Category Archives: Catalonia

Where is Catalonia’s Rubicon on the road to independence?

Catalonia, Politics, PP, Spain, , , , , , , ,

So the gradual creep towards independence continues in Catalonia. A referendum remains highly unlikely as the only remote possibility of one being held is it being approved in the Congreso in Madrid, which won’t happen because the PP has an absolute majority (and anyway, the PSOE is in total disarray, and so can’t be relied on, except to be unreliable). Duran i Lleida – ‘king troll’ – warns frequently of the risks and possibilities of a unilateral declaration of independence. CiU is trying to slow the process, probably at least partly so it can carry on privatising everything in Catalonia, and ERC is chomping at the bit.

Legal consequences

All of this has me thinking: if we know, more or less, that a referendum cannot be legally held (the Catalan parliament will pass a law allowing it but this is understood to not be within an autonomous region’s capacities), then maybe we start to see the Spanish strategy. They want to force Catalonia into acting illegally if they want to proceed towards independence. The question is: is Artur Mas really willing to take this step? And if he is, when will it come?

For Mas, I imagine it must be tempting. If everything went according to plan, he’d be remembered by Catalans for taking a stand, not for corruption and the destruction of Catalonia’s social services. He’d be like a new Jordi Pujol! On the other hand, if there’s an expert at saving his own skin, it’s Artur Mas. We can be sure that some of the time he spends drumming up contracts on foreign visits is dedicated to establishing Artur Mas as a Reasonable Man in the eyes of foreign officials.

Where is the Rubicon?

In the end, Catalonia’s Rubicon has two potential locations: an illegal referendum or a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI). If Catalonia attempts to hold a referendum without Spain’s permission, the vote will not be accepted as legal by the Spanish government. This would probably damage the potential turnout, currently reckoned to be really large. I can’t see Madrid suddenly agreeing to a referendum. But would it act to prevent one? It’s difficult to say. Spain’s already pretty unpopular in the EU, and preventing a referendum from being held, even though it would be an internal, legal issue, wouldn’t look good. But that probably wouldn’t be enough to stop Spain from intervening.

Unilateral declaration of independence

I expect that if Catalonia says it will hold a referendum, the Spanish authorities will warn that to proceed would lead to grave legal consequences. I also suspect that if Catalonia insisted, Madrid would find itself under enormous pressure to intervene. In the end, I’m not sure that a referendum will ever be held. I think it’s much more likely that fresh elections will be held with a UDI as the deciding factor. If this happens, expect ERC to win, CiU to drop, C’s to rise, ICV to remain more or less in place, and the CUP to see a rise. The PSC and PPC will both decline even further.

But a UDI is also illegal and far more so than a referendum. Surely Spain would have to act against a UDI, but how? Suspending Catalonia’s autonomy? Arresting the president and govern?

I’ve always been against UDIs because while I agree that sovereignty resides in the people, not in the Spanish crown, I feel that international support will be difficult to obtain without a clear, free and fair referendum. If Spain blocks a referendum, then, it is of prime importance for Catalonia to make clear that it has exhausted the legal possibilities open to it.

International opinion will be vital and, while not exactly popular, Spain has far more clout in that area than Catalonia does. 2014 might still be an interesting year.

Latest poll data shows 50-point lead for independence in Catalonia

Catalonia, Politics, Polls, Spain, , , , , , , ,

A follow-up from my recent post taking a quick and dirty look at polling numbers. As per usual, these polls are certainly not 100% reliable.

In this case, the poll [PDF] was carried out by GAPS for the pro-independence AMI. What that means is hard to say but they certainly don’t appear to have asked respondents about a possible ‘3rd way’ of increased self-government for Catalonia. This option, were it made available to voters, would reduce the weight of the independence vote. This is pointed out by another poll carried out by pro-federal newspaper El Periódico. Their poll suggests equal support for increased autonomy and independence, but confirms 80% support for some change in the relationship between Catalonia and Spain.

The other potentially misleading change in the GAPS poll is that it includes 16 and 17 year-olds and non-Spanish citizens. That is to say, everyone aged 16 up and registered legally with a town hall in Catalonia. This is not the same as other polls that have used the same electorate as vote in elections to the Catalan parliament, which is limited to Spanish citizens of 18 years and over registered with a Catalan town hall.

It’s difficult to say how much of a difference this would make: 16 and 17 year olds in, say, Olot are probably a lot (heh) more likely to vote yes to independence. But there aren’t that many of them. There are plenty more people of South American origin of all ages in BCN metro who are less likely to vote Yes.

All that said, this newest poll results in a 50% point lead for the Yes vote. Even an enormous margin of error would still leave a significant majority voting in favor of independence. Here are the numbers:

Numbers
1% = 54138,50
5413850 electorate*

YES 3167102 (58.5%)
NO 1044873 (19.3%)

Remove undecided and abstentions.

Total: 4211975 (1% = 42119.75)

Yes: 75%
No: 24%

*NB – I have just used the same number for the electorate as before because it would take me too long to work out the adjusted number. It doesn’t affect the percentages anyway.

My opinion: if a referendum were ever held (which doesn’t seem likely), it would naturally come down to the question. If a 3rd option of increased autonomy were included, this would successfully split the pro-independence vote. If it was a simple Yes/No question, the Yes response would win a massive victory.

I feel that this makes the likelihood of a referendum being held seriously unlikely. Spain will find it much easier to avoid negotiating with Catalonia if it prevents a vote from happening. Currently, the situation probably favored in Madrid is that Catalonia doesn’t hold a referendum but rather issues a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI). This would seriously limit vital international support and enable Madrid to depict the Catalan government as acting undemocratically.

Maybe that’s why Ara doesn’t investigate the big corruption stories

Catalonia, Politics, , , , , , , , , , ,

I like the newspaper Ara. It’s a bit neo-liberal in its politics but it has some good writers. Ara has also been fairly clearly pro-independence since its inception, though with less of an obvious party affiliation than, say, El Punt Avui. It has provided a lot of interesting coverage of various campaigns and events that have occurred in the two years since I subscribed to it.

But there are a couple of things that irritate me about Ara. There are times when its neo-liberal approach unquestioningly supports ideas like wholesale reduction of the civil service or privatization of health services, and I’d like to see more contrasting opinions presented by the editorial board on these topics. It is clear from reader comments on the newspaper’s website that many other readers agree with me. The vast majority, in fact.

The second thing is that stories dealing with political corruption cases in Catalonia seem to get less coverage than they deserve. This is par for the course with the Catalan press, of course. In fact, most newspapers everywhere are pretty loyal to the state or their party allegiances, so this perhaps shouldn’t be such a surprise. This, along with suspected buying of views on youtube, its disappointing to see from a new media outlet which one might have hoped was more immune to party influence.

Then I noticed something funny. In the footer of the newspaper’s website, a logo for the Catalan government’s dept. of the presidency has appeared. It wasn’t there this time last year. And it wasn’t there in April 2013 either. But sometime in the summer, when Ara updated its portal, the Generalitat’s emblem was added to its footer.

What does this mean? Why does Ara have it? I think it’s to indicate that the paper receives funds from the government in exchange for promoting Catalan. Fair enough. Not sure the state should be funding the independent press like this, though. Could look bad.

Then I spotted something else: an Ara.cat user called Cuca Val noticed that comments mentioning certain people’s names are automatically withheld for moderation by the website. Cuca Val tested this filter a few times and declared victory: one name not allowed through the moderation filter is none other than that of Ferran Rodés (Cuca Val spelled it R-O-D-É-S to avoid the filter), founder and president of Ara. All of Cuca Val’s comments were deleted about an hour after this.

Why would Ara block all comments which mention its own president and founder? After all, it’s no secret that he’s the boss. Maybe it’s because people have been leaving cruel messages about him in the comments section? Happens all the time. Maybe he’s thin skinned

Or maybe it’s because he’s a Catalan oligarch with connections to some of the corruption cases Ara has a duty to report on. As anyone can find on Wikipedia, Ferran Rodés i Vilà is president of the Catalan government’s ‘Advisory Council for the Sustainable Development of Catalonia’ (CADS) – which spends part of its time giving the Catalan government advice on how to privatize its natural resources. He’s also VP at Havas Media, a large advertising concern, and he’s on the board of Acciona, the major Spanish infrastructures conglomerate. The same one which was awarded management of Barcelona’s water systems for the next 50 years. When he was part of the decision-making team for this privatization process (which should never have been allowed in the first place). Oh, and he lives in Switzerland. Like all good oligarchs.

So maybe, just maybe, Ara feels that with its hard-won state funding and its possibly-corrupt president and founder, it would be best to pay as little attention to the massive corruption cases which are ongoing here.

“Bárcenas is OK, but don’t you dare report this Cafè amb Llet story until they’re pulled into court”, I can almost imagine the boss shouting accross the cowed, pathetic newsroom of the Diari Ara.

Catalan independence: Some quick thoughts on numbers

Catalonia, Politics, , ,

These are just some notes I scribbled down the other day. I’m not a statistician (as will become clear very soon*) but I did want to dig into the opinion poll results a little more and try to work out how they could translate to an actual referendum.

NB – I base everything on the idea that the same electorate would vote as in elections to the Catalan parliament. It’s not clear if this would actually be the case. E.g. if legal foreign residents or 16 & 17 year-olds were allowed to vote, that could well skew things significantly. I’m not sure of the chances of either of those happening but they have been hinted at previously.

*If anyone better qualified than me can find critical errors or malpractice in my shaky workings, please let me know: I’d like to be better at this sort of thing.

==

Numbers
1% = 54138,50
5413850 electorate

YES 55.6 3010100
NO 23.4 1266840
ABS 15.3 828319

Election results ONLY ever count those who vote.
Which means, of those who would vote (4276940) 1% = 42769.4

YES 70%

NO 30%
Which is a major victory for the YES vote.

But that’s based on CEO numbers from May which might not be accurate anymore.

I should apply the same standard to these: http://www.cadenaser.com/csermedia/cadenaser/media/201309/11/espana/20130911csrcsrnac_1_Pes_PDF.pdf

In this case, I assume the same electorate to make things easier. However, it remains unclear just how many people would be allowed to vote.

1% = 54138,50
5413850 electorate

YES 52.3 2831443.55
NO 24.1 1304737.85
DK 13 703800.5
ABS 7.7 416866.45

We discount the Abstentions.

Sum all votes (Yes, No, Don’t know): 4839981 (1% = 48399.819)

Of which

Yes: 58.5%
No: 26.9%
DK: 14.5%

Even if ALL Don’t Knows voted No, the No vote would only have 41.4% of the vote, compared to 58.5 (a 17.1 % point lead to the Yes vote). If only half voted No, and half voted Yes, the balance would be:

Yes: 65.75

No: 34.15

This is a 31.6 % point lead to the Yes vote.

Accordingly, it appears that the Yes vote would win a referendum on Catalan independence by something between 17 to 40 percentage points, the lowest lead representing a situation in which every voter who responded ‘Don’t Know’ ended up voting No, which strikes me as unlikely.

Who are the fascists? #viacatalana

Catalonia, Politics, PP, Spain, , , , , , ,

So who are the fascists? The hundreds of thousands of citizens who turned out today to peacefully call for Catalan independence, or the Falange and Democracia Nacional supporters who interrupted an event in Madrid?

This is, at least partly, the fruit of the PP’s campaign against social coherence in Catalonia. A mendacious call for unity while sowing division is the PP’s strategy, backed up by their mates in C’s.

Mas making love to France

Capital, Catalonia, Politics, Spain, , , , , , , , , ,

Artur Mas has been on an official visit to France. He celebrated that Spain has permitted Catalonia its own sub-representation at UNESCO in Paris. He also took the opportunity to suggest that the concession for Rodalies commuter trains in Barcelona might be sold to SNCF when Renfe’s license expires in 2015.

Similar noises were made a while back when it was suggested that France be the defender of Catalan independence and territory, rather than Spain or Catalonia itself. A proposed meeting with the French minister of defence was cancelled – allegedly after pressure from Spain.

So it’s privatisation of public infrastructure, but done in a clever way that in theory could help get the French on-side when it comes to independence (and thus make us forget that we’re talking about basic state services). Going further down that road could be risky: an independent state with no infrastructure to call its own isn’t much of a state.

[I’d like to add that I raised the France question a while back on this blog, and had a lot of comments from Catalans who thought France’s position was utterly irrelevant. Rather short-sighted of them, in my opinion. I assume they’ll be writing to Vilaweb to complain, now that the pro-independence website has published an editorial entitled ‘France is key for Catalonia’s diplomatic recognition‘.]

Wert’s education reform abandoned

Catalonia, Language, Politics, Spain, , ,

The Ley Wert was unpopular for a number of reasons. It aimed to take power from parent-teacher governance boards and give it to political figures. It introduced streaming for academic and vocational training a year earlier than before, reducing standard schooling for anyone going into vocational training. And it threatened the linguistic immersion system in Catalonia, a system proved to work, in order to downgrade the relevance of Catalan in schools.

From the government’s point of view, shelving unpopular reforms after massive strikes and protests may be a mistake. They may be trying to make themselves look flexible.

From my point of view, what they’ve shown us is that we can win.

Camacho, the Mossos and Aznar’s threat

Catalonia, coup, Politics, PP, Spain, , ,

If you want to know why Alicia Sánchez-Camacho has decided that she no longer trusts the Mossos d’Esquadra with the job of keeping her alive, you should look a little further back than Metodo3. Policy from on high dictates that the PP’s plan now is to foment ethnic and political division in Catalonia. Encouraging people not to trust the police is an excellent way to get started.

And things are only just getting started.

Shut down democracy to save democracy!

Catalonia, Politics, Rants, Spain, , ,

One of the more esoteric arguments against the Catalan independence referendum (an argument favoured by our erstwhile interlocutor who still may not speak his name), is that the act of holding such a referendum is so profoundly undemocratic, it should be prevented at all costs.

The basic premise of the position is, with apologies to Voltaire:

“I do not agree with what you say, and I’ll defend to the death any powers which will let me or the Spanish state stop you from saying it”.

Thankfully, it has been put even more clearly on Nació Digital. Absolutely no chance that this is a spoof.

Jo amb la legalitat, jo amb C’s 

Ciutadà no delincuent , 01/03/2013 a les 20:34
Aquest comentari ha estat amagat pels lectors. Fes clic per amagar el comentari.
Esta persona que votaría en un referendum ilegal antidemocrático es un delincuente y por lo tanto debería actuar la fiscalía y la justicia para quitarle su acta de diputado y sus derechos políticos (inhabilitación del derecho a voto y a presentarse en unas eleccciones por lo menos durante 25 años).Es antidemocrático que los catalanes voten un referendum. Quien votara deberia ser ajusticiado por el ejército. No se puede ir en contra del Reino de España porque Cataluña en sí misma no es nada, no existe, no es ni un país ni nada igual que el dialecto catalán muchas veces confundido con una lengua.YO SOC DEMOCRATA PER AIXO VOTO ALBERT RIVERA PER PRESIDENT

TODS AMB CIUTADANS!!!!!

Good luck to him, I say. The best way we can defeat a public expression of an opinion we dislike these days is to deem it ‘undemocratic’. Makes it all so simple.