Tag Archives: convergence and union

Catalonia, Spain

Catalonia’s post-election future murky as Mas prioritizes power over secession

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Amid increasing tensions since 2012 between prime minister Mariano Rajoy and regional president Artur Mas, the Catalan independence movement hovers like a dark cloud over the national debate. (Facebook)
Amid increasing tensions since 2012 between prime minister Mariano Rajoy and regional president Artur Mas, the Catalan independence movement hovers like a dark cloud over the national debate. (Facebook)

In the aftermath of a difficult national election that could well lead to fresh elections across all of Spain, Catalonia, the northeastern region with a swelling independence movement, was always set to be the largest puzzle piece that patches together any potential coalition to lead the national government.  Spain_Flag_Iconcatalonia

Now the region will take center stage even more fully in Spain’s unfolding political drama, with a high-stakes game of chicken reaching its peak this week between regional president Artur Mas and the left-wing Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP, Popular Unity Candidacy). The pro-independence CUP has refused to lend its support to the larger pro-independence coalition, Junts pel Sí (Together for Yes), the broad, pan-ideological group that won last September’s elections.

The CUP’s leaders have for months maintained that they will not — and politically cannot — support Mas, a center-right regional leader who has skillfully attached himself to a sovereigntist movement that’s now dominated by figures on the Catalan left. He’s the ideological heir to a political elite that, under his predecessor, Jordi Pujol (regional president from 1980 to 2003), became synonymous with corruption. Moreover, as regional president since 2010, Mas has introduced tax increases and budget cuts designed to keep the region’s fiscal condition from deteriorating, even as the wider Spanish economy collapsed, taking the Catalan regional economy with it.

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RELATED: Madrid ignores Catalan vote at grave risk

RELATED: Catalan election results: pro-independence parties win narrow majority

RELATED: Three choices for new, fractured Spanish political landscape

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On Sunday, the CUP — a radical left group that would oppose an independent Catalonia’s membership in either NATO or the European Union — reiterated that it cannot support Mas for regional president and that it will block investiture of Catalonia’s executive government, the Generalitat, forcing new spring elections, so long as Mas is determined to lead it. Indeed, Mas has refused to step aside. If no one budges between now and January 10, Catalonia will hold fresh elections (along, perhaps, with Spain after the fractured result of the December 20 national elections). For Catalans, it would be the fourth regional election in five years.

But if there’s one thing that Junts pel Sí doesn’t lack, it’s a deep bench of political leaders, each of whom could easily step in as a regional president far more amenable to the radical CUP and its supporters, thereby forming a truly broad pro-independence front. If Mas doesn’t back away in favor of another of his coalition’s leaders, fresh elections could actually leave Catalonia’s parliament even more divided, potentially setting back the independence movement that he claims to represent. And that should tell you exactly where Mas’s heart lies — in maintaining power at all costs, not seriously advancing an independent Catalonia.

By forcing spring elections, Mas risks, first, prolonging the process of building both a national Spanish government and a regional Catalan government, and, secondly, discrediting the independence movement itself.  Continue reading Catalonia’s post-election future murky as Mas prioritizes power over secession →

Catalunya, Spain

Mas cancels official Catalan independence vote

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diadaPhoto credit to Diario de Navarra.

If you thought that the Scottish independence referendum was a  divisive matter, just wait another three weeks.Spain_Flag_Iconcatalonia

Even though Catalunya’s regional president Artur Mas officially cancelled a scheduled referendum on Catalan independence originally scheduled for November 9, diffusing a constitutional crisis with the national Spanish government, Mas announced that Catalans will instead have the option to participate in a non-binding ‘consultation.’

From referendum to ‘consultation’

arturmasbrink

In substance, the informal ‘consultation’ isn’t incredibly different than the formal vote that Mas (pictured above) and the Catalan regional parliament initially scheduled, given that Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy denounced the vote and questioned the ability of Mas or a majority of the Catalan parliament to call a referendum legally. Spain’s constitutional court ruled the referendum unconstitutional at the end of September, and Mas originally declared that the vote would go forward.

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RELATED: In refusing Catalan vote,
Rajoy risks isolating himself and Spain’s future

RELATED: Can Felipe VI do for federalism what
Juan Carlos did for democracy?

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Mas’s admission this week that the vote will be informal and non-binding reduces many of the tensions with Madrid, though the original vote wasn’t entirely binding, either. But his announcement may dampen his credibility with pro-independence Catalans (critics took to Twitter to declare it was ‘game over’ for Mas) and force the third regional election in four years.

Nevertheless, the referendum will still ask Catalan voters the same two questions as before:

Do you want Catalonia to be a state?

If so, do you want Catalonia to be an independent state?

No matter what happened on November 9, no one believed that the issue of Catalan sovereignty would be definitively settled anytime soon.  Continue reading Mas cancels official Catalan independence vote →

Spain

New PSOE leader Sánchez faces uphill struggle to unite Spanish left

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sanchez

He’s a disarmingly handsome economics professor, and he’s the first major Spanish party leader who grew up chiefly in the post-Franco era and in the era of Spanish democracy.Spain_Flag_Icon

But Pedro Sánchez, who leapfrogged the more well-known Eduardo Madina to become the leader of Spain’s Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) earlier this month, and who will assume the leadership later this week, will have his work cut out for him before elections that will take place within the next 17 months, with the party’s traditional voting base increasingly supporting both new and established alternatives on the Spanish left. 

Sánchez (pictured above), just 42 years old, has only been a member of the Congreso de los Diputados (Congress of Deputies), the lower house of the Spanish parliament, the Cortes Generales, from 2009 to 2011 and  since January 2013, representing Madrid, where he served as a city councillor for the preceding five years.

Sánchez won the PSOE’s first direct contest to elect the party’s general secretary in a three-way race, with 48.7% of all votes against just 36.1% for Madina and 15.1% for the more left-wing José Antonio Pérez Tapias.

Though Madina, at age 38, is even younger than Sánchez, he’s been a member of the Congress of Deputies since 2004 and the secretary-general of the PSOE’s congressional caucus since 2009. A Basque federalist, he was perceived as the frontrunner in the race, especially after taking a republican stand in the aftermath of Juan Carlos I’s abdication from the throne. But the favorite to lead the PSOE, Andalusia’s 39-year-old regional president, Susana Díaz, endorsed Sánchez instead, as did many former officials from the administration of former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, including former public works and transportation minister José Blanco.

That effectively lifted the more unknown Sánchez, who holds a doctorate in economics, above Madina, who once lost part of his left leg in a Basque nationalist bomb blast.

On his election, Sánchez declared the ‘beginning of the end of Rajoy,’  challenging the unpopular center-right government of prime minister Mariano Rajoy, which has presided over the worst of Spain’s recent economic crisis.

Not so fast.  Continue reading New PSOE leader Sánchez faces uphill struggle to unite Spanish left →

Spain

Can Felipe VI do for federalism what Juan Carlos did for democracy?

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felipeVI

Spain’s king, Juan Carlos I — who is to have once proclaimed that ‘kings don’t abdicate, they die in their sleep’ — surprised his country with the announcement earlier today that he would, in fact, abdicate the kingdom that he has held since 1975.Spain_Flag_Icon

Juan Carlos’s legacy today is undisputedly the role he played in the transition to Spanish democracy following the death of Spain’s longtime 20th century strongman Francisco Franco. As his country prepares for the inauguration coronation of his son, Felipe VI (pictured above), it’s not too early to consider whether Felipe can achieve the constitutional reforms that could mollify and temper Spain’s regionalism through some form of federalism.

It wasn’t necessarily destined that Juan Carlos de Borbón would ascend to the throne, in light of the proclamation of the second Spanish republic in 1931, Spanish king Alfonso XIII’s subsequent flight and, in 1941, his abdication after the conservative Franco came to power in 1939.

Though Franco allowed for Alfonso XIII’s grandson, Juan Carlos, to return to Spain for his education, his relationship to the monarchy remained throughout the Franco era.  A conservative who supported the monarchy prior to 1931, Franco proclaimed Spain a monarchy in 1947, but that didn’t mean he was keen to hand any amount of power to the royal family. Instead, Franco left the monarchy officially vacant, ruling instead as ‘regent’ for the next 28 years. It was only in 1969 that Franco named Juan Carlos as crown prince, firmly clearing the path for Juan Carlos to succeed Franco as Spain’s head of state in 1975.

JCandfranco

Having sworn an oath to Franco’s Movimiento Nacional (National Movement), it also wasn’t a certainty that Juan Carlos would move so swiftly transition his country toward democracy following Franco’s death. After all, Juan Carlos (pictured above with Franco) owed his position entirely to a mix of pro-Franco military forces and political elites — nationalist, fascist, conservative and monarchist.

Even after Juan Carlos announced Adolfo Suárez as his prime minister with a mandate of democratic transition, and even after Suárez himself formed Spain’s first elected government in the post-Franco era,  Spain’s republicans — a mix of separatists, liberals, democrats and communists — still weren’t sure whether to trust Juan Carlos.

That changed for two reasons. Continue reading Can Felipe VI do for federalism what Juan Carlos did for democracy? →

Spain

With Spanish left reeling, Rubalcaba steps down as PSOE leader

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rubalcaba

The European parliamentary elections have claimed their first national leader in Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the general secretary of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party), Spain’s traditional center-left party.Spain_Flag_Icon

In Sunday’s elections, Spanish voters elected 54 members of the European Parliament. The ruling Partido Popular (the PP, or the People’s Party) of prime minister Mariano Rajoy won the largest share of the vote, around 26%, and the largest number of seats, 16.

The PSOE placed second with just 23% and 14 seats — that’s a loss of nine seats in the European Parliament.

spain

Rubalcaba, taking the blame for his party’s losses, announced he would step down from the leadership, calling a meeting on July 19-20 to select a new general secretary of Spain’s largest center-left party:

“We have not managed to regain the trust of the citizens,” Mr Rubalcaba told a press conference in Madrid on Monday, adding that he would not stand for re-election at an extraordinary party conference in July. “We have to take political responsibility for the bad results, and this decision is absolutely mine,” he added.

There’s no guarantee that the next PSOE leader will be able to unite the Spanish left, which has fractured in the face of the economic crisis in the past five years.

The PSOE’s performance was hardly much worse than Rajoy’s party, which lost eight seats. Taken together, the two major Spanish parties won around 49% of the vote. That’s down from nearly 84% in the 2008 Spanish general election, 80% in the previous 2009 European elections and 73% in the 2011 general election.

So while the greater pressure fell on Rubalcaba and the PSOE, the results are hardly heartening for Rajoy. Continue reading With Spanish left reeling, Rubalcaba steps down as PSOE leader →

Catalunya, Spain

In refusing Catalan vote, Rajoy risks isolating himself and Spain’s future

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rajoy isolated

It’s not like Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy didn’t have any warning.cataloniaSpain_Flag_Icon

Catalan regional president Artur Mas called early regional elections for November 2012 for the express purpose of winning a mandate behind the call for greater autonomy and/or independence for Catalunya.  That didn’t work out so incredibly well for Mas and his autonomist center-right Convergència i Unió (CiU, Convergence and Union), which lost 12 seats in the 135-member Catalan parliament, and was forced to form a unity government with the pro-independence, leftist Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, Republican Left of Catalunya).  Nonetheless, the election largely ratified the strength of the Catalan separatists, who control 87 seats to just 48 for Catalunya’s federalist parties. catalanmap

Three months ago, on September 11 — upon the celebration of Catalan national day — nearly 400,000 Catalan citizens formed a human chain stretching from the Pyrenees to the coast to emphasize just how fervently they support their right to self-determination.

Rajoy, much to his discredit, has ignored those Catalans, and Mas’s government has now set November 9, 2014 as the date for a referendum on Catalan independence — with or without the Spanish federal government’s blessing — after a vote last Thursday in the Catalan parliament that enjoyed the universal support of Mas’s Convergence and Union, the Republic Left and the Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds (ICV, Initiative for Catalonia Greens).  Rajoy (pictured above) and his justice minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón (pictured below) have made clear that not only is a referendum unacceptable under the Spanish constitution, but that they won’t be coerced into negotiating with Mas over devolving greater power (and funds) back to Catalunya, one of the wealthiest regions in Spain.  With over 7.5 million people, the region account for one-fifth of Spain’s economic output.

Ruiz-Gallardon

If the vote actually goes ahead next November (and there’s some reason to believe that Mas is bluffing), it could constitute the most severe constitutional crisis since Spain’s return to democracy in the late 1970s.

To some degree, it’s easy to sympathize with Rajoy.  Though he took office just over two years ago when the center-right Partido Popular (the PP, or the People’s Party) ousted the center-left government headed by José Luis Zapatero and the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party) in November 2011, Rajoy’s popularity has plummeted as he’s pushed Spain through higher taxes and budget cuts.  That fiscal adjustment is plausibly both the cause and effect of a cycle of economic depression that’s left Spain reeling, including an unemployment rate of 26.6% that may be peaking only after five years of GDP contraction.  Spanish finances remain in tatters, despite the budgetary efforts of both the Zapatero and Rajoy governments, and Rajoy simply can’t afford to send more euros to Barcelona.  It’s not difficult to see the slippery slope that would begin once Rajoy starts negotiating with Rajoy over Spanish federalism.  An equally pro-autonomy regional government in Euskadi (Basque Country), which is also wealthier than the Spanish average, will be sure to follow with their own demands.  Other regions, like Galicia and Andalusia, the latter one of Europe’s most economically forlorn, might also make demands for stimulus.

It’s equally easy to see the naked political game that Mas is playing.  You need only look to the way that the referendum will be structured — Catalans will first be asked, ‘Do you want Catalonia to be a state?’ Those who agree with the first question will subsequently be asked, ‘Do you want Catalonia to be an independent state?’  The vote will be an easy way for Catalans to register their disapproval with Madrid without taking the kind of steps that could truly rupture Catalunya from Spain and that could leave Catalunya as an independent country outside the European Union (if only temporarily).  Mas is clearly using the referendum as a game to strengthen his hand vis-à-vis negotiations with Rajoy and, perhaps, to maximize his own standing within the Catalan electorate.  Some relatively moderate voices within the CiU coalition have even said that the referendum should only be held if it’s ultimately deemed ‘legal’ by Madrid.  The shell game of posing two questions to determine whether Catalunya should be a state or an independent state conveniently blurs the line of independence — it’s such a cynical ploy that it’s hard to take Mas seriously as a statesman, despite the legitimate sentiment of millions of pro-independence Catalans.

But Mas can get away with such demagoguery largely because of Rajoy’s intransigence.   Continue reading In refusing Catalan vote, Rajoy risks isolating himself and Spain’s future →

Catalunya, Spain

Catalans form region-wide human chain to demand vote on independence

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catalan

Unwilling to wait until 2016 or later for Catalan independence, regional political leaders organized a protest today — on September 11, the Catalan national day — in the form of a human chain that stretched from the French Pyrenees to the Mediterranean coast. Spain_Flag_Iconcatalonia

They did so as more of Catalunya’s 7.5 million citizens favor independence from Spain, with Catalan president Artur Mas still locked in a battle with Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy over federalism and over the issue of whether Catalunya can unilaterally call a referendum to determine its future.

‘La Via Catalana’ — which drew over 500,000 people today — highlights just how strongly many Catalans feel about independence these days, especially in light of an economic crisis that’s taken a toll on all of Spain.  Catalunya, as one of the wealthier regions of Spain, contributes a relatively greater amount to the federal budget and receives comparatively less back from the federal government in return.  Ultimately, Catalans resent sending revenue to poorer regions of Spain in the same way that Germans resent sending revenue to bail out Greece and other poorer countries in the European periphery.  A recent survey shows that 52% of Catalans prefer independence to just 24% who favor remaining part of Spain.

Mas took his case today global with a high-profile op-ed in The New York Times demanding a referendum for Catalan independence:

We also seek no harm to Spain. We are bound together by geography, history and our people, as more than 40 percent of Catalonia’s population came from other parts of Spain or has close family ties. We want to be Spain’s brother, as equal partners. It goes beyond money or cultural differences. We seek the right to have more control over our economy, our politics, our social services.

The best way to solve any problem is to remove its cause. We seek the freedom to vote. Every individual has a right to expect this from his government, while also sharing equally in the benefits. In Europe conflicts are resolved democratically, and that is all we ask.

Mas pointed to the examples of Canada, where the federal government worked with Québec to hold two independence referenda in the past three decades, and to the United Kingdom, where prime minister David Cameron and Scottish first minister Alex Salmond have agreed to the terms of a September 2014 referendum on Scottish independence.

Last week, Mas hinted that he would be willing to back down from his demand of a 2014 referendum, indicating that a vote in 2016 would be largely acceptable.  Mas is still requesting Madrid’s approval to hold a status referendum, but Rajoy, the leader of the center-right Partido Popular (the PP, or the People’s Party) unequivocally opposes Catalan independence and has warned Mas that any referendum held without Madrid’s consent is a violation of the Spanish constitution.  But as popular support for Catalan independence rises to even higher levels, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Rajoy to refuse the opportunity for a clear vote — even Cameron has gently nudged Mas toward agreeing to a referendum.

Complicating the matter is the fact that many Catalans now believe they have the right to hold a vote in 2014 no matter what Rajoy says — and not in 2016 or some future date.  The ‘referendum now’ camp includes the pro-independence, leftist Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, Republican Left of Catalunya) as well as many members of Mas’s own autonomist center-right party, Convergència i Unió (CiU, Convergence and Union).

For his part, Mas is willing to delay the referendum until 2016 because a constitutional confrontation with Rajoy might prompt another round of early elections — a mistake Mas is unlikely to make again after calling snap elections shortly after last year’s Catalan national day for November 2012.  Mas did so with a thinly veiled goal of riding the pro-independence wave to an even larger majority in the 135-member Catalan parliament (the Parlament de Catalunya).  But the strategy backfired and the CiU instead lost 12 seats, mostly to the pro-independence Republican Left that, for now, is supporting Mas’s regional government.  Polls earlier this summer showed the Republican Left leading voter opinion for the first time ever, which means that Mas hopes to avoid elections anytime in the near future.  Continue reading Catalans form region-wide human chain to demand vote on independence →

Catalunya, Scotland, Spain, United Kingdom

Three lessons from the Calatan experience for Scottish separatists

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salmond

Artur Mas, the president of Catalunya, played the sovereignty card in calling early elections on November 25 and, thereupon, campaigned hard for Catalan sovereignty and against the federal Spanish government — it felt like, at times, he was running more against Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy than against any particular regional adversary.cataloniaSpain_Flag_IconUnited Kingdom Flag Iconscotland

His reward? Mas’s center-right party, Convergència i Unió (CiU, Convergence and Union), lost 12 seats.

That’s not the whole story, of course — sovereigntist parties hold an overwhelming majority with 87 seats in the 135-member Catalan parliament (the Parlament de Catalunya).  Catalan voters found a way to express their discontent with the austerity measures of Rajoy’s federal government and Mas’s regional government by shifting support to the more leftist, pro-independence Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, Republican Left of Catalunya).

Furthermore, it’s not been an absolutely disastrous six weeks for Mas — the ERC truculently joined a governing coalition with the CiU, thereby stabilizing Mas’s government.  Just last week, the CiU and the ERC agreed upon a framework to push a vote for Catalan independence sometime in 2014, with or without the federal Spanish government’s acquiescence, setting him on a collision course with not only Mas, but much of the federal Spanish government and probably a majority of the other Spanish regions.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, the Scottish National Party, headed by first minister Alex Salmond (pictured above) has taken a vastly different course — United Kingdom prime minister David Cameron has agreed to the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland, and polls show independence trailing the status quo by about a 50% to 32% margin there.  Unlike in Catalunya, the Scottish aren’t coming out in waves of thousands in protest for independence, and despite the unpopularity of former Conservative UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s implementation of the poll tax in Scotland, the Scots can’t point to systemic — and recent — violations of civil liberties like the Catalans can, namely the suppression of Catalan language and culture under the regime of fascist Spanish strongman Francisco Franco from 1937 to 1975.

Catalan independence would likely be a greater disruption to Spain than Scottish independence would be to the United Kingdom — by the numbers at least.  With 7.5 million people, Catalunya comprises nearly 16% of the Spanish population.  Although Scotland comprises nearly a third of the United Kingdom by area, its population of 5.3 million people is just a little under 8.5% of the total UK population.

So what can the Catalan Sturm und Drang (or, tempesta i estrès, perhaps?) of the past few months, including the November regional elections, teach Scotland as it prepares for its own 2014 referendum?

Here are three lessons that pro-independence Scots should take to heart from the recent Catalan experience. Continue reading Three lessons from the Calatan experience for Scottish separatists →