“Instability is now the biggest danger...”

Scottish-born former Partido Popular Calvia Concillor and founder and current President of Epore (Europeos por España), Kate Mentink, admitted yesterday that the party was not all that surprised that it has lost some support, but that it was in total shock of just how many votes and how much confidence it has lost from the general public.
“I think the polls and the media forecast correctly  what would happen in the non metropolitan and more rural areas, change was certainly on the horizon with the emergence of parties such as Pi and Ciudadenos and a host of small independent local parties, but when it came to regional government, the island councils or  Palma City Council and some of the bigger councils like Inca and even Calvia, losing to the left with majorities being snatched away, that was  totally unexpected.
“Yesterday, the regional leaders met in Madrid to analyse what went wrong and today, the regional branch of the PP will meet in Palma, but it would not  surprise me if some people have the knives out for Bauza.
“I know he says he wants to continue leading the party in opposition, because there is very little chance, if any, of the PP managing to form any pacts which will give them any serious power, but I think the spat between Bauza and the former Mayor of Palma, Mateo Isern, with the President of the Palma branch of the PP, Jose Maria Rodriquez also in the mix, did the party some damage, the results in Palma speak for themselves - the PP lost a third of its vote.
“It’s the worst set of results for the PP for over two decades.
“The party went into the elections with an absolute majority in Parliament with 35 MPs, on Sunday night, it ended up with just 20, that’s a serious defeat.
“And, it’s strange because, on the whole the Balearics is a rather conservative region, something has seriously gone wrong.
“When you consider that the economy and employment were turning the corner, we are looking at another record tourists season and foreign investment is coming in, things looked pretty encouraging but obviously, there’s more to this for the Balearics to have swung so far to the left with traditional PP strongholds just being wiped out, like Calvia, for example. Iknow it was a matter of just  a few hundred votes, but  it was enough to change the political picture in the municipality.
“So, we’re looking at a tri party coalition, that is providing the three left wing parties can agree.
“Remember, they may be left wing parties but each one has its own agenda. Look at Andalusia. Podemos is refusing to pact with the Socialists so, there is quite simply no government and that could happen here.
“Traditionally, by law, the parties have three weeks to announce their intentions but then that’s only on paper. That’s when the in fighting starts about who from which party is going to get what job etc.
“And this will create instability when the Balearics needs to be run like a business, like a tight ship because we live off tourism and foreign and domestic investment. We’ve seen that grow over recent years but unless a solid and sensible coalition is formed quickly, then investor confidence in the Balearics will wane and that is going to be bad news for the Balearics,” Mentink said yesterday.