At the end of February, Russian troops crossed the border with Ukraine, starting a new war in Europe. The rest of the continent’s forces immediately sought sanctions against Russia and ways to mediate in the conflict, and France, since then, has been one of the most notable in this regard. For this reason, the popularity among the citizens of the French Prime Minister, Emmanuel Macron, grew in a remarkable way, explains the professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra Ignacio Lago. In crisis situations, it is common for this to happen. In English, it is a phenomenon called ‘rally around the flag’ (mobilization around the flag): generally, “when there is a crisis, the government benefits”, explains Lago, but now he presents an asterisk to that widespread hypothesis.
With Covid this has happened in countries where all decisions fall to the central executive, while in the case of nations with regional or autonomous governments, as is the case of Spain, no. This is the thesis defended by the professor from Barcelona and André Blais, from the Université de Montréal, in the document they presented at the V Dernet International Conference, held in Santiago this Thursday and Friday.
More than two years after the state of alarm was declared, and despite the fact that even the World Health Organization praised Spain’s good work in managing the pandemic, Pedro Sánchez and his government have fared poorly in popularity polls. . Also the German government, which delegates to regional executives. In contrast, in Malta or Iceland, highly centralized countries, the harder the pandemic hit, the stronger the government became. “In those countries where health decisions were made by the national government, and when more deaths occurred, more support was gained,” says the professor. On the other hand, in Spain, Pedro Sánchez “did not receive that award.”
In contrast, the regional governments did add support. It does not have so much to do with the colors of the party or even with the management of the pandemic by each president, but with the fact that there are many more political actors who can make health decisions, the feeling of mistrust among citizens increases and, therefore, consequently, the desire to comply with sanitary restrictions. “This is important because it has been shown that the greatest predisposition to get vaccinated against Covid or even respect the decisions of the Government -masks or passCovid- occurs when people trust it the most,” he stresses. And, in Spain, an environment of trust at the political level has not been fostered: “The more polarization and less support the Executive gets, the worse for everyone.” He gives the example of Vox and vaccination: he never said “neither yes nor no”, and throughout the pandemic Abascal’s party has been reaping certain positions, even deniers. “Aligning with the Gl government would make the crisis easier to manage,” Lago sentences, and in that, Spain suspends.
“The lesson for the future would be to help the Government as has been done in Portugal, where the opposition supported the socialist party,” he explains and, on the other hand, in the first steps of the pandemic, centralize all health decisions. In fact, “that was what was attempted with the state of alarm.” “If the autonomies had fewer capacities, it would be easier in the short term. If everything is in the hands of the Government, measures can be taken more quickly and throughout the territory ». But the professor says that it would not make sense to extend the decision over time either: in the medium term, “each regional government should be able to adjust the measures to its territorial characteristics. Galicia has more population dispersion than Catalonia, for example”, and it would not be logical to apply the same restrictions in both communities at the same time.
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