The End of the Spanish Empire

The listing on Ebay España tells you all you need to know about the current Spanish election campaign: "I'm putting my vote up for bid … I will vote exactly as the top bidder asks." Humorous? Possibly. Cynical? Definitely. Voters don't go to the polls until Sunday, but many Spaniards have already made up their minds: they're not happy with the parties or the candidates. And they'll undoubtedly be ho-hum about the results, whatever they are.

The candidates have done their part, too, in turning this into the eBay Election: it seems anything and everything is for sale. When Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero pledged to create 2 million new jobs over the next four-year term, the Popular Party's Mariano Rajoy promised 2.2 million. When Zapatero said he would cut income taxes, Rajoy offered to cancel them (on annual incomes below €16,000). When the Socialist Party promised to plant 45 million trees—one for every Spaniard—the PP thought hard and promised 500 million. These electoral bribes are "bread to the masses," says Rafael Pampillón of Madrid's Business Institute. "But giving a drug addict methadone isn't a long-term solution."

The descent into Politics For Sale is a particularly shocking fall for Zapatero, who came from nowhere to become a popular and effective leader four years ago. As he battles to secure a second term, he now seems adrift except for his contempt for the political opposition. True, his success in 2004 was almost accidental: the then-incumbent Popular Party reacted so cynically to the Madrid train bombings three days before the election that the Socialists, led by Zapatero, were gifted their victory at the polls. Still, in the early years of his government, Zapatero was feted worldwide for his apparent competence and vision. But it gradually became clear that he lacked charisma and he slowly sank into a welter of petty domestic disputes, fell off the global radar and, more importantly, turned off the electorate with a series of botched policy decisions.

Zapatero's early success began to look as accidental as his election—not so much the product of political leadership as a dividend bequeathed to him by a strong economy. The latest polls have the Socialists and the PP neck and neck or give Zapatero & Co. a slim lead going into Sunday's election. But if he does win, the government he will form will be weaker than it is today. The combination of more partisan squabbling and less decisiveness does not bode well for any prime minister facing the sort of issues that loom on Spain's horizon. Political gridlock in Madrid will make it tougher to deal with perennial issues like managing immigration and keeping a lid on regional disputes.

But a bigger storm is brewing: Spain's economy is slowing, from an enviable 3.8 percent last year to a projected 2.4 percent this year. Unemployment took a slight upturn, to 8.6 percent, at the end of last year. More significantly, inflation is rising—to above 4 percent—and the spectacular housing bubble has burst. Half of the country's real-estate offices folded during 2007, according to an industry association—a stunning figure even if many of those offices consisted of just one person and a cell phone. None of this is out of line with the rest of the euro zone, but that's precisely the problem. Spain as of last year was way ahead of the pack. Spain has become an "average" country, says André Sapir, a Belgian economist and an adviser to Zapatero.

Mediocrity is hard to digest when you've tasted stardom, and the Spanish people are disheartened by the spectacle of their leaders descending into pettiness. Last week, Zapatero, 47, and Rajoy, 52, faced each other in the first televised debate in 15 years in Spain, yet they did so with no confidence. Fearing gaffes, their handlers choreographed the event with such paranoia it was bound to be unenlightening. The candidates talked past each other, and viewers as well, parroting sound bites from stump speeches and brandishing documents neither they nor the audience could read at a distance. They came across as bickering neighbors, not statesmen. The sad truth, says Paul Isbell of the Elcano Royal Institute in Madrid, is that Spain needs first-rate leaders and Zapatero and Rajoy don't make the grade.

The choice between two lackluster figures is quite a comedown for a nation that had appeared to be enjoying a run of unusually strong leadership. Trapped in sterile isolation for four long decades under Generalissimo Francisco Franco and freed only by his death in 1975, Spain didn't begin to experience an economic boom until the early 1990s, well into the long rule (1982-1996) of Felipe González. Open to trade and investment and new ideas in general, it became the California of Europe: a tourist mecca (second only to France) and an agricultural hothouse, a magnet for immigration and a strong player in telecommunications, with Latin America as its "Pacific Rim." Taking office after González, Prime Minister José María Aznar declared, repeatedly, that Spain would soon "punch above its weight" in the global ring, and for the first time since the fall of its empire, it did.