On 27 September 2015, early Catalan parliamentary elections
were held. Having been called by Artur
Mas, the president of Catalunya, they were to serve as a plebiscite on the
question of independence from Spain – a question to which the Spanish
government did not want to hear the answer and thus would not allow a
referendum.
For these elections, the conservative CIU party joined with
the left-wing ERC to form a coalition that also included many people from
non-political grassroots organizations that were interested in achieving
independence. This new coalition was
called Junts pel Si (Together for Yes).
There was a third party, la CUP, which also supported
independence. But this is an
anti-establishment, anti-capitalist party that did not want to align itself
with the other two, particularly not with CIU.
So they ran as pro-independence on their own ticket.
The election results were as follows:
Total votes 4,115,806 100%
The independence parties 1,957,348 47.56%
Against independence 1,605,563 39.01%
Other (independence not on platform) 515,023 12.51%
Invalid 37,873
0.92%
The results of the September elections were hotly disputed
for days. Most of the dispute came from
those parties who were anti-independence and who were determined to read the
results as clearly on their side, proclaiming that independence had lost. They included PP, C’s, and PSC (the
socialists). The final party Catalunya
Si Que es Pot (a coalition of Podemos, the Greens, and another left-wing party)
had not taken a stand on independence in their platform.
But there were those that argued that although these were
parliamentary elections, the reason behind them was to offer citizens the
referendum that Spain would not allow.
These elections were a plebiscite and should not be read strictly by
which parties won but by how citizens voted on the issue at hand. They said that independence had won.
If you look at the results as the vote on a referendum,
votes neither for nor against independence would be irrelevant and the results
would read like this:
Total relevant votes 3,562,911 100%
Pro-independence (Yes) 1,957,348 54.94%
Against independence (No) 1,605,563 45.06%
In favor of the latter argument that independence had won
was also the critical fact that the pro-independence parties now had a majority
of the seats in the Catalan parliament.
In a matter of days, the new parliament elected its
president (or speaker). This was Carme
Forcadell, the former leader of the grassroots organization Assemblea Nacional
Catalana (ANC) who I wrote about in my last post.
This was quickly followed by the parliamentary declaration of
the creation of the framework to start the transition towards the proclamation
of the Catalan Republic. It also
declared that “this Parliament and the process of democratic separation
will not be subject to the decisions of the institutions of the Spanish state,
and particularly of the Constitutional Court, which it considers to be
delegitimitised and without competence.”
During this time the Spanish court
brought charges against President Mas and two of his ministers for having
arranged the informal citizen consultation – in lieu of a binding referendum or
even a non-binding referendum, neither of which the Spanish government would
allow -- in November 2014. Mas and his
ministers now face the possibility of being disqualified from holding public
office or even imprisoned.
Everything
was moving along until the time came to invest the new president. CUP had said all through their campaign that
they would not invest Artur Mas. Now
came the time for negotiations. These
negotiations lasted for three months.
Junts pel Si proposed and/or agreed to all manner of social welfare actions for
the new government, but CUP still would not agree to invest Artur Mas. They wanted someone else. But Junts pel Si stood firm. Their candidate was Artur Mas.
This
made sense to a lot of people. Artur Mas
was the person who had led the Catalan government to this point in its move to
achieve independence. Independence had
not been his idea, but he had been the one to pick up the gauntlet and lead the
way. He is now known internationally as
the representative of Catalan independence, he is intelligent, quick witted, well
spoken, multi-lingual, knowledgeable, and elegant. He may not be a leftist or anti-system, but practically
speaking, he is a good man for the job ahead.
CUP
wouldn’t have it. Mas was the one who
had made cutbacks to Catalan spending during the last few years. Never mind that Catalan funds come from the
Spanish government as taxes are paid directly to Madrid. Neither Mas nor anyone else could spend money
they didn’t have in the budget. CUP said
that Mas was corrupt. This is odd
because although he is probably considered to be Public Enemy Number One in
Madrid, they haven’t been able to drum up any corruption charge against
him. The only thing he is accused of is disobeying
the Spanish court by allowing Catalans to vote – albeit in an informal
consultation that had no legal consequence.
And by most standards, voting is considered a democratic process for finding
out what citizens want. But there have been corruption charges against others in his party, and evidently, for CUP it's a matter of guilt by association.
Although
Junts pel Si won 1,628,714 votes and CUP won 337,794, CUP has been able to hold
up the investiture while it negotiated, although this might be a misnomer,
because to negotiate means give and take, compromise one thing in order to gain
another. All sorts of social welfare
considerations were agreed to but CUP would never budge on the issue of voting
for President Mas. For CUP it was a matter of take what they could get, but give nothing. Because except for their support of Mas for president, there was nothing else for them to give.
CUP wants social justice but they have been holding up the independence process for three months with the probable conclusion of going to elections again in March. Slowing the process down or possibly ending it with a failure in March to get enough support for independence, how does CUP hope to achieve the social justice it is demanding? It would make more sense to pave the way for a Catalana Republic where Catalan taxes would stay in Catalunya, the PP party would no longer have any power, and the social justice they seek would be possible. For most people, that's the point of getting independence.
All
along Junts pel Si said that Mas was their only candidate. If he wasn’t to be invested, new elections
would be held in March. Many considered
this would be an important blow to the independence movement. For one thing, the independence politicians
can’t agree on a basic political question, and for another, it will slow down
the process. Some voters are getting fed
up. Would independence win another
election? Has the movement lost steam? No one knows and most would
rather not take that risk.
Today,
3 January, CUP’s final decision was made.
They will not invest Artur Mas.
The assumption now is that there will be new elections in March.
But I’m
not sure. I suspect that Junts pel Si
would prefer not to go that route. Independence
might not win again, it might be that people will have lost faith in their
leadership. It wouldn’t be easy to break
away from Spain and harder yet if the political leaders can’t work
together. Many people are fed up, others
are disillusioned or don’t think it’s possible.
The mandate may have been lost.
I think
it possible that, having led the political way successfully this far, Artur Mas
might not want to be remembered as the stumbling block to independence. So it wouldn’t surprise me if tomorrow or the
next day we get the news that he has decided to decline his candidacy in favor
of someone else. Although it isn't clear if he did so, who would be the one to take his place.
I had
bet with a friend that Mas would be invested.
I lost that bet. I won’t be
betting on my new position. I’ll just
wait and see.
