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Palma.—The lingering recession and claims of widespread political corruption are taking its toll on the public's faith in the system.
According to the latest opinion polls, public faith in the system is at its lowest ebb for 20 years with 68 percent of the Balearic population claiming that the current situation is either unsatisfactory, bad or very bad.

With a member of the Spanish royal family embroiled in a case of alleged corruption and tax fraud and now the Partido Popular centre right government dogged by fresh claims that the Prime Minister and other leaders of the party had for years received payments out of a secret slush fund, the public are not impressed.

Nationwide there are said to be as many as 300 officials in office caught up in alleged corruption scandals and investigations at a time when six million Spaniards are out of work and over 150'000 are searching for a job here in the Balearics alone.

According to the Balearic Institute for Social Studies which has carried out this latest opinion poll, the dissatisfaction amongst the general public is snowballing and some pundits fear that it is not going to take much for the anger to spill out on to the streets like we have seen in neighbouring European countries.

As GermàVentayol writes in today's Ultima Hora, the sister paper of the Daily Bulletin: “I am one of those who fear there is so much petrol on the streets just one simple match could spark a disaster.” Apparently, 20 years ago, the public were not worried about political corruption but the economy and unemployment has always been high up the list.
However now, with much of society suffering from government cuts, political wrong doing is provoking widespread anger.