Some would like to style Marga Prohens as the Balearic equivalent of Madrid’s Isabel Ayuso. Prohens herself would almost certainly prefer to be known in her own right. The leader of the Partido Popular in the Balearics, she isn’t as visible as she might be because she isn’t a parliamentary deputy.
When she was and was also PP spokesperson, she gave Francina Armengol a good run for her money, and she has now latched onto the government’s tourism decree in heralding a start to the long campaign for next year’s election. The PP will repeal the decree.
“A trick of propaganda,“ stated Prohens yesterday at a press conference, as she denounced the decree as a further act, of socialist intervention and imposition. The pre-election propaganda war was thus declared; we have fifteen months of this to go.
Prohens attacked what she said was the de-growth contained in the decree. In so doing, she was engaging in her own propaganda. Yes, the decree does contemplate the potential loss of tourist accommodation places, but it is not as if it states this overtly. As previously noted, and as the principal example, a mechanism for loss of holiday rental places already existed.
The PP are now being accused of wanting unlimited growth, which they do not. Between the PP, the parties of government (PSOE at any rate) and business powers like the large hoteliers, there is actually a good deal of common ground. They can’t admit this though. If they did, there would be no propaganda war.