Andorra inaugurated its first Grand Casino on March 6. A space with four restaurants and capacity for 1,500 visitors. Raised, said the Government on the day of the premiere, "to diversify the tourist offer." It is one of the last great investments in a country that does not stop reinventing itself. And using the slang of the universe of chance, yesterday midnight the “no more” was heard in an electoral campaign –Andorrans vote tomorrow, Sunday– that will mark the future of the principality well beyond the next four years.
The six political parties that play in these elections have made their last bet in the end-of-campaign speeches, and the few cards seen in the few polls on voting intention point to Democrates, in the Government for the last twelve years (in the last legislature, in coalition with the Liberals), as favourites. Its leader and cap of the Government, Xavier Espot, is running for re-election.
Although in a country where everyone knows each other – 30,000 Andorrans vote out of the 80,000 who reside in the principality – these polls are usually unreliable. Almost half of those consulted do not reveal their choice of ballot. In Andorra, the door-to-door vote request is still practiced.
The appointment to the polls comes after a campaign without major shocks –although it did have novelties, due to the emergence of new parties in the electoral arc– and with two jokers placed face up in a good part of the debates. One concerns a problem today on the lips of all Andorrans: the increase in housing prices; and the second, to Andorra's lace in the European Union. The winner of these elections will have to be very skilled if he wants to win this momentous game. The model chosen in this association with the EU – Monaco and San Marino are also in it – will mark the future of the principality.
The head of the Government, Xavier Espot, has repeated ad nauseam during the campaign the importance for future generations of Andorra of this "association" with the European family to benefit from the advantages of being in that team without being a member of it. And the leader of Demòcrates has defended the legitimacy of his team, due to the experience accumulated in the last four years of negotiation, to finish the game that has already started.
Espot responds to the groups that criticize him for keeping aces up his sleeve with this matter and not being transparent with the current state of those negotiations with the EU that he has already told everything and that the importance of the matter forces us to go slowly. "If you have to wait six months or a year, you will wait", he has repeated. "The goal here is to get the best deal for Andorra," he says. And now, he predicts, "a great window to negotiate" opens, with the presidency of Spain in the European institution.
The most critical voice with the information given by the Government on the state of these negotiations has come from the progressive PS SPD coalition. The candidate, Pere López, does not deny that the issue is of great importance, but he does not agree that Espot and his team stand as the only ones capable of winning that game. And he is very critical of the little information on the matter provided by the head of the Government.
Josep Maria Cabanes, Liberals candidate, defends that this agreement will only be good if "we are capable of making the EU understand the particularities of Andorra".
The best ally that Espot has found with her thesis on the EU has been Judith Pallarés, from Acció, who does not understand so much “distrust” about the state of these negotiations. For her part, Carine Montaner, from Andorra Endavant, only seems to have one concern: the entry of immigrants into the country without control. This association will, of course, affect the free movement of people and the free provision of services. With fringes still to close in migration policy or the will to maintain the two public operators of telecommunications and electricity. This agreement would also have to put an end to the high bills generated by roaming for visitors from that country.
Housing has been another of the wild cards used in this electoral game. "We have started selling cheeses and ski passes and we have ended up selling our houses and land." The phrase is from Concòrdia, a party with very young people led by Cerni Escalé that is making its debut in these elections as an "alternative" to the traditional distribution of power. It could surprise you. Andorrans – they know a lot about this in Barcelona or tourist destinations in the Pyrenees – complain that the prohibitive rental prices are driving them out of their country. Escalé blames it on uncontrolled foreign investment, while the Democrats, PS SDP and Liberals seem unwilling, if they want to prosper, to turn off that faucet.
