Eduardo González
The GSLP/Lib coalition (Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party and Gibraltar Liberal Party) of the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, won this past Sunday a very narrow victory over the Social Democrats after an election that was marked, among other issues, by the stalemate in the negotiations between the European Commission and the United Kingdom on the fit of the Rock within the EU after Brexit.
Curiously, in his acceptance speech, Picardo barely alluded to the negotiation process. After thanking “the people of Gibraltar” for “having deposited their confidence once again in the GSLP-Liberal Alliance” and highlighting his, victory in “four out of four general elections on the trot” despite the COVID-19, the “cost of living crisis” and “the international issues facing Gibraltar”, Picardo pledged to “continue to take our people and our country forward” and ended his speech with “a message” to the acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez: “Pedro, it is time now that you too should form a government and that together we should finish the treaty that we started”.
The election campaign has been focused on the negotiations between the European Commission and the United Kingdom on the future of the Rock after Brexit, negotiations in which Spain does not intervene directly, but on which our country has the last word. The talks, which have advanced with great difficulty in recent years, have been at a complete standstill since Pedro Sánchez decided to bring forward the general elections in Spain to last July 23.
As far as Gibraltar is concerned, Picardo’s victory will allow it to keep the team that has worked in recent years in the negotiations. However, the results will also force him to take into account the great political division of a country marked by its huge public debt and by the delay of the Brexit agreement itself, when more than seven years have already passed since the referendum for the exit of the United Kingdom (in which the Gibraltarians voted by a large majority in favor of continuity in the Union).
Picardo obtained this Sunday a very small advantage of less than two points (49.9% against 48.2%) over the Gibraltar Social Democrats (GSD), led by Keith Azopardi. As soon as the results were known, the Social Democratic leader offered the support of his party “in all matters of public interest”, but Picardo has already made it clear that he will not invite him to participate in the Brexit talks because he considers him “soft” with Spain. The chief minister even did not hesitate to recall Azopardi’s old aspiration to implement on the Rock a political model similar to that of Andorra, with two simultaneous heads of state, despite the fact that the social democratic leader himself expressly renounced this idea years ago.
Campo de Gibraltar
Meanwhile, the most immediate reactions from Spain came yesterday from the Campo de Gibraltar. The mayor of La Linea, the independent Juan Franco, congratulated Picardo on his election victory and celebrated that, “at a time as important as this, in which I hope the final Brexit negotiations begin, the representative of Gibraltar remains the same.” “I hope that the Government of Gibraltar is formed soon, and also that it is formed in Spain so that the Brexit negotiations, which are so important to us, can restart,” he added.
For his part, the mayor of San Roque and national MP for the PSOE, Juan Carlos Ruiz Boix, gave yesterday the “congratulations to the citizens of Gibraltar for their high turnout in the elections” and his, “congratulations to Fabian Picardo for revalidating a fourth term, with the confidence that will help seal an agreement soon to move forward in the area of shared prosperity.” Boix had previously called for a vote for Picardo because he considered that his continuity at the head of the Government would be good for the negotiation and for the creation of a zone of “shared prosperity” in the Campo de Gibraltar.
In a very different sense, the PP senator and mayor of Algeciras, José Ignacio Landaluce, said yesterday, in statements to The Diplomat, that he had “nothing special” to add about the election victory of Fabian Picardo. “I will continue to claim our position on the colony and expect a commitment from everyone to avoid damage to the area of Campo de Gibraltar,” he said.
