The left-wing pact that governs the Balearic Islands faces its first serious political threat, which has nothing to do with the consequences of the economic catastrophe left by the pandemic, with a 21.7% drop in GDP in 2020, but with everything opposite: with the record data of the current tourist season. In an apparent paradox, the excellent economic figures this summer in the islands, with more than seven million tourists received until the month of July, have brought tensions in the leftist pact, formed by PSIB-PSOE, Podemos and the eco-sovereignists of Month.
The partners of Francina Armengol, the socialist who chairs the Balearic Government, value the economic advances and post-pandemic employment figures, but have begun to warn that the recovery of the islands cannot be based on an unstoppable increase in tourist pressure. Goaded by environmental sectors and by some of their voters, Armengol's partners ask to put an end to mass tourism, a reflection to which well-known hotel businessmen such as Gabriel Escarrer or Carmen Riu have joined.
The political debate on overcrowding has been raging throughout the summer. Balearic society's growing rejection of tourist saturation, nothing to do with the "tourism-phobia" attributed to certain organizations, has begun to undermine the expectations of the left in general and of Francina Armengol in particular, a leader who has achieved get out of the complicated management of the pandemic and that he hoped to repeat his mandate without major problems in May of next year.
The polls have so far shown a relatively easy panorama for Armengol, who had a new legislature in power almost in his hands, but the alarm signals have gone off this summer due to the growing criticism of any development policy from sectors on the left. tourist. This circumstance bothers Armengol, who in his political discourse has been forced to navigate between the virtues of an economic model that generates employment and the disadvantages of negative externalities for citizens caused by tourist saturation in most of the Balearic archipelago.
The Government's spokesman is the socialist Iago Negueruela, the president's right-hand man and Minister of the Economic and Tourism Model. His speech for the next elections went through influencing the economic recovery data, but the PSIB-PSOE has begun to qualify its own words in the face of the rejection among certain sectors of the left. In just one week, and pushed by numerous criticisms of his statements, including those of his partners, Negueruela has spent this month of August extolling tourism for allowing the Balearic Islands to be in a situation of full employment to acknowledging that on the islands there is a "feeling ” of saturation.
Més, one of the partners of the left-wing pact, has already warned the Balearic president that, from now on, he will not support any campaign to promote tourism in the archipelago, something that could complicate the approval of the Budgets for next year, that have not yet begun to be negotiated.
The debate on overcrowding is behind the most important crisis that the left has experienced in this legislature, also this month of August. The battlefield has been the Consell de Mallorca, where a tripartite governs with a composition almost traced to the Govern de Armengol.
In a crisis that combined sports sponsorship, politics and tourism promotion, Més threatened to leave the island government if the president of the Consell, the socialist Catalina Cladera, did not back down on her unilateral announcement to promote the island with a sponsorship of 1.8 million euros to Real Mallorca so that the field where he plays would be called Visit Mallorca Estadi.
In Palma City Council, the PSOE has also had to withdraw this week a promotion proposal of 1.4 million euros for Platja de Palma, the main tourist concentration point in the capital, in the face of radical opposition from its partners.
Francina Armengol is aware that the debate on overcrowding does not help her expectations in May at all, since it further discourages a sector of the left that right now doubts about its vote. The result of the Andalusian elections brings a dose of pessimism among the Balearic PSOE, where there are voices that are already beginning to speak of the need for brave measures to reduce tourism. Podemos and Més also demand it.
The Balearic left can die of success next May.
