España Va Bien. ‘Things Are Going Well In Spain.’ With This Simple yet somewhat unoriginal slogan, the incumbent conservative Partido Popular (PP) swept to victory by absolute majority in the 12 March 2000 general election in Spain. The PP's astounding victory may be attributed to several factors. First, its own well-organized campaign was based upon a strong leadership, something the two main leftist parties lacked. As the experience of the former centrist party, Unión Centro Democrático (UCD) shows, party leadership does matter. Secondly, leadership charisma, so important in the 1993 election when the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) managed to be re-elected despite worryingly high unemployment figures and a wave of political scandals, seemed to matter little or nothing in the March 2000 election. Effective management skills and strong leadership seem to have replaced populist charisma as a way to attract the average Spanish voter.