The Bear is at the Door

In this week's Camino a Ítaca a look at the new policial map here in Extremadura and the negotiations that are taking place between the parties on the right. Click over to read the original piece published in Spanish in el HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

It was one of those urban myths that was so entirely bizarre that it was difficult to know if there was actually a grain of truth to it or not.

Legend once had it that incognizant American families would travel up to the Canadian national parks, cover their children’s hands with honey, and then send them to get close to wild grizzly bears so that they could get a picture with them.

Needless to say, the story never ended well.

The false Winnie the Pooh image they had of these wild animals was so completely at odds with reality that, in their ignorance, they heedlessly risked their children’s safety just to capture a photo. After all, it was just a teddy bear, wasn’t it?

And therein lies the danger. Real bears bite.

The political map of Extremadura has been redrawn and real live bears are now on the prowl. A new party with five key seats will be represented in the regional assembly in the upcoming session. Seats that will be decisive when choosing who will be the next President of Extremadura.

One of the biggest questions since this new party’s irruption on to the political scene nationally, and now in Extremadura, is how to precisely categorize this green ursus horribilis. Their abstruse nebulosity is only thickened by the fact that they didn’t even bother to prepare an electoral program specific for Extremadura.

This oversight was excused by claiming that they are a party with a national vocation. The naivety of which, presuming that the challenges faced here in Extremadura are the same as those in the Basque country, surmounts the ingenuousness of those poor children with honey on their hands. That is if it hadn’t in fact been done deliberately to obfuscate their true intentions.

In a cautious act of self-censorship, in just one newspaper you can see this newcomer labelled as extreme right, ultraright, radical right, ultranationalist, Trumpist, francoist and neofrancoist. But are these euphemisms and trivializations just a distraction from what the party really represents? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quack like a duck, well...

The Partido Popular is also going to have to reexamine how they classify this excision to its right. For years it maintained these ultras within its ranks isolated and quiet, but they are now out in the open. After swearing she would never govern with them, the president of the PP in Extremadura, Maria Guardiola has now stated that its program coincides 90% with what the newcomers’ voters want.

The incoming mayor of Caceres, Rafa Mateos from the PP has gone even further in normalizing this party that won 2 seats in the city. In his view, parties themselves are not dangerous, only people are and that the spokesman of Vox had given him a very good feeling as a moderate person.

But this bear is no longer your drunk cuñado singing ‘Cara al Sol’, slurring that under Franco we lived better after a long afternoon with a bottle of Veterano, but a party at the gates of power. One that could have a say in such vital areas as education.

Let’s hope they leave the bears to their caverns.