Category Archives: PP

Elections this autumn for Catalonia

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UPDATE: the elections will be held on November 25th.

The Catalan newspaper Ara is reporting that Artur Mas is about to call early elections, likely to occur on November 18 or 25 or December 2.

Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy stated in parliament today that he doesn’t agree with the Catalan view that a new fiscal pact ought to be agreed. This was supposed to have been the subject of discussion in a meeting between Rajoy and Mas tomorrow morning in Madrid. It is believed that Mas could call the elections tomorrow, immediately after this meeting.

There is widespread expectation that these elections could take on the form of a referendum on Catalan independence from Spain. For this to happen, the governing CiU will have to form a national bloc with parties sympathetic to independence: ERC, ICV and SI. The Catalan federations of the two main Spanish parties, PP and PSOE will oppose independence, with support from Ciudadanos.

The groups in favour of independence appear to see that speed is of the essence now. They aim to benefit from the upswing in support for separatism seen at last week’s demonstration in Barcelona. They probably also fear the Spanish government invoking section 155 of the Spanish constitution, which allows for central government to establish direct rule over autonomous communities seen to be in breach of the constitution.

Does this render independence any more likely? It’s hard to say. There can be no doubt that more people here are taking the question seriously. But CiU will have to negotiate a pact with leftwing ERC and ICV to have a chance of an absolute majority. But I get the feeling that there are plenty of Catalans who might balk at the last minute, either due to the uncertainty that independence might bring or because of their dislike for voting for any CiU-led coalition.

Because of the speed with which the independence movement has gathered pace and the possible sanctioning of Catalonia’s self-government by Madrid, these elections will likely prove to be the supreme test that separatism must pass if it is going to succeed.

What do you think will happen?

What next for Catalonia? More questions for the independence movement

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If not precisely inevitable, Catalan independence now seems much more likely than it did a couple of years back when I first framed my questions for supporters and opponents of Catalan separatism.

Many of those questions remain valid. But my main focus has shifted. This reduced list should read as a demand from those leading and supporting the independence movement that they for once and for all clarify various matters that I believe worry many people currently. Because if Catalonia really will be the ‘Next State in Europe’, these matters need to be clarified now, not later.

1 – What social model will an independent Catalonia have?
While the right are currently in power, and have governed for the majority of Catalonia’s post-Franco years, there is a significant section of Catalan society that supports parties of the left. We’re deeply unhappy about the cuts that Artur Mas has made to public health, education, social assistance and public sector pay during the financial crisis. Mas has blamed these cuts on Spain’s mishandling of the national economy. Very well: if that is true, he must now guarantee to restore, improve and protect public sending and investment in the event of independence.

2 – Will you now, and forever, forgo all claims on the territories in Spain and France sometimes referred to as the Catalan Countries?
I shouldn’t need to explain the importance of this question. The only chance of success as a state depends on France’s and Spain’s recognition. That won’t happen unless you formally reject territorial claims on Rosselló, Valencia, the Franja and the Balearics.

3 – What status for non-Spanish residents in Catalonia?
OK, this is a personal one, but it affects lots of people and many businesses. Will you now guarantee our status as permanent residents? What chances for citizenship will we have?

What hope for Spain?

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As the crisis in capitalism deepens, the situation in which Spain finds itself seems increasingly hopeless.

Pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to about Spain recently seems agreed that Spain – and maybe the world – is approaching some sort of cataclysmic reckoning. This sentiment might well be declared a sentimental form of millennialism – after all, aren’t we rich and comfortable enough to entertain fantasies of impending doom? – were it not for the gentle crackle you can hear in the air here. This crackle, this oceanic roar heard from a great distance, is the sound of millions of people waiting for the decisive moment at which they will try once again to reclaim their rights.

Spain is fucked. And not because of Berlin or London, but because of us, the Spaniards who have done nothing to stop Spain getting fucked. While Catalans moan about motorway tolls, Asturian miners are blockading motorways with flaming barricades. And protestors are being shot by police with rubber bullets (bullets that give the police a chance to shoot you multiple times rather than just once – possibly the highest embodiment of planned obsolescence at state/capital level), and Greece never quite got the revolution that seemed so possible just a few weeks ago.

Andrea Fabra, daughter of a repulsive conservative politician from Castelló, summed up the attitude of Spain’s political class with impressive candour this week. As PM Mariano Rajoy announced higher VAT (designed to hurt the poor) and deeper cuts to the unemployment benefits system (designed to hurt the hopeless), Fabra uttered the immortal words: “Fuck ’em!”. She wasn’t talking about her colleagues in the PP who joyfully applauded as Rajoy delivered the negative prognosis. She was referring to the 25% of Spaniards who are unemployed. “Fuck ’em!”, she declared because that’s how she and her colleagues feel about Spaniards in general. If you’re not bright enough to fuck everyone else, then fuck you.

The background crackle just intensified a little. Catalonia’s conservatives, CiU, have been making themselves busy recently finding ways to criminalise protest. One assumes that pro-flag, pro-independence protest will still be officially encouraged. We’ve had two useless general strikes in two years with decent turn-outs but no effect on policy. We had millions of people marching against an illegal war and the government ignored that too. It is clear that they do not listen to argument. And when protest is derided so openly by those in power, the same people who raise a regressive tax in order to pay off crooked banks, the citizens must use other tools to make themselves heard.

Someone told me the other day that the only way we in Spain can end this cycle of corrupt parasitism is with war but that understandably, no Spaniard wanted to recreate the disaster of the 1930s. I hope and pray that this is nothing more than sentimental millennialism. But at the same time, I can’t see a way out. What hope does this country have, then?

Supporting tomorrow’s general strike in Spain

Capital, Catalonia, PP, Spain, ,

With the approval of savage labor reforms and likely even more savage cuts to come, tomorrow’s general strike is a vital chance to show that working people in Spain are willing to stand up for themselves and say ENOUGH. We demand dignity.

Reasons for supporting the strike:

  • Even the PP accepts their reforms won’t increase employment
  • Spain is in recession, making job security more vital than ever
  • Workers can now be fired for 9 days’ medical leave, even with a doctor’s note
  • The reforms strike particularly harshly at the young and newly employed
  • The reforms are designed to destroy workers’ collective power
  • The reforms incentivize putting women on short-term contracts, widening the gender gap in the workplace
  • Emergency redundancies can now be declared even when a company is still growing

The PP and CiU are determined to destroy the hard-won social model in Spain. They try to blame public spending for the crisis but it’s the private sector that really caused these problems. So they’re introducing privatization into the health service, cuts to education budgets, cuts to civil service wages (not for diputados, though, of course), cuts to pensions… And all the while, unemployment grows.

This strike is a vital opportunity to express your anger at a set of labor reforms and spending cuts which won’t create employment but will only deepen the crisis for working people in Spain.

Garzón found guilty: I still love this stupid country

Politics, PP, Spain, , , ,

Spanish magistrate* Baltasar Garzón was today found guilty in an illegal wiretap trial, one of three cases currently open against him. The Supreme Court has banned him from working as a judge for eleven years, effectively ending his career as a famed ‘crusader for justice’.

The sentence leaves Garzón the only significant loser in the Gürtel corruption case which he was prosecuting. The case involves businessman Francisco Correa and numerous members of the ruling Popular Party. Valencian PP leader Francisco Camps was acquitted on corruption charges a few days ago.

The reason all this is so awful is that no one has any real doubt that Camps, Correa et al are guilty as hell. The evidence is there. Garzón’s defence (and I admit only a very shaky understanding of the law here) is that the wiretaps, which listened in on conversations between indicted suspects and their personal injury lawyer in bergen county, were justified on the basis that the hmong lawyers themselves were managing money-laundering operations for their clients. But again, that’s not even what’s wrong.

What’s wrong in Spain is a determination in a large part of the ruling class to stop anyone from challenging their corrupt way of running the country. The PP and the PSOE have both been accused of significant political corruption (though I think it’s fair to say that the most shockingly extravagant cases usually involve the PP). The courts are highly politicised and have accepted private prosecutions against Garzón (a poppinjay and ass as ever there was) which would have been dismissed without a thought in most countries.

But of course, Spain is not most countries. Just a few years ago, foreign journalists were impressed by the mydefence forward-looking example that Spain was setting for Europe. Garzón, social legislation, a seemingly stable economy with impressively low deficits… it almost seemed as if Spain had managed to get something right.

All this has been a great lesson for me… perhaps one of the most important I needed to learn in my journey towards becoming a Spaniard. This is not a country with a great history of democracy or getting things right. And the left here is generally even more inept than the right. And I love this country more every day, even though I know it’s a tough place which will displease me endlessly with its stubborn refusal to get things right. And I’m sticking by it. And I’ll do something to try to make it better: however Sisyphean a life’s task that might be.

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*Via email, the troublesome nomenclature of magistrate/judge/prosecutor has been pointed out. For the purposes of a nicer text, I’m going to stick with what I’ve already got. But yeah, he’s a judge.

Freedom for Francisco Camps! Death to Garzón!

Politics, PP, Spain, , , , ,

Francisco Camps, former PP president of the Valencian autonomous community was today acquitted of corruption after a witch-hunt in Valencia’s courts that has lasted nearly three years. The put-upon ex local party leader was ruled not guilty in a near-unanimous verdict of 5-4 by a jury this evening, after 15 hours deliberation. Today’s events bring to an end what has been a living nightmare for Camps, whose innocence we never doubted. Last year, he nearly pleaded guilty to the corruption charges just to end this farce of a kangaroo court; but on second thoughts (and after his two friends pleaded guilty that morning), he changed his mind and valiantly fought on. For justice, for liberty, for free gifts that definitely didn’t affect his decision making skills.

The devil behind this horror story of a near travesty of justice is none other than Baltasar Garzón, the crusading Marxist-Leninist investigative judge, famed for his collection of anti-PP tattoos. Camps will no doubt find some solace in the fact that Garzón remains on trial himself, for having the temerity to investigate the deaths of a paltry 114,000 people during Spain’s “long transition” (1939-1978). It’s a shame that Mañuel Fraga didn’t live to see the verdict delivered.

“Quin país de merda, tú!” – a traditional saying from Cerdanyola which roughly translates as “Freedom for Francisco Camps! Death to Garzón!”.

UPDATED: 2011 Spain election results live #20N

Catalonia, Politics, PP, Spain, ,

Spain election result: The right wing PP (Partido Popular) has won a massive victory in Spain’s general elections today. They have achieved an absolute majority, as well as controlling all of the regions of Spain except Catalonia and Euskadi (Basque Country).

Live updates below.

21:53 – With 67% of the vote counted, the PP has 187 seats for the PSOE’s 109.
In Catalonia, CiU looks like it could beat the PSC.

20:28 – Andalucia is the most important victory for the PP. They’ve achieved more voted there than the PSOE for the first time ever. The PSOE has lost about 10 seats in Andalucia. This is one of the poorest regions in Spain and many PSOE voters feel they have been forgotten about by the Madrid government.

20:23 – The Socialist PSOE has dropped by 14 points in Spain (‘2 million votes’) whereas the PP has increased its share of the vote by only 3.5 points. The PP will govern not because they’ve been chosen by a plurality but because the Socialist vote has withered so seriously.

Today’s elections in Spain will probably result in a significant PP victory. I’ll be updating this post from time to time with tasty morsels of doom. I’ll probably find some sort of widget to help me out too. My last blog post, about who will win Spain’s elections, why, and what that means, can be read here.

20:00 – First exit poll results: The PP has a clear absolute majority in Spain’s elections with up to 185 seats. The PSOE is down to 119.

In Catalonia: the PSC leads, followed by CiU and then the PP. The results here are not surprising: the PP has failed to overtake CiU or PSC. Iniciativa (Green/Communist) has done well. ERC maintains 3 seats. UPyD and fascist PxC have failed to win any seats.

19:44 – IMPORTANT: until 2000 (8 pm), the Spanish government prohibits actual results of the elections being reported. So we have to wait just over 15 minutes for first results.

19:30 – TV3 is also reporting that the cost of this year’s elections is 6% below 2008’s. Austerity in action.

19:00 – Catalonia ‘leads the decline in turnout’ according to TV3. They always find a way for Catalonia to be ahead of Spain.

18:30 – Voter turnout is down 3.3 points on 2008. This will likely benefit the right (PP).

Spain elections: the view from the edge of the precipice

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Mariano Rajoy’s PP will win tomorrow’s general elections in Spain. The size of the majority it achieves will shape Spanish and Catalan politics for the next few years.

The prospect of seeing the PP in power again after 8 years is not a happy one. While I’m no fan of the PSOE (I think I called them ‘the very worst party in Spain’ at one point, though I can’t find a link), my suspicion is that before long many who loathe the Socialists will remember how much more they loathed the PP last time they governed.

In Barcelona, the general mood seems to be one of totally ignoring these elections. After a swing to the right in recent Catalan and city hall elections, most people here seem to be trying to avoid thinking about having the PP in government. My prediction is that the turnout will be very low.

It is once the PP take over government (in a few weeks’ time, according to Spanish electoral law) that the dread will really set in. This is a party running for office in a country on the verge of massive economic disaster which has failed to express any coherent economic policies whatsoever. Their posters include slogans like “Primero, el Empleo” (Jobs First) but their policies will doubtless be savage cuts and successive rounds of redundancies and privatisation.

At the same time, it looks increasingly possible that Spain could be forced into needing a bailout from the European Central Bank or the IMF. I say ‘forced’ because categorcially, this does not need to happen. The pressure being applied to successive European countries is organised, focused and has at its core the aim to destroy the Euro. Politically, I’m no great fan of the EU. But forcing Spain’s exit from the Euro along with other countries in 2012 could threaten the very existence of the EU. I’d rather try to make it better for people.

In Catalonia, there are already some hints that the PP might try to buy an end to the Linguistic Immersion education policy with a fairer share of tax revenues. CiU, craven demagogues that they are, may well go for this. I worry too that fascist groups like ‘Plataforma Per Catalunya’ (Catalan fascists whose electoral pamphlets are seemingly only published in Castilian Spanish), may win a seat or two.

Finally, I expect this PP government to be faced with huge protests and strikes. One of the many problems with a PSOE government pushing through neo-liberal policies was the failure of the unions to properly challenge them. Now that the PP will be in government, there will be more inclination on the part of unions and workers to fight back. The Indignats (which inspired the Occupy movement in the USA) will also probably fight back harder: I’ll bet that more than a few Indignats have voted PSOE in the past and will do again, but that basically none of them are PP supporters. Also, the harder left wing party Izquierda Unida might fare better at the polls this year than for the last decade or so: they may be able to use this to force a more left wing opposition.

So here we are on the edge of a precipice, you and me. We face the prospect of a government which will not have won on merit but by default, with no policies for saving Spain’s economy, but hopefully with broad opposition from a curiously revitalised left. People might not be interested in these elections but the next four years will be anything but boring.

Francisco Camps resigns Valencia presidency after admitting bribery

Politics, PP, Spain

The PP president of Valencia, Francisco Camps, has finally resigned today [link in Catalan] after two years of outright lies in the Gürtel corruption case.

He started changing his story last week, after he said there ‘was a chance’ he received several suits and other items as gifts from companies involved in a huge corruption racket with the Valencian Generalitat. Today it became clear that Camps would ‘admit’ the charges of illegal bribery and pay a €46,000 fine – but avoid a trial which could take place during national elections in Spain this autumn. At first it seemed that he might also try to hold onto his office but that seems to have been ruled out either in Valencia or in Madrid.

Three other accused PP officials will also apparently admit the charges.

Did Rajoy finally pull his finger out and take control of the situation? Does Camps have dirt on lots of other PP members (as we have suspected for years)? Only time will tell: it will take one hell of a scandal to stop the PP winning this autumn. Bring it on.

Catalan PP continues its xenophobic campaign

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This morning on Els Matins, Barcelona mayoral candidate for the PPC (Catalan PP), Alberto Fernández, made it clear that his party is committed to the xenophobic campaign line it has been pursuing for some time here.

After declaring that “Yes“, he has “‘prejudices’ against immigrants” (‘nouvinguts’ or ‘newcomers’ in Catalan, a word which sounds nicer but is generally used in the same reactionary arguments), Fernández went on to insist that “immigrants should comply with the law that we ourselves comply with“. He also said that immigrants who need to apply for or renew their papers should have to go to the city hall and obatain a document to prove they “have no obstacles [sic] with anyone“, and that immigrants “who come to Catalonia to commit crime should be expelled“. Then he went on to claim that Barcelona has become “the capital of antisocial behaviour and crime” which should be dealt with via “a firm hand“.

If you’ve been following the language of the PP in Catalonia, none of this should come as a surprise. But that doesn’t make any of it less disgusting. Of course, we expect the hard right to be thoroughly unpleasant. And that’s why they should be opposed. That said, the two quotes which most got my attention were the ones about complying with the law and coming here to commit crime.

When Fernández says that immigrants should comply with the law, same as anyone else, that isn’t what he is saying. What he’s saying is “immigrants commit loads of crimes and they get away scot free”. I shouldn’t need to point out that the Generalitat has already changed the law concerning petty crime to make it easier to convict bag thieves on the Metro and the Rambles. But how many immigrants are bag thieves anyway? How many steal copper? And is he really talking about immigrants? I’m an immigrant in Catalonia. There are lots of other UK, Italian, French, German and Dutch immigrants here. Does he include them when he says “immigrants”, or does he just mean “immigrants from outside the EU”.

If you read the Shite Press in BCN (pretty much the only press available here), you may have noticed a generally accepted dichotomy between ‘comunitarios’ (‘EU citizens’) and ‘inmigrantes’ (‘immigrants’). What I’ve found hard to understand is that Romanians are often listed with the immigrants, even though they’re EU citizens. Because if, as I suspect, Fernández is talking about non-EU citizens except Romanians, then I think we’re on the verge of spotting where his real prejudice lies. But if, on the other hand, he means to include the French suspect in the Drassanes murder case then perhaps he means to include me in his use of ‘immigrants’. Which he almost certainly is not doing.

As to the immigrants who come here to commit crime, well there probably are a few. There are probably also Spaniards from elsewhere in Spain who come here to commit crime, and Catalans who live here to commit crime. The problem is: how do you prove that someone has come here to commit crime? You obviously can’t. The only thing he can mean is that immigrants who commit a crime should be expelled. And that leads us to the issue of definitions again.

If, as must happen, an immigrant commits a crime here without having come here with the express intention of committing that crime, that immigrant should not be expelled. Actually, Fernández didn’t say this, and it’s not logically safe to give him the benefit of the doubt here. No, he almost certainly means that any immigrant who commits any crime should be expelled.

And not once does he or that idiot Cuní state the percentage of crimes committed by immigrants, or the percentage of immigrants who commit crimes, or how those figures compare with people born here. So what we’re left with is the clear implication that immigrants and crime are somehow inextricably linked and that the best thing for it is expulsion and special treatment.

Don’t vote for the PP.