Rajoy's honeymoon with Spaniards begins to fade

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's honeymoon with the nation appears to be approaching an end as he prepares to mark 100 days in power on Thursday. The 100-day mark will coincides with a general strike, which comes after Rajoy's conservative People's Party (PP) did worse than expected in regional elections on Sunday.
Rajoy denied that the weak results were due to his government's relentless austerity drive, which he is planning to step up in an attempt to counter growing international concern over Spain's fiscal health. The government's economic reforms "are not a whim," the premier said. "Spain cannot stop moving ahead."
The 57-year-old veteran politician is now beginning to feel the weight of the economic crisis that allowed the PP to take a landslide victory over the governing Socialists in November's parliamentary election. Rajoy blamed then Socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for Spain's deepest economic slump in decades, and took an absolute majority in parliament.
The PP also controls 11 of Spain's 17 semi-autonomous regions, making Rajoy the country's most powerful prime minister since the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. Only the Basque region now has a Socialist government, and even the Basque Socialists govern in a loose alliance with the PP.
The Socialists are however expected to form a coalition government in their southern stronghold of Andalusia. The PP came first, but failed to muster an absolute majority in Sunday's vote. Spain's economic problems have meanwhile deepened, with the European Union and markets becoming increasingly concerned about the country's future solvency.
The EU recently allowed Madrid to relax its budget deficit target for this year, after it emerged that the Socialists had left Rajoy with a higher deficit than had been expected. The 2012 target now stands at 5.3 per cent of gross domestic product. Unemployment has meanwhile rocketed to nearly 23 per cent, while the economy is sliding back into the recession it had barely started recovering from.
The situation of Spain is "causing us big concern, because their yields are rising and it wouldn't take much to create trends that could spread to us through contagion," Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said in comments that were not well received in Madrid. Rajoy is now trying to boost Spain's credibility. The government is expected to announce spending cuts totalling a whopping 35 billion euros (45.5 billion dollars) when presenting this year's budget on March 30.
Spain's semi-autonomous regions, which are largely responsible for the deficit, are to be placed under a draconian budget discipline starting in 2020. Regions which overspend will face sanctions, according to draft legislation approved earlier this year. Madrid has also launched reforms to restructure the banking sector and to make the labour market more flexible. The labour reform, which lowered severance pay in an attempt to boost employment, prompted trade unions to call a 24-hour general strike.
Some of the reforms are similar to those undertaken by Zapatero, but the conservatives want to take them further. Meanwhile in social policy, Rajoy's government appears to seek a radical break with the Socialists. It soon launched moves to partially reverse some of the liberal reforms enacted by Zapatero, such as easier access to abortion and to the "morning after" pill. It also plans to eliminate citizens' education as a subject in schools.
Spaniards are meanwhile increasingly feeling the brunt of the central and regional governments' spending cuts. Riots broke out in the eastern Valencia region, where some schools could no longer afford heating in the winter. In north-eastern Catalonia, the regional government sparked a storm by making patients covered by social security pay for part of their medication.
Aware of the social cost of his policies, Rajoy has adopted the tactic of keeping his plans secret until the last minute. He pledged not to raise taxes - a campaign promise he broke immediately after taking power. He also postponed the presentation of the budget until after the Andalusian elections. For the time being, the government's absolute majority and regional powers still put it in a strong position to impose unpopular measures, analysts said. Unions, meanwhile, are vowing that Thursday's general strike will only be the first step in a long string of protests.