parties) having a 16% likelihood. Exciting times!
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đŹ Five things to discuss at dinner parties this week
1. đ„ Charon heatwave: Is it hot in here?
If youâre reading this, it means you survived the Great Heatwave of This Week.Congrats! We usually like to complain about having to stay in the city while fortunate others get to spend the summer months by the Med, but this time there was nowhere to run.
From Malaga to Sicily, the extreme weather has affected us all and thereâs only one culprit: the anticyclone Charon, named after the Greek mythological boatman who ferries souls to the underworld (note: itâs not the Greek spelling of Karen). So yes, in case it wasnât clear, this heatwave is named after a guy who literally takes you to hell.
Monday and Tuesday were the worst days, with places like Figueres, in Catalonia, recording 45.4°C, the highest temperature ever registered in the region. On Monday, monthly records were broken in Toledo (maximum of 42.9°C) and Teruel (minimum of 20.6°C), while on Tuesday, in addition to the Figueres record, monthly maximum records were also shattered in Lleida (43.2°C), Teruel (40.6°C), Albacete (41.5°C), and Daroca in Zaragoza (40.5°C).
If that were not enough, three absolute minimum records were set in Cuenca (24.7°C), Calamocha in Teruel (22.2°C), and Daroca (25.3°C).Oh, and over 140 stations from Spainâs AEMET state meteorological agency reached or surpassed 40°C, and in more than 45, temperatures did not drop below 25°C. Which isâŠpretty crazy.
Fortunately, things started to cool down yesterday, but not enough to spare us from the heat. Murcia and the southernmost parts of Valencia and AndalucĂa were set to burn in the afternoon. The worst conditions were experienced in Murcia, where a red alert was issued due to temperatures reaching 44°C, as well as in Alicante and MĂĄlaga, with alerts for 42ÂșC.
The heatwave is officially over today, according to AEMET, with a "general drop in temperatures," followed by a second decrease on Friday. But we still donât recommend you leave the house. Charon never rests, so stay alert.
2. đȘŠ A shipwrecked dinghy and death on a Tarragona beach
The tragic discovery of a babyâs corpse on a beach in Roda de BerĂ (Tarragona, Catalonia) a week ago left many questions unanswered. Who was it? How did it get there? And was it a crime?
Several grim aspects of the cadaver offered clues. The small body was heavily dressedânot in beachwearâand very decomposed, which suggested death far from the beach. Also, the diaper it wore was a brand popular in northern Africa.
"At first, it looked like a doll, but it is a decapitated corpse, which had been in the water for a long time. Here we can make hypotheses⊠and it could be another person who died at sea,â the mayor of Roda de BerĂ , Pere Virgili, said at the time.Â
The police investigating the death took a DNA sample and sent it to the Guardia Civil labs, where it was crossed with the genetic profile of others on file. And it came back with a family match.
The small childâs DNA matched that taken from another body that had washed up on a beachâthis one of a woman who was found on the Balearic Island of Ibiza on April 6.
With this grim conclusion, the story came into focus. The small child was the 8-month-old daughter of a couple who had traveled on a boat with 12 others that had departed from Cherchel, Algeria on March 21, and sunk 16 days later near the Balearic Islands. All aboard died (the fatherâs body was found near Alicante). Eight of the bodies, including the baby, have been recovered.
The tragedy of the family losing their lives on a boat to Spain is only multiplied by how common an occurrence it is.Â
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says more than 13,000 refugees have arrived in Spain by sea in 2023, compared to 30,000 in 2022 and more than 40,000 each in 2020 and 2021. During that period, over 3,600 died trying.Â
The NGO Caminando Fronteras offers a far higher number: 11,286 died between 2018 and 2022. The most dangerous routes? The one across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands, followed by the trip from Algeria to the Balearics.
Apple and Amazon got hit with âŹ194m in fines this week. Spainâs CNMC antitrust and markets regulator wrapped up a two-year investigation into a deal between the two companies over how Apple products were presented on Amazonâs marketplace with the decision that, yeah, it was anticompetitive.
The investigation stems from two contracts the companies inked on Oct. 31, 2018 (Halloween!), which gave Amazon the status of authorized Apple dealer.Â
The CMNC contends that the companies âunjustifiably restrictedâ the number of resellers of Apple products on Amazon in Spain and âlimited the advertising spacesâ where competing Apple products could be advertised on Amazon.
The results? More than 90% of the retailers that were using Amazonâs marketplace to sell Apple products were blocked, causing the prices of Apple products sold on Amazon to rise in Spain, according to the CNMC. The markets regulator said this especially hurt Non-Authorized Resellersâgenerally small businesses.
The fines: âŹ143,6m to Apple and âŹ50,5m to Amazon.
But before you get too excited about finding cut-priced Apple gear on Amazon, a few things to know.Â
The companies will appealâand have a good chance of winning. A similar case in Italy saw the two tech giants hit with âŹ200m in fines in November 2021. But it was thrown out late last year by an Italian court.
âŹ194m is pocket change to these guys. Appleâs profit was $100bn last year, to give ya a comparison.Â
Amazon says Apple product buyers won from the deal as discounts on iPads and iPhones increased (by 6% and 7-8% on the respective products), while Apple said the agreement was meant to limit the number of counterfeits sold online.Â
Expect months if not years of back and forth and the distinct possibility that nothing will come of it.
4.đ« Snazzy royals
Royalty are, by definition, meant to look rather swanky. Considering they no longer really have political power (at least in Europe), their main job is to offer some positive symbolismâthat is, dress very well and look really good (and not embarrass the countryânote to JC1).Â
On that last point, the Spanish royals (i.e. Felipe VI and Queen Latifah Letizia) have received a surprising amount of praise recently. The occasion? Wimbledon.Â
It started with 20-year-old Spanish No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz winning the tournament in an epic five-set battle with Novak Djokovic, the winningest of all major winners. (Insert passing of the generational torch commentary here.)Â
Letâs just say the fashion police noticed F6âs presenceâand his snazz. Fashion writer Derek Guy began with a dissertation on how fantĂĄstico F6âs tailoring was at the Wimbledon finalâand then dove into a wormhole of the kingâs historic fashion wins (fascinating and, we must say, a bit much).
This kicked off a frenzy of coverage, as The Daily Mail ran a long piece on how absolutely fab both King F6 and Queen L looked at the ABC journalism awards. What great and daring outfits they wore! What sculpted arms she has! And wow that âLook of Loveâ she gave him! AgainâŠa bit much.Â
Question: Has Spain hit peak royal? Is it all downhill from here? And whoâs his tailor? (Not that we could afford it.)
An activist group going by the name of VIOLETAS modified the banner thatâs been hanging in the Madrid neighborhood of ChamberĂ since last week and changed the words to hit back at the far-right party.
The banner, which shows a hooded male figure with his hand covering a scared womanâs mouth, originally read âSĂĄnchez put hundreds of these monsters on the streetâ, in reference to the 1,000+ sex offenders who saw their sentences reduced or were released because of botched writing of his governmentâs âSolo sĂ es sĂâ sexual crime law.
But the message has now been modified by this group to read â(Party leader) Abascal has put hundreds of these monsters in his ranksâ. The organization released a statement on Wednesday accusing the party of including in its lists some candidates who have been accused of machista violence.
The VIOLETAS statement also denounced the "fascist, homophobic, patriarchal, and denialist policies defended by the political party led by Santiago Abascal" and specifically mentions the case of Carlos Flores, a Vox candidate for Congress in Valencia who "was convicted of habitual psychological violence against his ex-wife and 21 counts of coercion, slander, and unjust vexation."
The attacks against Vox over the groupâs denial of the existence of machista violence have continued as the party tries to reframe such violent acts as a generic âintra-familyâ violence that does not have machismo as its root causes.
Yup, that banner shows the King of Morocco, Mohamed VI, and Pedro SĂĄnchez sharing a passionate kiss on the mouth. Itâs also too small to see but the Moroccan monarch is shown wearing an LGBT patch on his traditional clothing.
The banner reads âLet Mohamed VI vote for you" while asking voters to cast their ballot for the Frente Obrero (Workers' Front), a relatively new and small political party that, while seemingly associated to communist ideology, says it doesnât âbelieve in left or rightâ. Instead, they call themselves ârevolutionary patriotsâ. They also warn against the âislamization of Spainâ, saying this country âshouldnât end up like Franceâ.
Now breath deeply and remind yourself that the campaign season ends with the 23J election.
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