An Exit What?

Exit polls, y’know the means by which elections can be judged ahead of final counts and can help expose fiddling, so consequently since the Bush era came about they are no longer published and/or published unadjusted by compliant media networks, not just in the US but in various elections across the world (ain’t globalisation cool?). Well one for the Spanish election says the lefty-ish PSOE have retained power. Korova was over there and reported the dynamic was depressingly familiar (perhaps that’s why they can win and exit polls are published, hmmm)-

The current period of pre-election campaigning had Zapatero’s PSOE virtually guaranteed of victory. They are roughly 5 percentage points ahead of the Popular Party, and it is inconceivable that this lead will be surrendered. However, from a progressive’s point of view, there is little to rejoice in these elections. Replace the PSOE with New Labour and the Popular Party with Cameron’s Conservatives, and you have an almost identical political situation. As in the UK, there is very little to choose between the two parties. It would make little difference who was in power, as both parties are beholden to the capitalist economic system. The only other party remotely capable of challenging these two, is Izquierda Unida (or United Left). Much like the Liberal Democrats, they hover around the fringes of the political debate. However, unlike the libs, IU is a viable left-wing alternative to the parties of the establishment. One hopes very much that IU increase their vote across Spain and begin to wield influence although, for the moment at least, this seems unlikely.

PS. Spain dropped its extradition request of former Gitmo inmates Jamil El-Banna (threatened with Gitmo to force him to work for MI5 then kidnapped by the CIA when he refused) and Omar Deghayes (more here) a few days ago, looks like being onside with the Bush gulag is not politically favourable, good-

Baltasar Garzón, the prominent judge who agreed to shelve the case against the two men, explained that he was doing so because of medical reports filed by the men’s lawyers at their last hearing in February. Two doctors, Jonathan Fluxman and Helen Bamber, had examined the men earlier in the month and had concluded that they were suffering from severe medical conditions caused by torture at the hands of their US captors and the inhumane conditions in which they were kept for five years.