Catalan
separatists win election and claim it as yes vote for breakaway
Spain
set for political crisis as regional government election result spurs
coalition on with plans for independence
Catalonian head
votes in de facto independence election
Ashifa Kassam in
Barcelona
Monday 28 September
2015 00.26 BST Last modified on Monday 28 September 2015 08.40 BST
Separatists took
control of Catalonia’s regional government in an election result
that could plunge Spain into one of its deepest political crises of
recent years, by forcing Madrid to confront an openly secessionist
government at the helm of one of its wealthiest regions.
A record-breaking
number of Catalans cast their vote in Sunday’s election, billed as
a de facto referendum on independence. With more than 98% of the
votes counted, the nationalist coalition Junts pel Sí (Together for
Yes) were projected to win 62 seats, while far-left pro-independence
Popular Unity Candidacy, known in Spain as CUP, were set to gain 10
seats, meaning an alliance of the two parties could give
secessionists an absolute majority in the region’s 135-seat
parliament.
“We won,” said
Catalan leaderArtur Mas i Gavarró, as a jubilant crowd waved
estelada flags at a rally in Barcelona. “Today was a double victory
– the yes side won, as did democracy.”
After attempts by
Catalan leaders to hold a referendum on independence were blocked by
the central government in Madrid, Mas sought to turn the elections
into a de facto referendum, pledging to begin the process of breaking
away from Spain if Junts pel Sí won a majority of seats.
His party fell six
seats short of a majority on Sunday. But Mas vowed to push forward
with independence. “We ask that the world recognise the victory of
Catalonia and the victory of the yes,” he said. “We have won and
that gives us an enormous strength to push this project forward.”
Junts pel Sí,
representing parties from the left and right, as well as grassroots
independence activists, captured 39.7% of the vote, while CUP
received 8.2%. The result leaves the separatists with 47.9% of the
vote, shy of the 50%, plus one seat, that they would have needed if
Sunday’s vote had been a real referendum.
It’s a result that
will leave the movement struggling to gain legitimacy on the world
stage, said political analyst Josep Ramoneda, while setting Madrid
and Barcelona on course for a collision. “The government in
Catalonia will try to move forward with independence, but this result
won’t allow them to take irreversible steps,” he said, pointing
to a declaration of independence as an example. “I mean, nobody
will recognise that.”
Instead, Catalonia
will be left to face Madrid alone, who will seek to stymie any
attempts to move forward with independence. The Spanish prime
minister, Mariano Rajoy, has vowed to use the full power of the
country’s judiciary to block any move towards independence.
In recent years,
Rajoy and his governing conservative People’s party (PP) have
refused to address underlying grievances over Catalonia’s language
and identity, as well as concerns that the region pays more in taxes
than it receives in investments and transfers from Madrid. Instead,
his party repeatedly turned to the country’s constitutional court
to shut down the process, backed by the Spanish constitution, which
does not allow regions to unilaterally decide on sovereignty.
On Sunday, Catalans
rebuffed the PP strategy in the region, giving them 11 seats, down
from 19 seats in the previous elections and one of the party’s
poorest showings ever in the Catalan regional parliament. “These
are not the results we expected or wanted,” Xavier García Albiol,
the PP leader in Catalonia said on Sunday.
The PP emerged as
one of the election’s biggest losers, said Emilio Sáenz-Francés,
a professor of history and international relations at Madrid’s
Comillas Pontifical University. “This is a disastrous result for
the PP.” The result is a continuation of a downward trend for the
PP, he added, pointing to May’s regional and municipal elections,
which saw them lose 2.5m votes.
More than a club:
FC Barcelona and Catalonia’s road to independence
Many Catalans
opposed to independence instead turned to centre-right Ciutadans, the
regional arm of Ciudadanos. The party more than doubled its number of
elected officials from 2012, from 9 to 25, making them the
second-strongest party in the new Catalan parliament. “They are
constitutionalists with ideas that are much clearer than the PP,”
said Sáenz-Francés. “And above all, they have something that is
extremely important right now in Spain, and that is new faces.”
Rather than giving
the separatists a strong mandate, Sunday’s election simply
reinforced that Spain has a problem, said Sáenz-Francés. “While
the headline is not ‘Catalonia votes in favour of independence and
Spain breaks apart’, it’s rather ‘Spain has to face the problem
of Catalonia’s integration’.”
Whether or not
Catalonia’s newest parliament will be able to successfully address
this issue may depend on whether Junts pel Sí, made up of forces
from the left and right of the political spectrum, can find common
ground with the far-left CUP.
CUP has said it
favours moving forward with independence if separatists win a
majority of seats and votes. They have also taken aim at the idea of
Mas leading the transitional government, pointing to the austerity
measures implemented by his centre-right government and hinting at
the string of corruption scandals that have plagued his party,
Democratic Convergence, in recent years.
On Sunday evening,
CUP member Anna Gabriel said the independence project would continue,
but noted that “Artur Mas isn’t essential”. CUP has also
lobbied for a more immediate break with Spain, rather than the
18-month timeline charted by Junts pel Sí.
Any alliance with
CUP may also modify the route to independence envisioned by Junts pel
Sí. Mas has said the transitional government’s first step would be
a declaration, made within days of taking office, proclaiming the
beginning of the process to break away from Spain. From there, the
priority of the government would be to sit down with Madrid and
European institutions to address issues such as the management of
shared borders, the energy grid and the Ebro river basin.
The creation of
state structures will also begin – from a diplomatic service to a
central bank – to be ready in time for the proclamation of a new
Catalan state. Plans for the first of these new state structures, a
regional tax agency modelled on that of Sweden and Australia, was
halted by Spain’s constitutional court earlier this month after the
court agreed to hear a challenge lodged by the central government in
Madrid.
The same fate could
befall many of the state structures envisioned by Mas. Last week, the
Spanish prime minister said Madrid would continue to use the courts
to block any move towards Catalan independence. “We would go to the
constitutional court. And that’s the way it is. Full stop,” Rajoy
told broadcaster Onda Cero.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário