The illegalised referendum on the 1st of October in Cataluña looms with six million inhabitants caught between an intransigent, independence movement and an immobile Central Government.
How did it ever come to this; that there is growing violence in the streets; that regional MP’s are being arrested and pro-unionist Catalan citizens are being insulted in the streets?
Taking a look at the Catalan Regional Government: we have a right-wing, nationalist party (PDK) in partnership with a radical, left-wing, anarchist party – strange bed fellows, indeed, but the former needs the three anarchist MP’s to maintain a workable majority. Furthermore, the main party of this coalition government is riddled with corruption so championing the independence movement helps to divert attention.
Meanwhile, in Madrid, we have a conservative government, also riddled with corruption, who also see this constitutional crisis as a means of diverting public attention from their multiple corruption scandals.
The Spanish Constitution does not permit regional governments to carry out referendums, so, argues the Central Government, there will be no referendum. But if the law does not permit it, you can change the law, surely. Well, to do that you need a 2-thirds majority and that is impossible because the conservatives will vote against any change.
Suddenly, for the Spanish conservatives, the 1978 Constitution is sacred, no matter that the conservatives voted against it back in 1978 – no doubt selective memory. You can’t just change the Constitution, they argue, as it requires months, years even, to carry out such a complicated task.
Again, selective memory because back in 2011, the Socialist Government under Zapatero, with the support of the main opposition party, the conservatives, amended the Constitution (Artículo 135) over little more than a weekend, because Brussels had wanted a guarantee that the Spanish public debt to creditors would be honoured before domestic needs, such as Health, Education and Pensions, for example.
So, in short, we have stamping tantrums coming out of Madrid and Barcelona; the Central Government’s sole tactic is to repeat, “No, no, no!” whilst holding its hands over its ears, whilst in Barcelona, the anti-natural coalition screams, “We will vote!”
In the meantime we have the surprising situation where in Madrid when a meeting had been arranged in a public building to discuss the Catalan situation, it was banned by a notoriously, right-wing judge. Whatever happened to the Right to Peaceful Assembly and the Freedom of Speech?
The fact is that all this conflict, media coverage and counter accusations simply means that the independence movement does not even need to hold a referendum – what is the purpose of a referendum? To sound out how people feel – we already known that. So it doesn’t matter one iota if there are ballot boxes on the 1st of October or not. The point has been clearly made.
Sadly, the Central Government’s stance has denied the Catalans who want to remain in Spain a voice that a referendum would have given them and if the conservative government had agreed to change the Constitution to allow a non-binding referendum in Barcelona six years ago then this constitutional problem would have been solved, a-la Scotland.
But no, we are cursed by the immovable in Madrid pitted against the unstoppable in Barcelona: corruption vs corruption bent upon making such a din that their mutual stench will be forgotten.
I leave you with this observation. In a daily newspaper I recently saw, on the right-hand page, a large photograph of a crowd demonstrating in favour of the referendum and on one of the banners were the words: to vote IS democracy. On the left hand page was an article about the Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy’s statement: There will be no referendum; it is against the law. Looking from one to the other, I couldn’t help feeling that I could have been looking at a newspaper printed in the last days of Franco…
(News: Cataluña)