Spain's political use of the dead: duelling charges of electoral necrophilia

Spain's political use of the dead: duelling charges of electoral necrophilia

A rail accident with dozens dead. A storm with victims. And, in the background, a pre-campaign season falling apart. Spanish political debate has entered territory where each side accuses the other of profiting from other people's grief, while doing exactly what it condemns. The argument over who started using the dead as an electoral weapon is well and truly on.

The central charge is that the political exploitation of victims has become a national habit. The claim is that the practice goes back a long way and has now been so normalised that nobody blushes while doing it. The immediate response: if one side does it, the other is justified in doing the same. That "you do it too" sums it all up.

Who started using the dead on the campaign trail?

The exchange of accusations is symmetrical. One side claims the left peine the door years ago, citing episodes remembered as precedent. The other replies that the right does the same with every disaster, and that the supposed novelty is just an excuse. Neither side gives up the tactic; both simply point the finger at the other while doing the very same thing.

The argument quickly drifts into the terrain of comparative grievances. The storm is cited as an example of failed management that some want to hide, and the rail accident as an example of decaying infrastructure. Every disaster becomes ammunition. Electoral necrophilia, as it is mockingly dubbed, ceases to be an anomaly and becomes the method.

The pre-campaign that broke, and the dividends of grief

Some argue the accident served to freeze a pre-campaign that was going badly for some and worse for others. The thesis is that grief cushions political wear and tear, and that whoever is in government benefits from the pause. Against that stands the argument that infrastructure management is the government's responsibility and that the pause does not erase the failures.

The most pessimistic calculation for the governing side assumes that public opinion will eventually associate disaster with neglect. The most optimistic assumes mourning disables criticism for weeks. In between lies an awkward fact: neither side wants to debate the core issues, and both prefer the terrain of the victims, because there the other side always looks worse.

"You do it too" as the only answer

The conversation ends where it began: in mutual accusation. One side calls the other vultures; the other returns the insult. The symmetry of the reproach is perfect and, precisely for that reason, sterile. Nobody admits their own side does what it criticises in the other, and all demand a renunciation from their rivals that they are not willing to sign themselves.

The result is a debate that produces no proposals, only reproaches. Electoral necrophilia is not fought: it is traded. And meanwhile, the awkward fact remains that the only rule everyone accepts is that the other side started it.