Editorial: Politics

POLITICS is a cutthroat business, just ask the Mayor of Palma, Mateo Isern, who is not standing for reelection because he claimed that he didn’t have the full support of his party. The downfall of Isern has more intrigue than a best-selling novel, according to reports in the local media at the weekend. The leader of the Balearic government, Jose Ramon Bauza, had been facing a legal challenge which could have meant that he would have to resign. Bauza also owns a chemist shop  but opposition groups claimed that he could not lead the Balearics and also dispense medicine at the same time. So a Plan B was hatched by his own Partido Popular and allegedly by Isern. If he quit the leader of the Council of Majorca, Maria Salom, would become President and Isern would become leader of the Party. In the end the legal challenge was rejected by a Palma court and Bauza could carry on as normal. But the President wanted revenge for what he saw as disloyalty within his own party. The man in the spotlight was Isern.  Bauza decided that his disloyalty had a price, he would not be allowed to stand as candidate for Mayor of Palma again, and this is what happened last week. Was Isern plotting against Bauza? I don’t think so, I think it was just a contingency plan just in case of the worst case scenario. So the Partido Popular has lost a great candidate who could have retained Palma for them. Oh well, politics is a dirty business.