Spanish Elections Have Politicians Promising More Work-Life Balance This is going to sound blasphemous to some, but one of my favorite things about being abroad is that an entire ocean separates me from the fiasco, slash circus, slash bad soap opera that is the U.S. presidential primary race. Call me crazy but, actually, I don’t find it interesting that 40,000 people out of 300 million liked Obama best that one day, or that that Hillary appeared to show emotions that one time, or that the next day 7,479 people in New Hampshire liked her instead. Two bloody years of this? No, gracias. 
In Spain, general election candidates are officially allowed to campaign for only two weeks. That’s great news for my attention span, and it’s probably even better news for Spanish taxpayers’ wallets. So after a brief – but informative and heated – two weeks of campaigning, Spain held its general election this past Sunday. Voter turnout was 75.3%, the likes of which the U.S. hasn’t seen since, well, ever. The incumbent Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and his socialist party (PSOE) emerged victorious with 43.7% of the vote, edging out Mariano Rajoy and the conservative party (PP).
While there are many differences between American and Spanish politics, one thing appears remarkably familiar: candidates make a whole lot of promises. Here in Spain, work-life balance, or conciliación, was an important campaign issue. Luckily, The Lattice Group’s esteemed political analysis team was on hand to make sense of the hoopla. TLG Political Analysis Team Report: - According to El País, Zapatero/PSOE promised to extend paid paternity leave from the current two weeks to one month, increase maternity leave for mothers by 16-18 weeks for the second child and by 20 weeks for the third, and extend the public child care system to 300,000 centers.
- Not to be out-done, the rival conservative party (PP), promised to increase child-care centers to 400,000, also supported raising paternity leave to one month, and promised 18 months of maternity leave for all mothers.
- In a front-page article in “Que!” (one of those free papers people shove in your face outside of metro stations), the leader of the conservative PP party, Mariano Rajoy, said that he “would like to see as many men as women being able to come home during the afternoon to have an afternoon meal with their children, something that occurs in the rest of Europe.”
TLG Political Analysis Team Analysis:
A conservative politician advocating that men and women be able to spend more time with their children rather than at work? On the front page of the newspaper? For serious?? It seems Spaniards are, like, totally for real about this work-life balance business.
Of course, we’ll have to wait and see if Zapatero actually delivers on these and other campaign promises. I’m hopeful. He seems like a pretty swell guy.
- Vetta P.S. Check out this incredible(ly hilarious) campaign song called "Defend Happiness." Apparently, it features top Spanish artists. Mostly, it features passion.
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