SPAIN: The Teflon-suited Prime Minister has survived a series of setbacks that would have put paid to anyone else, writes Paddy Woodworth.
The treachery of two very minor Socialist Party figures did much to sweeten this week's valedictory state-of-the-nation debate for the Spanish Prime Minister, Mr José María Aznar, leaving him the clear, if rather solitary, victor in a vicious two-day parliamentary dogfight.
Mr Aznar opened the debate on Monday by confirming that he would honour his long-standing promise to step down as leader of his centre-right Partido Popular (PP) before his second term as Prime Minister expires next March.
On the face of it, the political year just over should have produced a nightmare final debate for this constantly underestimated politician.
His government is widely believed to have grossly mishandled the catastrophic oil spillage off Galicia. His support for the US line on the Iraq war was deeply unpopular with 90 per cent of Spanish citizens.
His Defence Minister has recently become embroiled in an ugly controversy over the purchase of a Ukrainian aircraft which crashed at a cost of 62 Spanish lives. His relations with the Basque parliament have degenerated into a constitutional crisis.
Yet Mr Aznar, who must insist on a high Teflon mix in his dark blue suits, only conceded a very narrow victory to the opposition in regional elections in May, something of a triumph for the PP under the circumstances.
Then treachery struck the main opposition Socialist Party (PSOE), led by the inexperienced Mr José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and reversed that lacklustre opposition victory into something very like a rout.
The PSOE had barely scraped into first place in the key contest for the regional government of Madrid. But when the first votes were cast in the new Madrid parliament last month, two Socialist Party deputies simply went missing, effectively handing the region back to the PP, at least until new elections take place. Allegations rapidly emerged that the deputies were involved in a web of property speculation and corruption.
You could be forgiven for thinking - and Zapatero insists - that this reflects badly on the PP, since it appears that corrupt speculators prefer to see the conservatives in power. Yet it is the PSOE which is reeling from the controversy.
It is damaging enough that the Socialists should have selected such fickle and slippery candidates. But the real hurt lies in the memories it has revived of the notorious corruption of the last Socialist administrations under Felipe González.
It was largely public disgust at this corruption, and the deep divisions it caused within the PSOE, that finally propelled the less-than-charismatic Mr Aznar to power in 1996. Mr Zapatero is supposed to be the clean new face of the party, but his grasp on the unwieldy organisation is weak.
Mr Aznar mocked him unmercifully for his inability to keep his own house in order during this week's debate.
"I will not be a candidate for the prime ministership in the March elections," Mr Aznar said on Tuesday with just a hint of smugness. "What I don't know is whether you will be the candidate for your party".
In case anyone missed the point, Mr Aznar repeated it four times. Finger-wagging repetition is very much part of his oratorical style.
The PSOE leader fought back hard, using the unparliamentary language that characterised this bitter debate. "You think anything goes in politics," he told Mr Aznar, "and you will leave office as you entered it, surrounded by lies".
Mr Aznar's initial speech, however, mapped out territory that Mr Zapatero could not easily win back. He put great emphasis on his government's iron defence of the 1978 constitution, against those Basque and Catalan nationalists "who seek to break up the country". He lambasted the Basque nationalists, in particular, for putting forward proposals which he came close to calling racist.
Since the PSOE has given bilateral support to Mr Aznar in these areas, its leader could hardly challenge him, although some smaller parties did.
Mr Aznar's other great strength is the economy, which has generally boomed under his administration, with unemployment falling to levels that, by Spanish standards, are very low. The opposition could snipe at his long list of achievements, but the Spanish public would mostly have found them convincing enough.
And as for the other really contentious areas - the oil disaster, the Iraq war, the air crash - Mr Aznar doggedly insisted that events have justified his policies. He then rapidly moved to counterattack, in characteristic fashion accusing the opposition of spurious motives for their criticisms.
He likes to associate the PSOE with the former communists of the United Left group, and then accuses the entire opposition of being dangerously radical, although on many issues Mr Zapatero is barely to the left of Mr Aznar's great friend, Mr Tony Blair.
The United Left leader, Mr Gaspar Llamazares, accused him of "criminalising the opposition". Mr Aznar retorted: "It is difficult to imagine that there are people with minds as evil as yours".
The Prime Minister took no hostages in this debate, but also made no allies outside his own party. He obviously believes that his united and disciplined party will choose a new leader from among his faithful deputies, and be able to lead the PP to a second absolute majority next year. The weakness shown by the opposition makes this strategy less risky than it might otherwise be.