Europe's most earnest protesters

摘要

There was no rock-throwing or tear gas, but on July 9th Spain's polite "indignant" protesters still chalked up a victory. After being endorsed as the ruling Socialist Party's candidate for prime minister in the election due by next March, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba used his acceptance speech to propose electoral reform. This might not sound much. But Mr Rubalcaba's call for Spain to adopt Germany's voting model, so as to install proportional representation but still let people choose their local deputies, was a direct sop to the movement that spontaneously occupied city squares in mid-May, claiming that the politicians "don't represent us".