Stretching the limits of taste to capture Catalans' votes

A porn actress asks voters in Catalonia to cast their ballots for Joan Laporta while singing the Real Madrid song and holding up the Catalan regional flag. Another woman has an orgasm while she tries to cast a vote at a Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) polling table. One candidate, Montserrat Nebreda, of the Alternativa de Govern party, shows up wearing nothing but a towel.

Strange as they may sound, these funny situations are all featured in flashy political advertisements in the current campaign for Sunday's race in Catalonia. For weeks, Catalans have been bombarded with these ads, some of which have been called embarrassing, sexist and even obscene.

A total of seven parties, with different offerings and a variety of platforms, are in the running. But this has by no means pricked every voter's interest. One week before the elections, a Metroscopia survey showed that 22.9 percent say they are not interested in the regional race.

"We don't need orgasms or towels to get ahead," says the CiU contender

One of the biggest controversies has surrounded the Popular Party's campaign, which has been focused on immigration. Alicia Sánchez-Camacho, the PPC candidate has been pushing a platform in support of imposing restrictions on undocumented migrants living in region, such as preventing them from registering on municipal rolls if they don't have their residency papers. Her polemical stance led her critics to come up with a videogame showing Sánchez-Camacho as a kind of Lara Croft figure, riding a swan and shooting down illegal immigrants.

Iolanda Mármol, a political reporter and author of a study of the 2008 national campaign, believes that voter apathy is the real reason that so many video creations have emerged. "To spark interest, the political parties need to put their campaign in focus. In the videos, they don't give any argument why you should vote for them. They know that the electorate hates campaigns and for that reason they are just interested in getting at their hearts and creating a sensation."

The favored candidate, according to the polls, Artur Mas, of the center-right CiU Catalan nationalist bloc, says he doesn't need catchy ads to get his message across. "We are sensible and we're not here for craziness. To get ahead, we don't need orgasms or towels."

But this creative boom isn't just limited to Spain. Barack Obama's innovative videos helped him win in the United States. "The market in Spain is much more sleazy," notes Iván Redondo, a political strategist who forewarns that such campaigns are going to "explode" next year during regional contests in Madrid and the Basque Country.

"In Spain, there is a different tone. Video-politics is aimed at potential voters between the ages of 18 and 35 - those who are disconnected from politics and tend to be bewildered."

But it is much more than copying ads. Mármol says that while some ads work in other countries often they cannot be applied here. "It is a common error. In Britain, [Prime Minister David] Cameron's team taped some videos of the candidate explaining fiscal policy while washing dishes. Rajoy's team tried to imitate it with that now-famous video of him sitting in the back of an automobile not wearing a seat belt. It turned out badly for them."

The latest polls show that the CiU stands a good chance of kicking the ruling PSC-led coalition out of office. One poll sees the CiU capturing a 10-point win over the Socialists. Upset by high unemployment and the central government's economic policies, Catalans are focused on other issues in this race rather than their traditional push for more autonomy, say some analysts.

"The Socialist Party's result in Catalonia [...] will be understood as punishment for [Prime Minister] Zapatero [...] and will certainly damage his image," Eva Anduiza, politics professor at Barcelona University (UAB), said in an interview with Reuters.

This year's election could also see a split among hard-line independence supporters with the debut of Joan Laporta's Solidaritat Catalana, a party created four months ago that is pushing for a unilateral declaration of independence. Some political observers believe that separatists of the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) may defect and vote for Laporta's party.