Updated: Reports of electoral fraud in Spain

As mentioned in comments on my last post, there are reports today of numerous discrepancies in vote counting across Spain. Many of these incidents involve relatively small numbers of votes. But taken together, there are enough examples to plausibly suggest a widespread campaign against parties of the left, and those supporting independence for some of the 'autonomous regions' in Spain.

The story is being widely reported in the Catalan and Basque pro-independence media but has had few mentions in the mainstream Spanish press. The main party apparently affected by these discrepancies is Iniciativa Internacionalista (II-SP), which the Spanish government failed to have banned shortly before the elections. Zapatero's government accused II-SP of being a front organisation for ETA but failed to present evidence supporting this claim to the courts. II-SP received a vote of support from Arnaldo Otegi, spokesman for the outlawed Basque party Batasuna days before the elections. PP leader, Mariano Rajoy named them "the ETA list", while UPyD leader Rosa Díez declared that II-SP "is ETA". Apparently taking the lead from the USA's former right-wing government, neither party leader deigned to share their evidence with the voters they were appealing to.

The allegations fall into three groups: (a) the general feeling that the huge increase in blank and spoiled votes coincides a little too smoothly with II-SP and other parties faring more poorly than expected; (b) specific examples of localities reporting examples of discrepancies between town-hall and Spanish Ministry of Interior official figures; and (c) inexplicable displays of support for far-right parties in areas where they have never previously shown any support (normally at the expense of another party which did worse than expected).

It's too late for me to scurry around collecting examples of the three groups now, but the comments pages of this Avui story list several (at least one of which, the Vilafranca del Penedès one, seems to have been 'corrected', though by which side, I can't tell). Rab is sure that the way that these discrepancies affect specific parties suggests a fraud. I'll wait and see what appears tomorrow before I make the same judgement.

UPDATE

OK this is getting silly.

María Teresa Fernández de la Vega (Spanish VP)'s constituency recorded no votes for the PSOE

Europe of the Peoples-Greens have denounced irregularities

II-SP officials removed from recounts

Numerous towns appear to have returned erroneous numbers, major Spanish press outlets stay silent

June 9, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics, Spain | 7 Comments 

EU parliament election results in Catalonia

For coverage of Spain as a whole, take a look at Graeme's posts here and here.

The results in Catalonia were a mixture of 'more of the same' and a disappointingly low turn out. The PSOE-PSC won again, albeit with a share of the vote that dropped from 42% to 35%. CiU were next, their share increasing 5 points to 22%. In fact, CiU were the only major party to see their actual number of votes rise in a worryingly low turnout of 37%. The PP gained a 1 point increase in their share of the vote, while ERC came fourth with a small drop in their share.

Interestingly, there were 72,681 spoiled or blank votes, which taken together constitute the 6th biggest constituency in the election, after IU-ICV who got 6% of the total vote. I'm told by a friend that there were also 6 times as many of these spoiled or blank votes than there were in the last EU parliament election.

Among the newer parties running this year, Iniciativa Internacionalista gained more votes than Rosa Diez's UPyD – but both failed to get 1% of the vote here. Veritas and Esquerra Anticapitalista received 0.36% and 0.26% respectively.

The older style fascist parties look to have made some gains but their numbers are still so low that it's hard to be too worried. The Falange Española de las JONS nearly tripled their number of votes… to a total of 1,575. The Falange Auténtica and Democracia Nacional also increased their number of votes, but the total number of people voting for far-right parties in Catalonia (no, I'm not including the PP), remains very low.

Table of results:

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Full table available at El País.

June 9, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics | 3 Comments 

Primavera Sound 2009 review

This year's Primavera Sound was one of my favourites yet. Although our friends from impoverished Hackney couldn't make it, I know they were there in spirit. I also behaved myself and resolutely refused to kick any chaps in the balls, a major improvement on last year.

Partly as a result of better behaviour, and partly because Gemma and I found it easier to strike out on our own, we saw more bands this year and certainly enjoyed more of what we saw. The new system for drinks tickets, which involved buying them drink by drink at vending machines was disatrous at the beginning of the festival, but ended up being simpler and more efficient. In contrast with Summercase (which won't happen this year), the Rock Delux stage faced the stepped amphitheatre it occupies, so while sat we didn't have to crane our necks to see the bands.

Anyway, here's my breakdown of the bands we saw – graded according to my patented binary review system.

Thursday

Spectrum – 1

The Vaselines – 1

Joe Crepusculo y los Destructores – 1 (a surprisingly good Spanish band)

My Bloody Valentine – 1

Yo La Tengo – 1

The Bug – 1 (an early highlight)

Aphex Twin – 1

Friday

Tokyo Sex Destruction feat. Gregg Foreman – 1

Spiritualized – 1

Carsick Cars – 1

Art Brut – 1

Sun O))) – 1

Throwing Muses – 1

The Mae Shi – 0

Jarvis Cocker – 1

Saint Etienne – 0

Saturday

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis – 1

Plants & Animals – 0

Herman Dune – 1

Neil Young – 0

Oneida – 0

Deerhunter – 0

Ghostface Killah – 1

Sonic Youth – 1

Black Lips – 1

You'll notice very few 0s in this review. I can't say why that is, but my hunch is that I had fewer must-sees on my list than in previous years, meaning I was free to enjoy plenty of bands I'd never heard much from. My main disagreement with how the festival was organised was the way Neil Young was billed. When he started, there was a block of over an hour when no one else played on any stage, meaning that we were effectively forced to watch his show. By all that's sane, I should probably be a bigger fan of Neil Young than I am. But the truth is that he leaves me just a little cold, and this episode of dedicating the entire early part of Saturday night to him (I suspect it was a contractual obligation), pissed me off. Plus, there was a terrible artist on stage all through his set, 'creating' a two-dimensional representation of the concert as Young and his band played. Half the time, it looked like nothing more than a turd.

Despite that, Primavera Sound 2009 was, for me, a great festival. We caught up with loads of old friends, made some new ones, and enjoyed some excellent concerts. Roll on Primavera 2010!

June 5, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Music, Review | 3 Comments 

European elections 2009 – who to vote for?

Next Sunday, schools and other public buildings across Spain will open their doors as polling stations for the elections for the European Parliament. I always quite enjoy these days, mainly because I'm only allowed to vote in EU and local elections, despite the fact that I've lived here for seven years now. Anyway, I've spent some time thinking about who I'm going to vote for and I just can't make up my mind.

The first problem is the parties. I've talked before about how many political parties compete here for power, with some relatively small parties (like ERC in Catalonia) occasionally achieving power at a regional and even national level. The EU elections are made even more fun by the fact that they have whole new parties which all look very familiar but which are formally aligned to groupings in Brussels. With the major parties, this isn't too complicated: the PSOE/PSC (social-democratic) becomes the European Socialist Party and the PP (right-wing) becomes the European People's Party.

In Catalonia, CiU (Catalan Christian democratic) affiliate with the European Liberal Democrat and Refrom Party and ERC (Left-wing Catalan nationalist) form part of the European Free Alliance grouping. ICV-EUiA (Catalan green communist) splits into its two constituent parties, with ICV forming part of the European Greens party and EUiA affiliating with the Party of the European Left. Ciudadanos (Spanish nationalist) forms part of the Libertas group (which includes the French party Hunting, Fishing Nature, Tradition), while UPyD (Centrist Spanish nationalist) has no EU affiliation – though I believe that they are contending. There are various other small parties taking part (like II-SP, for example) but I can't find a complete list of all parties running candidates in Catalonia. You can find a detailed examination of several of the groupings' positions on particular topics here (in Spanish).

Here's my breakdown of why I don't want to vote for any of the larger parties:

PSOE-PSC – in government in Spain and Catalonia; I don't like the way this party operates, though I'd obviously choose them over the PP. Installing that oaf Montilla as president of the Generalitat and giving extra money to the Church are two good examples of the sort of judgements they will make when politicking.

PP – no one in their right mind would ever consider voting for this bunch of half-wits. Their disgraceful behaviour in power and in 'opposition', now culminaing in multiple high-level corruption cases and their perverse insistence on blocking attempts to provide decent funerals to the thousands left in mass graves by Franco's thugs.

CiU – too conservative for my liking, their pact with the PP happened years ago but still stinks. They also have this really grating sense of their own right to power (ok, most politicans do but CiU's are just too slimy).

ERC – I know more about this party's lack of management capabilities than I can safely write about. They had an opportunity to modernise or stay on the gravy train recently; they chose gravy.

ICV – Saura's abysmal handling of security in Catalonia (lots of Mossos to thump students, not so many to catch thieves) leaves me cold. Even if he is a generous lover.

EUiA – don't trust the communists. They pacted with the PP in Cerdanyola. I mean, can you imagine?

C's – not a chance. Same goes for UPyD and any other tinfoil groups out there.

So where does that leave me? Is there a decent Troskyite anti-bullfighting pro-referendum Priorat wine party?

May 31, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, PP, Politics, Spain | 5 Comments 

FC Barcelona, the penya and Primavera

So here we are. Unless things go on for much more than 90 minutes tomorrow evening, in 24 hours we'll know the outcome of the Champions League final. F.C. Barcelona face Manchester United in what should be a mega-clasico of a match. We're going to watch the game at the Penya Barcelonista de Cerdanyola del Vallès, the same bar where we saw Barça win three years ago, and where we saw them knock Chelsea out just three weeks ago.

If you've never been to an official penya (they exist for most football clubs but around here they're predominantly F.C. Barcelona-affiliated), these official supporters' clubs are often the finest places to watch a good football match, provided you back the penya's team. You need to make sure you get there early, though. For the second semi-final, I got there over an hour before kick-off and barely managed to snag a couple of stools in the non-smoking area (shock, horror!). For tomorrow's game, I've booked a table in the smoking area – three years ago, I did the same thing, and when I offered my name, the owner simply shook her head and said 'Els estrangers', 'the foreigners'. This time, she at least admitted she knew me and allowed 'Tom' to go on her bit of paper. We'll see how well this works out around 8 tomorrow evening.

I'll avoid predicting the outcome of the game because my hope that Barça will win is far greater than any knowledge I'd ever profess to having of the game. Suffice to say: I reckon it'll be hard for both clubs, and while Man U may be favourites, I do think that Barça can win it.

And if they do, it'll set off a great long weekend of celebrations. Because while I'll be in the office the next day, whatever happens, Thursday night sees the start of Primavera Sound – Barcelona's pop festival and officially the first party of the summer (well, that's what I always say). The lineup is pretty good, and this year I'll probably be aiming to take in a few newer bands I don't know so much about (any recommendations are welcomed). The festival runs until Saturday, but even better news is that Monday is 'second Easter', meaning we get another day off! Skill!

So it could be a brilliant few days or just a very good few days. And you can't say fairer than that.

Força Barça!

May 26, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Home, Music | 3 Comments 

FC Barcelona wins the Spanish league

Just a quick post to say well done to Barça, who won the Spanish football league tonight.

An unrelated thought: has Spain considered that it could probably rely on 12 points in Eurovision from an independent Catalonia? Maybe they'll rethink that referendum policy?

May 16, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Spain | 1 Comment 

Ciudadanos – showing their true colours

I was amused to read today that Albert Rivera, that young chap with the dead eyes, has been ousted [CAT] as leader of the Spanish nationalist party Ciudadanos. "Ciudadanos, Partido de la Ciudadanía" (catchy name, huh?), stormed onto the political scene a couple of years back, using promises of only speaking Spanish and… er… that's about it… to attract disillusioned falangists and other Madrid-centralists to its smelly cause.

This isn't the first time that the C's have had major internal issues, but coupled with the fact that they're now standing as part of far-right group Libertas in the EU elections, I think it's time we forgot about this flash in the pan. Hopefully we'll be able to say the same about UPyD soon!

May 16, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics | Leave a Comment 

TVE censors crowd disapproval of Spanish national anthem at Copa del Rei final

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When the Spanish national anthem was played on Wednesday night, it was met with whistling, klaxons and a lot of other noise from the predominantly Catalan and Basque supporters present. TV España switched to its outside broadcasting units in Barcelona and Bilbao in an apparent attempt to hide this, and then played coverage of the anthem being played, with edited sound. The sport director of TVE has been sacked for this 'human error' which actually looks a lot more like the Spanish national broadcaster trying to hide a potentially embarrassing truth.

More coverage at Cataloniablog.

May 15, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics, Spain, tv | 7 Comments 

Copa del Rei seen in Barcelona

As I was walking back from the Mississippi station today, I happened to bump into a TV3 OB team and a bunch of Culés. I asked a likely young lass if, perchance, El Barça would be coming through shortly and she confirmed that they were on their way.

I stood around for about five minutes and then spotted the TV3 team moving into the middle of the road, a surefire sign that the bus was on its way. And then, there it was. Heralded by flashing blue lights, cheers and foghorns, the Barça bus made its way across Carrer Numancia towads us. The cup itself was displayed proudly at the front of the bus, and some figures could be seen behind the tinted glass, waving and cheering. I imagine Eto'o led the chants.

Behind the bus was a fleet of hundreds of motos and cars, horns sounding and flags waving.

But this was fairly subdued by Barcelona standards. Everyone knows that within a couple of weeks, we could all be celebrating a much bigger triumph. If Barça can win the Champions League and secure a historic triple (yes, that's a big if, but it's there to be won), Barcelona will party for days on end.

(All 9 pics here. By the way, the pics aren't great: I was using our compact camera and I was somewhat hurried)

May 14, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Photo posts | 1 Comment 

Those good old Mississippi d'Esquadra

Some of you may have read (here, and linked to at Trevor's wildly observational post here), that I had my wallet stolen on the Barcelona Metro recently. Trevor's post, written with a depth of knowledge and understanding that, if I didn't know better, might otherwise make me suspicious, explains roughly the process that probably led to my being separated from my cartera.

After my brief violated sulk, I went through the process of filling in the online denuncio, going to the local police station and picking up my new cards at the bank. But these were the easy steps. Because my residency card was nicked, I now had to carry my passport around if I wanted to pay by card anywhere other than the small and excellently stocked  privately run supermarket I habitually buy wine, meat and vegetables from. I wasn't happy with this (a passport can be a real bugger to get replaced), so I essentially slipped into cash mode: something I've not done since the first time I got a card about 13 years ago.

And you know what? Apart from buying my snazzy new phone* the other day, I've certainly spent less this month than I would normally have.

Anyway, the point of this post was really to relay the news that I had a phone call yesterday from a nice lady at the Comisaría of the Mossos d'Esquadra in Les Corts to tell me: we have your wallet, with all your documentation. Would you believe it? I thought that the Mossos wouldn't have bothered investigating a common wallet theft but it seems that they had their very best, most sexy men and women on the case, sometimes working under cover.

So I have my expired Tarjeta de Residencia back and can now return to card-based [what's a word for 'of or pertaining to cards'?] profligacy. Or I can learn my lesson and stick to cash… which was, funnily enough, the only thing the thieves got when they nicked my wallet. A serious decision faces me.

__

*My HTC Magic has a great text prediction module that makes sending text messages and emails very easy indeed. However, it does sometimes change correctly spelled words for what it thinks I meant to say. 'Mossos' became 'Mississippi', automatically.

May 14, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Home | 4 Comments 

Barça 100, Real Madrid i Chelsea 0

OK. so that was never the real score… even divided by two. But FC Barcelona won a couple of matches in the last few days that deserve mention.

The first, I'll deal with quickly. Barça beat Real Madrid (and hopefully sealed the Liga title) last weekend, 2-6! It was a fantastic game which we enjoyed in the Pub On The Park (or possibly another pub on a park), which I enjoyed with way too much wine… but "it was class", as Mark E. Smith would have it.

The second, as the same Mark E. Smith would have it, was far more "English Chelsea fan, this is your last game!". The victory was almost Spartan, too. FC Barcelona beat Chelsea FC 1-1, scoring the away goal in the 93rd minute. The game was essentially bookended with goals, given that Chelsea scored in minute 9 with an amazing strike.

Gareth and I watched the game in the Penya Barcelonista de Cerdanyola del Vallès, also known as the Bar Grau (it also serves as headquarters of the Cerdanyola Chess Club and the Cerdanyola Pipe Smoking Association). I got there a pitiful 45 minutes before the game and found two stools left, which I guarded with my life until my compatriot arrived. I fought off honest requests for the extra seat along with various urchins trying to nick it from under my hand. We watched the game unfold, gasping in awe (true meaning of the word), as Essien scored a phenomenally great goal, then we waited and waited… and waited for Barça to get their act together.

We waited until the second half, which saw the majority of Norweigian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo's errors, including at least one certain penalty for Chelsea and an insane red card against Barça (not to mention what should have been a red card for Matt Damon Ballack). In fact we waited until around about the last possible moment. Barça had been building their attacks… Messi had stopped being useless and seemed to be looking for space… and then?

And then POUM! Andres Iniesta scored off a pass off useless Messi.

The Penya went mad. Seriously mad. Madder, even than when we watched Barça win there in 2006. Although there were three minutes to go, we were ecstatic. The Chelsea players were incandescent at the end of the game, obviously feeling that their cheating had got them nowhere. We cheered, hugged one another and jeered.

I joined in the Two Minutes' Hate directed at Drogba and the rest of them (though mainly Drogba). An old man pushed past in the human mass, as I swore at the Great Cheater. I almost saw the Chestnut Tree Café in his scared eyes. The anthem played on loudspeakers as we walked down the street into the evening.

May 8, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Football | 1 Comment 

Feliç Sant Jordi

Saint George's day is here again, and with it some lovely weather (it always seems to be sunny on April 23rd). As I've mentioned before, in Catalonia today is the 'day of lovers' or the 'day of the book and the rose'. Each year, we're encouraged to buy eachother roses and books as an expression of love and friendship. I think that, as well as giving the publishers and rose traders a bumper day, it's a lovely tradition.

One of the funny thing about it is that there are lots of places to choose from when it comes to buying your gifts. You can go to El Corte Inglés, as did one of my colleagues, and buy two roses for €16… but it's far more normal to purchase your flower either from a gypsy rose merchant (visible on many street corners all through the day), or a stall in your local plaça. These stalls are often (though not exclusively) operated by charities and political groups, so while buying your rose you get to choose which pressure group or political party you want to support.

This year, I bought Gemma's rose at the Solidarity with Palestine stall. For much less than the Corte Inglés price, I got a lovely rose and a poem (apparently about Palestine). The stall was also selling wallets, tshirts and so on… but I prefer to wear my heart on my blog.

Right… off to enjoy the sunshine!

April 23, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics | 1 Comment 

Bastards!

Some fucker stole my wallet on the Metro last night. Along with my money, they got my precious Tarjeta de Residencia which had expired and cannot be replaced. Words cannot express how pissed off I am right now.

April 5, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia | 9 Comments 

European parliament votes against choice of language in schools

Despite being generally divided on the issue of multilingualism, the parliament apparently approved a PSOE-CiU-ICV-PNV-EA amendment that removed references to parents' rights to choose the language in which their children are taught. Protecting the range of languages in some countries (like Spain) was described as 'essential'.

So that's the end of that debate, I imagine.

March 25, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Language, Spain | 11 Comments 

The Kosovo problem

It's a lovely sunny day here in Cerdanyola del Vallès, so I'll probably spend it doing some of my favourite things: installing Ubuntu 'Jaunty' Alpha 6 on my netbook, playing Empire Total War, writing performance reviews for my team at work… and reading about how Zapatero's suffering with the 'Kosovo problem'.

The problem, in case you didn't know, is fairly simple: Spain refuses to recognise Kosovo as an independent state because this would signify acceptance that small nations may break away from supra-national states like Serbia or… Spain. You see where this is going, don't you? Because of this tricky diplomatic choice, Spain has now announced that it will withdraw its armed forces from the NATO peacekeeping force which polices Kosovo. This has upset the United States, and effectively dissolves any credit Zapatero may have had with the new regime in Washington DC. The American response was an expression of "deep disappointment", according to El País, with State Department spokesman Robert Wood saying that the US "neither understands nor agrees with" Spain's move. Zapatero claims that Spain's NATO allies were aware of the planned exit, but other sources suggest that all this came as something of a surprise.

So basically, Spain pulls out of the Balkan state in an attempt to prevent the 'Balkanisation' of Spain.

Personally, I'm not really that fussed about Spain losing some grace in Washington DC, or with NATO: neither the US government nor their military agency in Europe operate with anything like the moral clarity that I'd like to see. But many Spaniards do worry about these things… indeed, some bloggers used to spend nearly all their time monitoring Zapatero's approval ratings in the Bush administration (a bit of a waste of time, that). The Partido 'Popular' have been quick to label this as 'another disaster' for the Socialist government, though typically they offer no alternative solution.

And that's because the solution to the problem, for all the PP's crowing, would be unthinkable for any Spanish government. The solution is simple: recognise Kosovo. It'll have to happen eventually anyway, so why not get it done now and avoid all this hassle? To me, Zapatero seems to have reacted to the PP's rhetoric about a 'Balkanisation' that almost certainly won't happen. The reason it won't happen is that there just isn't enough public support for independence in the two most troublesome 'nations' within Spain: the Basque Country and Catalonia.

If referenda were held in 2012 in the Basque Country and Catalonia, I'm pretty sure that the Basques would vote in favour of staying part of Spain, and so would the Catalans (although the Catalan result would probably be closer). What Zapatero risks with this childish insistence on failing to recognise Kosovo's independence is that people will start to take the concept of Spain's constituent nations breaking away, seriously. The bolder (though obviously slightly more risky) move would be to recognise Kosovo and then say "referendum on Catalan independence? BRING IT ON!".

That the Spanish state is so afraid of a referendum threatens to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

March 22, 2009 | Filed Under America, Catalonia, Politics, Spain | 12 Comments 

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