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| Helen Mukoro |
She may not have had the time or the media wherewithal
to hype herself up for the event. So, not many people knew that Helen Mukoro—a naturalized Spanish citizen
of Nigerian descent—did, in fact, shatter a significant but little-noticed
barrier in May this year when she became the first woman and the first
non-white Spanish citizen to run for the office of mayor of Dénia, a key
tourist city in the autonomous community of Valencia. What makes the
event noteworthy even today is that though Spain is not an openly racist
country—and has no xenophobic party with parliamentary representation—blacks,
in the Spanish mind is still synonymous with domestic work, poverty, and
lawlessness. Helen Mukoro is the exact opposite of this portrait. Vigorous,
cultured, and flamboyant, with a rather spectacular afro hair, she runs a legal
firm and has worked as a legal consultant for the Red Cross in Spain, as well
as being the author of more than 21 books.
She entered the mayoral race on the platform of Unión De Todos (“Union of All”), a
political party she founded three months earlier. While the move was
unprecedented and to some extent, far-fetched, it was by no means
uncharacteristic of a lady who migrated from her native Delta State in Nigeria
to Spain in 1992 at the age of 23 and went on to study Law at the Spanish
National University in Alicante, acquiring along the way post-graduate degrees
and certificates in Criminology, Social Education, and Forensic Psychology.
With little time at her disposition, following a legal tussle to determine the
legitimacy of her candidacy on the grounds of citizenship, she went into the
race, not for the fun of participating, but to win. It is important to note
that while dual citizenship is recognized by the Spanish constitution, a
naturalized citizen, however, is expected to renounce his/her original
citizenship to become a Spanish national. Mukoro was said to have successfully
proved that she had renounced her Nigerian citizenship and thus qualified to
run for office in Spain. She lost. |
| Mukoro At a party meeting |
Interestingly, losing the mayoral race did not
discourage her; the process, in fact, galvanized her to up the ante. So, when
news broke that she had declared her candidacy for the presidency of Spain, it
seemed like a big deal—the ultimate coup de grâce to
cynics—except that no one can be president of Spain, not even someone whose
citizenship is based upon the principle of jus sanguinis (right
of blood). That is because Spain—officially the Kingdom of Spain—does
not have a president. The only time in the country’s history that the official
title of President of Spain existed was during the Second
Spanish Republic between 1931 and 1939. Today, Spain—the sixth largest economy
in Europe—is a constitutional monarchy with the king as head of state and the
prime minister as head of government.
 |
| King Felipe VI & Queen Letizia |
It was therefore a little surprising when Mukoro, in
response to a reporter’s question, “Why do you want to be president of Spain,”
during a late summer interview with Lagos-based Punch newspapers, said “There
are so many reasons for my presidential ambition...” rather than explain to the
reporter that there was no such title as President of Spain. It is not clear if
this was an oversight or sheer ignorance of the goal she had set herself. In
Spain, when electorates go to the polls for national elections, they do not
elect a president because there are no presidential candidates to choose from;
they elect political parties. And the leader of the party with the most vote
then asks for a parliamentary vote of confidence which, if won, automatically
makes him prime minister, eligible to form a government. Now, aside from the
erroneous representation of Mukoro’s candidacy and/or ambition, what are her
chances of winning a national election in Spain?
 |
| Inspirational speaker |
The answer might lie in the political structure of the
country. Spain has a multi-party system at both national and regional levels.
Historically, the country has been ruled almost exclusively by the two
predominant political parties—the center right People’s Party (or as it’s known
in Spain, Partido Popular, PP) and the center left Spanish
Socialist Workers’ Party (or Partido Socialista Obrero Español,
PSOE). In practice, though, the Spanish electorates’ perennially unresolved
conflict between disillusionment with politicians and attachment to ideologies,
has always made it difficult for either of the two dominant parties to achieve
an electoral majority in both houses of parliament or the bicameral Cortes
Generales, made up of the Congress of Deputies (which is national in
structure) and the Senate (which is populated by regional
representation).
 |
| Current Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy |
Like in Italy, whose political structure mirrors that
of Spain, this difficulty in obtaining absolute majority generally gives rise
to the formation of coalitions with smaller (sometimes regional) parties in
order to garner the necessary votes for governance. Consequently, these
regional parties, some of which are strong in autonomous communities like
Catalonia and the Basque Country end up becoming the decisive factor in the
creation of the national government. Over the years, these smaller parties have
grown not only in strength but in number as well. And they closely follow the
PP & PSOE in national opinion polls.
 |
| Pablo Iglesias |
But last year, as a wave of populist movements—both
rightwing and leftwing—swept across Europe, a new element entered the political
fray in Spain, posing the biggest threat yet to the country’s major political
parties. It is, unfortunately, not Helen Mukoro’s Unión De Todos but a phenomenal
movement called Podemos (meaning “We Can”), founded in March 2014 by Pablo
Iglesias, a member of the European parliament and former lecturer in political
science at the Complutense University of Madrid. Created in the aftermath
of the anti-austerity protests that rocked most of Europe last year (known as
the 15-M Movement or Indignant
Movement in Spain), Podemos,
a leftwing party, seeks to address the same issues that Helen Mukoro, in
interviews and campaign declarations, touts as her platform and strong
suit—inequality, unemployment and economic malaise. But while Mukoro’s Unión De Todos is yet to make any significant
impact outside her region, Podemos’ appeal, from the onset, was so strong that
it became the third largest party at the national level within the first 20
days of its existence.
Spain is expected to hold national elections later
this month (December 2015) to
elect a new parliament and one of the issues that
will most likely sway voters is the issue of immigration, a major concern of
Mukoro. While it might seem that her favorable stance on the issue might pull
the immigrant population to her side, immigrants in Spain, unfortunately, do
not have a right to vote. And though most candidates with little or no chance
of winning at all, stay in the race to create enough buzz to get them noticed
for possible ministerial appointments, Mukoro doesn’t even have the support of
many Nigerians in Spain. A feud with the Nigerian embassy in Madrid (due to a
comment she made about the conduct of certain Nigerians of the Igbo tribe
tarnishing the country’s image), has remained unresolved and has created a lot
of bad blood between her and the Igbo community in Spain.
 |
| Campaign Rally |
 |
| Outside Nigerian Embassy in Spain |
Furthermore, Mukoro’s Unión De Todos party
failed to get a mention in a recent Celeste Tel poll for El
Diario, which showed that contrary to expectations, no party will emerge from
the December election with an outright majority, making a race for coalition
building a possibility. Political watchers predict two possible scenarios—a
coalition of the ruling PP and Ciudadanos, or the PSOE and Podemos. But as both
seem to show a draw on 156 seats, a third possibility is foreseen and that is
an alliance between the PSOE, Podemos and the two (regional) Catalan parties
currently under the Junts Pel Sí ("Together For
Yes") separatist banner in Catalonia (CDC and ERC). A coalition of this
nature, which is not a remote possibility, would deliver an overall number of
176 seats required for a majority in the 350-seat Spanish Congress. And with
it, parties with less than 1% score, would be as good as extinguished.
 |
| Mukoro |
So, where does that leave Helen Mukoro? Maybe the
absence of her Unión De Todos party in the graph below says it
all.
|
Party
|
% Vote
|
Seats
|
|
Popular Party (PP)
|
32.0%
|
134-137
|
|
Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE)
|
27.4%
|
116-120
|
|
Podemos
|
12.2%
|
31-36
|
|
Ciudadanos
|
10.0%
|
17-19
|
|
Convergencia (CDC)
|
2.1%
|
10-11
|
|
Republican Catalan Left (ERC)
|
1.57%
|
8-9
|
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