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  Spain Before the Vote: The Battle of the 'Theocons'

Spain Before the Vote The Battle of the 'Theocons'

By Helene Zuber

Part 2: 'An Ideological Hatred of those Seeking to Protect Life'

In the governments he led between 1996 and 2004, former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar supported members of ultraconservative Catholic movements like Opus Dei and the Legion of Christ. Mariano Rajoy, Aznar's 52-year-old successor as president of the PP, who is now running against Zapatero for a second time as his party's leading candidate, has placed arch-Catholic warhorses at the top of his election list, while reducing the influence of liberals within the PP. Former Prime Minister Aznar directs the conservative Foundation for Social Analysis and Study (FAES), which defines his party's platform and develops its campaign strategies. Aznar's think tank combines traditional Catholic values with centralist Spanish nationalism, which is opposed to the autonomy movements among the Basques and Catalans.

In television debates, challenger Rajoy -- working from a neocon-inspired playbook prepared for him by FAES -- attacked Zapatero, and not just because of his government's negotiations with terrorists from the Basque separatist group ETA. The PP also performed a populist about-face on immigration policy, when Rajoy proposed a ban on the wearing of headscarves by Muslim women. Under his proposal, immigrants would only receive a residence permit if they signed an integration agreement. A portion of the right "has transformed itself into a sect," says Gaspar LLamazares, the leader of the United Left party, a possible coalition partner for Zapatero's Socialists.

The Rise of the Theocons

Maria Salom, the PP's deputy parliamentary leader, has become the scourge of the Socialists in the Spanish parliament. An economist and a native of Mallorca, Salom is the PP's leading candidate for the island. Like the Crusaders of long ago, the slim, combative woman refers to Israel, where she was married, as the "Holy Land." She considers Zapatero's policies on women to be the work of the devil. But didn't Zapatero institute a female quota on the boards of directors of publicly traded companies? "A total bluff" that only benefited an elite group of people, Salom shoots back. According to Salom, the government can't afford Zapatero's reformist programs, like child care subsidies, free day care and government funding for home care programs for the disabled and the elderly.

The Socialists "assaulted the Spanish tradition of the family with gay marriage," says Salom, mimicking the bishops' charges. Her party is examining whether it violates the constitution to define same-sex cohabitation as marriage and to grant same-sex couples the right to adopt. For the conservative politician, the new mandatory civics class in schools is nothing but "indoctrination in secularism." Parents, she says, must retain the right to decide for themselves which moral code their children should pursue. Cardinal Rouco has voiced the same demand.

"Theoconservative" politicians like Salom get some of their most effective talking points from a church-owned chain of media outlets. Every morning, the host of a program on COPE Radio, owned by the Catholic Church, dispenses venom and insults against government politicians and defectors from the PP. In the afternoons, housewives tune in to hear talk show host Christina Lopez Schlichting dispense advice on how to lead a life pleasing to God. When homosexuality is a topic on Schlichting's program, she invites people "who have managed to liberate themselves from it and to overcome their problems." A sturdy blonde whose mother comes from Hamburg, Schlichting feels "bound to the tradition of Christian humanism."

At times she even considers the PP's theocons to be too lackadaisical. She promotes purely "natural methods of contraception" and is leading a bitter war against abortion. Schlichting is disappointed that the PP wants to maintain the law as it is now. She thinks that what are already meant to be strict criteria for abortions are being interpreted too liberally. She is convinced that there is "an ideological hatred of those seeking to protect life" in Spain. As an indication of the conservative talk station's anti-abortion stance, COPE's talk show hosts were practically ecstatic when the police shut down two abortion clinics in Madrid.

Thanks to the theocons' campaign, the PP's voters are steadfastly behind Rajoy. But that support isn't enough to secure a victory at the ballot box, and the challenger now hopes that moderate supporters of Zapatero's Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) will be sufficiently alienated to stay at home on Sunday. The governing party still leads by 2 percent to 4 percent in the opinion polls, but it is highly dependent on there being high voter turnout. For this reason, the Socialists hope that the cardinal and his theocons will encourage voters from the left, where turnout is traditionally on the low side, to vote on Sunday. The same thing happened in 2004, when voters were incensed over the Iraq war and the PP's dishonest attempt to blame the Basque ETA for the Madrid commuter train bombings.

On election day, Catholics will be turning their attention to the short man in black once again. They hope that Cardinal Rouco, as the freshly anointed head of the Spanish Bishops' Conference, will deliver a fiery sermon from the pulpit, repeating his recent performance on Madrid's Plaza de Colon.