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https://jacobinmag.com/2017/12/pablo-iglesias-catalan-elections-podemos-spain
Some last words before the elections on 21 December 2017
from Jacobin maagazine 20 December 2017

AN INTERVIEW WITH
PABLO IGLESIASPodemos leader Pablo Iglesias talks to Jacobin about the Catalan elections, the future of Spain’s left, and the fight for state power.
NTERVIEW BY
Eoghan Gilmartin
Tommy Greene
This week’s regional elections in Catalonia bookend a turbulent year in Spanish politics. It began with Podemos’s heated party congress in the spring and was followed by the re-election of Pedro Sánchez as PSOE (Spain’s Socialist Party) leader, with the summer months dominated by speculation over a possible future pact between the two parties. A predictable string of Partido Popular (PP) corruption scandals then provided the backdrop to the attempted referendum in Catalonia on October 1, which has consumed the political agenda at year’s end.

The Spanish right have capitalized on the thorny complexities thrown up by the Catalan independence debate with a renewed campaign of nationalist fervor. Most polls indicate significant electoral gains for right-wing party Ciudadanos in Thursday’s election, while En Comu Podem, Podemos’s Catalonia affiliate, and radical independentists the CUP are struggling to make a breakthrough.

Meanwhile, the road ahead for Podemos nationally remains unclear. The party’s attempt to walk a tightrope during the crisis — endorsing Catalonia’s right to decide but proposing instead a new plurinational Spain — has drawn vitriol from the country’s right-wing establishment without managing to command significant support inside or outside the region.

But Pablo Iglesias remains defiant, arguing that his party’s proposal to the crisis in Catalonia remains the only viable way out of the deadlock. Podemos, he says, still offers Spain its best hope of a break with its political elites and their crisis-ridden regime. He spoke with Eoghan Gilmartin and Tommy Greene about his views on the Catalan crisis, the challenges it poses the country’s left, and Podemos’s enduring desire to transform Spain by winning state power.

Catalonia and the National Question

​The standoff in Catalonia has been one of the worst constitutional crises since Spain’s transition to democracy. How would you explain the events of the last few months to an international audience?

PI
Spain is a plurinational country. In some countries, this kind of composition is easily recognized. An example would be the UK, where English, Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish identities coexist. This is also the case in Belgium and Switzerland. There are other countries, however, where there is a clear correspondence between the state and the nation. This is the classic idea of the nation-state coming from the French and the American Revolutions, in which state and nation are aligned.

In Spain different national identities coexist but they do so in a way that is disjointed. For example, inside Catalonia, Spanish national sentiment also exists [as was seen with the recent pro-monarchy demonstrations in Barcelona] and this is also true of the Basque Country and Navarre. And, at the same time, there are territories in Spain with identities recognized as nationalities, although without having any intention of separating — such as the Valencian Community and Andalusia. As a consequence of these identities, there is political conflict as well as diverse institutional arrangements. Therefore, there are not only cultural differences but also distinct judicial systems, with different civil law in Catalonia to the one operating in Castile.

During recent months, we have witnessed the unfolding of the independentista strategy of unilateral “disconnection,” which has led to a dead end. We are now at a point where, on the one hand, we have a right-wing government backed by a broad block of pro-monarchy parties, as well as by the entire judiciary and the power of the state, which is unable to provide an inclusive proposal for Catalonia or to redefine the Spanish constitution territorially. On the other hand, we have an independence movement with an exhausted strategy: having seen what it entails to confront the central government, it is left with few moves going forward. Instead of this impasse, we need dialogue to reconstruct the state as a plurinational entity.

We in Unidos Podemos defend Catalonia’s right to a legally negotiated referendum. Though not pro-independence, we are in favor of recognizing Catalonia as a nation and see the need for a new constitutional framework, or adjustment, recognizing this fact.

TG
A number of Catalan leaders who had been imprisoned have been recently released on bail. But the escalation to the point they were imprisoned at all was remarkable. What do the last two months reveal about the state of Spanish democracy?

PI
The imprisonment of elected politicians reveals deficiencies in Spanish democracy. We have always talked in terms of political prisoners, even though this does not necessarily mean we agree with their core beliefs or strategies. We think that, in a democracy, political conflicts should be resolved through political channels, not with police intervention. There is no judicial solution to the Catalan problem but there are political solutions which will later inform the law. Democracy should be the source of the law, not the other way around.

It is outrageous that the current scale of corruption in the governing Partido Popular has been met with such impunity, while Catalan political leaders are imprisoned under charges that many legal officials see as having little basis. This has been made evident in the withdrawal of the demands for [Catalan Premier] Puigdemont’s extradition. The Spanish government feared that, in a Belgian court, no substantial charges could be pressed against him. This exceptional situation paints a worrying picture of receding democracy.

TG
What are the roots of the current crisis in Catalonia?

PI
The territorial crisis accelerated when the PP decided to rupture the territorial fabric of the country. There was an existing agreement in place that had been approved in Catalonia both by the Catalan people and parliament, as well as in the Spanish Congress. This agreement established a new Statute for Catalonia that would provide territorial guarantees which had not been covered in the constitutional text of 1978. The PP coerced the Constitutional Court into excluding some of the articles agreed upon in the statute and, in this way, the territorial setup was permanently impaired. Support for independence in Catalonia, which had always remained at around 10-15 percent of the [region’s] electorate, began to grow.

But the crisis is also part of a broader phenomenon: the political, constitutional, and social crises we have seen in recent years. So we need a new comprehensive agreement which enshrines social rights. This should recognize Catalonia as a nation, and should also convey the idea that different nations can share a state, and that the vision of Spain, understood as plurinational, can be appealing to all territorial sectors. We need an agreement that safeguards democratic institutions and protects them against corruption, one that guarantees and preserves judicial independence.

To achieve this we talk about a “constituent impulse,” rather than a constituent process. We still do not have the necessary consensus to realize some of these proposals. What we look to is the idea that there can be extended, meaningful debates within Spanish society about social rights which could lead to these kinds of constitutional reforms. Its end point would mean the construction and realization of a plurinational Spain both institutionally and democratically.

TG
The Right’s response to the crisis in Catalonia has been to wrap itself in the Spanish flag as a means of justifying repression and diverting attention away from uncomfortable realities. How potent is this as a strategy? And how can the Left answer it?

PI
Tactically, what they are doing is very intelligent, but strategically it is a disaster. On a tactical level, they have managed to wrap themselves in the flag so as to conceal and dissimulate a series of nationwide problems which had been hurting them politically, namely corruption and inequality. They feel comfortable in this position. This is something we try to communicate to the pro-independence sectors: effective politics implies generating contradictions in the opposing forces. If these contradictions are not revealed, you set the ground for your adversary to rally and unify.

In this sense, the hard-line speech given by the king on October 4 managed to unite a pro-regime monarchical bloc. It said to them that Catalonia is the priority and that they could survive by focusing on it. Politics is about the capacity to change things, not merely your principles. In fostering the unification of its adversary, something in the independence strategy went badly awry.

But, at a strategic level, the Right is completely lost. It is unable to offer any wider project of renewal for Spain. The discourse of the monarchy as well as the parties that support its line excludes large sectors of the population in Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Spain as a whole. They may have temporarily managed to gain the approval of the majority but they have left aside something the Right has attained in the past: the ability to compromise and reach agreement with its adversaries.

The famous encounter between Prime Minster Adolfo Suárez and the Catalan leader Josep Tarradellas in 1977 enabled the re-establishment of the republican institution of La Generalitat in Catalonia. It was an agreement between Spain’s traditional elites, the Basque elites, and the Catalan elites, and has to be seen as politically successful. Though terrible for the Left, it was capable of providing a national project that brought forty years of political stability.

The Right of today may still be comfortable holding power but they are unable to win legitimacy.

EG
You have talked about the need for a new plurinational patriotism in Spain. What would the content of this patriotism be?

PI
On the surface, the Spanish right has managed to equate the idea of Spain with the monarchy and the single nation-state. Pro-independence supporters embrace this reactionary vision of Spain. In fact, we are the political opponents the independentistas are most concerned about, since our idea of Spain is appealing to Catalonia and the Basque Country. One of the historic difficulties for the Spanish left after the civil war was how to combine an idea of Spain with its own political identity. To a certain degree Podemos has overcome this problem.

But our model implies dropping certain complexes and assumptions of the historic left. In particular, our symbols and narrative cannot be based on left-wing revenge for past defeats. For some of us, who are the grandchildren of those who lost the civil war and the children of anti-Franco militants, this can be painful. But it is something we need to recognize.

So when we say republican values can serve to inform a new idea of Spain that looks ahead to the future, we are referring to a plurinational Spain, one in which republican patriotism is understood as the reclaiming of civil dignity and of the res publica [public affairs]. The res publica stands for public schools, public education, state pensions. It means caring for the various peoples and citizens within Spain, declaring its pluralist identity.

EG
Is there a class dimension to this plurinational identity?

PI
I would say so, yes. When we speak about popular sectors and assert the rights of the social majority against the elites, we are making a diagnosis of the class composition of our country much more accurately than those who have a nostalgia for an industrial working class. We live in a society in which the fundamental characteristic of young people’s work is precariousness and that implies a form of cultural socialization very different from the traditional blue-collar jobs. In a tertiary society, wage earners do not have the same image, style, or characteristics as the working class of other periods.

At the same time, we also have to operate in a country with very complex national identities, so we have to be able to assimilate all these elements and make them our own. The Right is worried about us precisely because we managed to communicate a vision of the national-popular that can win, and that threatens their monopoly on state power.


EG
The recent debate in Podemos’s congress centered on whether the party should focus less on electoral politics and more on social movements. Ten months on, how do you reflect on that discussion?

PI
We trace our origins to the 15M [indignados] movement and the occupation of the city squares. But we also have to govern. And we have to govern while being aware that winning an election is hardly a revolution, particularly in a Western country where the popular classes demand a certain order and stability. We would face limits to do with globalization, the power of European institutions and the weight of nondemocratic powers, while also having to work with the PSOE.

But if governing was not important, despite these limits, the Right would not mobilize all its resources to stop us from taking office. In the major Spanish cities where we control the councils, we are showing that governing can change things and that progressive economic results are possible even under neoliberal conditions. We have been able to combine good economic management with increased social spending and improved public services, while also tackling environmental issues and corruption.

It is also essential to construct counterpower and popular movements in civil society. But these are not in opposition; it is much easier to do this when there is institutional support. A good example of this is the independence movement’s strength in Catalan society, which is in part because pro-independence parties have governed in Catalonia for a long time. When public television has a specific orientation and the institutions facilitate civil society organization and the creation of alternative forms of cultural production, it is possible to build up the strength of social movements.

One of the traditional errors of the Left has been to oppose social movements and institutional engagement. In reality, institutions are a determining factor that can nurture these popular movements. Podemos does not aspire to compete with the work of the movement but we do want to form a part of them, creating a dialectical relationship between social organization and institutional work.

We need a party with a trained cadre capable of governing but we also need activists who participate in social movements and who can create an internal democratic culture. This is not easy to build. The institutions have an enormous capacity for absorption and we have to be aware that despite being interrelated, movements and institutions will naturally experience contradictions and differences. But politics is exactly this — a dialectical relationship that involves fitting together contradictory realities.

EG
Another crucial question raised at the congress was your future relationship with the PSOE. How do you resolve the dilemma of having PSOE as a rival on the Left and part of the regime, and also a possible future partner in any government of the Left?

PI
This is a key question. In 2017, two striking parallel events occurred. First, at our party congress the corporate media attempted to intervene in our internal debates. Their aim was to destroy the party but they failed. It was the first time that the newspaper El Pais had been unable to condition the outcome of a left-wing party congress. The second thing that happened, which is even more remarkable, is the paper then failed to determine the outcome of the PSOE leadership contest.

Pedro Sánchez won the primaries last summer saying something relevant to the configuration of political forces in Spain. He talked of plurinationality, cooperation with Podemos and the need to bring down Rajoy’s minority administration. I have no real confidence in Sánchez’s personal project but at a certain moment he seemed to be a figure that was willing to govern with us and who was open to dialogue on the national-territorial issue. It was an interesting scenario, in which it was possible to imagine a Spanish government willing to tackle the social crisis while also assuming responsibility for the territorial conflicts within the state.

Ultimately, though, the maneuvers of the last few months have made this more difficult, with the pieces of the political chessboard now placed in a way that favors the Right. As we go forward, Podemos has to return to the type of intelligent strategies that allow for the creation of contradictions in our adversaries, taking advantage of internal tensions to break open the pro-regime bloc. Winning in politics is not merely about accumulating your own support, it is never a simple clash between two opposed forces. You have to be able to make other actors, who will continue to exist, move their positions and eventually become allies.

There are many complex factors. We have to concentrate on redirecting the situation towards a scenario in which social rights, inequality, and the fight against corruption are the center of political debate, rather than the war of the flags.

TG
What is Podemos’s path to government today? And what would be the prospects for such a government in the current European disposition?

PI
With or without the sorpasso [Podemos overtaking PSOE], I believe Spain will only see a progressive change of government if Podemos and the PSOE reach an agreement. What matters during these moments is not who comes out on top, but the shared will for a political agreement to work in government in a different way.

From there, we have to understand that the challenge of constructing a new Europe is a complex one. We need alliances but these alliances do not always work simultaneously. Alexis Tsipras and Syriza suffered the misfortune of winning an election at a time when they didn’t have any allies in Europe. They tried to reach out to Matteo Renzi; he turned his back on them. The same happened with François Hollande. They found themselves to be a small and weak state, with Germany using their own threat of leaving the EU against them.

The experiences of the Portuguese government are interesting. It is not a revolutionary government, but it has demonstrated that fiscally expansive policies, without cuts, can produce economic results. It is a small country where the Socialist Party governs alone with the support of Bloco da Esquerda and the Communists, who do not have as many votes as we do. Nor is there territorial conflict in Portugal as there is in Spain. But a government in Spain could be capable of creating a territorial dialogue as well as more social policies which challenge the neoliberal direction of European politics.

Spain is the fourth-largest economy in the eurozone. It is not a minor country, but it would probably have to push and work for alliances with other countries. Of course, we hope Jean-Luc Mélenchon will be the next president of the French Republic. We hope something similar happens in countries which don’t now seem to have such viable options. We are disappointed about the difficult situation the Italian left finds itself in, since it is the country we have studied and learned from most. The Five Star movement occupies the main critical space and, although it has some brave people, its political coordinates are quite a distance from our own.

We also look to the UK, where a victory for the Labour movement under Jeremy Corbyn would be tremendous. In the US it is clear that Bernie Sanders would have been the best alternative to Trump, and we hope for Sanders or a similar candidate to emerge there for the coming election.

But we cannot disregard or underestimate the rise of the far right. We are in a political scenario that is redolent of the 1930s. There are some interesting possibilities open in a progressive sense at present, but there is also a reactionary side to the scenario we find ourselves in, where new forms of fascism could appear. The contest is open. We will have to see.

This BBC Report contains several videos.
For the full report go to http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29478415

Spain has imposed direct rule on Catalonia in response to the restive north-eastern region's most dramatic bid yet for independence.
Catalan leaders have been remanded in prison or have fled into exile since the regional parliament declared an independent republic in October.
The sight of police beating voters and politicians being jailed revived disturbing memories, for some, of Spain's authoritarian past.
However, Madrid insists the roll-back of autonomy is only temporary, and much rides on an early election in the region on 21 December.
How did we get here?
Catalonia is one of Spain's wealthiest and most productive regions and has a distinct history dating back almost 1,000 years.
Before the Spanish Civil War it enjoyed broad autonomy but that was suppressed under Gen Francisco Franco's dictatorship from 1939-75.
When Franco died, the region was granted autonomy again under the 1978 constitution, and the region prospered along with the rest of the new, democratic Spain.
A 2006 statute granted even greater powers, boosting Catalonia's financial clout and describing it as a "nation", but Spain's Constitutional Court reversed much of this in 2010.
Recession and cuts in public spending fuelled local resentment, which coalesced in a powerful secessionist movement.
Following a trial referendum in November 2014, outlawed by Spain, separatists won the 2015 regional election and went on to win a full referendum on 1 October 2017, which was also banned and boycotted by unionists.
When the Catalan parliament declared outright independence, Madrid cracked down hard, arguing that it was upholding the constitution, which states that Spain is indivisible.
With no international recognition and little sympathy among mainstream EU politicians for their cause, the secessionists have not been able to implement their breakaway.
Do Catalans really want to leave?
There was just one question on the 1 October ballot paper: "Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?"
With no proper monitoring of the vote, which saw riot police attempting to shut down polling stations by force, it is not possible to say with certainty how much support there really was for independence.
According to the Catalan authorities, some 90% voted to leave Spain but turnout was only 42%.
Given that unionist parties won 39% of the legal vote in 2015, it can be fairly assumed a substantial minority rejected independence by staying at home.
What does Catalonia mean to the rest of Spain?
Depending on your view, Barcelona is primarily either Catalonia's capital or Spain's second city.
It has become one of the EU's best-loved city break destinations, famed for its 1992 Summer Olympics, trade fairs, football and tourism.
Catalonia is one of Spain's wealthiest regions, making up 16% of the national population and accounting for almost 19% of Spanish GDP.
Generations of people from poorer parts of Spain have moved there for work, forming strong family bonds with regions such as Andalusia.
Does Madrid really milk Catalonia?There is a widespread feeling that the central government takes much more than it gives back although the complexity of budget transfers makes it hard to judge exactly how much more Catalans contribute in taxes than they get back from investment in services such as schools and hospitals.
According to 2014 figures, Catalonia paid about €10bn (£9bn; $12bn) more to Spain's tax authorities than it received in spending - the equivalent of 5% of its GDP.
Meanwhile, state investment in Catalonia has dropped: the 2015 draft national budget allocated 9.5% to Catalonia - compared with nearly 16% in 2003.
But some argue that is a natural state of affairs in a country with such regional economic disparities.
Why does the 21 December election matter so much?
Despite the fact that Madrid called the vote, separatist parties have embraced it and essentially the same choices are on offer to voters as in 2015.
They can choose between separatist and unionist parties, and those attempting to stay neutral by campaigning on social issues instead.
What is more, the costs of actual independence have been illustrated vividly by the events of this autumn, from the cold shoulder shown by the international community to the potential withdrawal of big business from the region.
A clear victory by the secessionists would do much to vindicate their cause, if not in Spain then perhaps abroad. The opposite is also true, of course.

​Both the ruling PP party and Catalonia’s independentists are using the national question to whitewash their own history of corruption and enthusiasm for austerity.“Franco has died,” read the tongue-in-cheek headline of the November 11 editorial in El País, Spain’s self-proclaimed newspaper of record. The headline recalled the televised announcement on November 20, 1975, by then prime minister Arias Navarro informing the nation of its leader’s passing—and, unwittingly, of Chevy Chase’s running gag on Saturday Night Live (“Generalissimo Franco is still dead”). The editorial meant to poke fun at foreign commentators who resort to comparisons with the Franco regime to describe the way Spain’s central government has handled Catalonia’s bid for independence. On November 5, Belgium’s former prime minister Elio Di Rupo branded Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy an “authoritarian Francoist” on Twitter. These comparisons are “absurd,” El País wrote, calling Di Rupo’s claim “offensive,” “intolerable,” and equivalent to calling Angela Merkel “a totalitarian Nazi.” “Spain is a mature democracy,” the paper countered, echoing what by now has become Rajoy’s mantra: “España es una gran nación.”
The editorial expressed concern with Spain’s deteriorating image abroad. But its defensive tone also betrayed insecurity. The escalation of the conflict over Catalonia since early September has revealed the depth of Spain’s constitutional crisis, which the central government’s harsh response to the Catalan challenge has only served to deepen. The government’s approach has also undermined judicial independence, eroded civil liberties, and reversed decades’ worth of decentralization. Meanwhile, Rajoy and his party, the conservative Partido Popular (PP), have used the Catalan conflict to their advantage. Over the past two months, the standoff with Catalonia has conveniently served to distract from revelations of rampant corruption in the PP. The Catalan right has borrowed from Rajoy’s playbook, also using the escalation of tensions to whitewash its own history of corruption and enthusiasm for austerity.


But how did we get here? Following Catalonia’s October 1 referendum, a month-long game of chicken between Madrid and Barcelona ensued. The Catalan government threatened to follow through on the vote’s independence promise—43 percent turnout with over 90 percent in favor—unless Madrid sat down at the negotiating table. Madrid, meanwhile, threatened to revoke the region’s self-rule unless Catalonia disavowed the referendum, which Spain’s Constitutional Court had declared illegal. On October 27, after feverish last-ditch attempts to reach a deal failed, things came to a head. The Catalan parliament voted for independence; the Spanish senate approved the imposition of direct rule. Rajoy’s government swiftly dissolved the Catalan parliament, fired President Carles Puigdemont and his cabinet, and called for new regional elections on December 21.
The deposed Puigdemont immediately fled to Brussels with some of the members of his cabinet. In the days that followed, some of the remaining cabinet members, including Vice President Oriol Junqueras, were preventively jailed by the country’s National Criminal Court on charges of rebellion, sedition, and embezzlement, while other members of parliament faced similar charges in the country’s Supreme Court. (Earlier in October, two Catalan civil-society leaders had also been jailed on sedition charges.) Puigdemont, who turned himself over to a Belgian court that is studying a European arrest warrant from Spain, has meanwhile announced that he’ll be a front-runner in the upcoming elections, although he disputes the legality of the manner in which they were called.
For December’s regional elections, many predict a result similar to the 2015 polling, when pro-independence parties lost the popular vote but won a parliamentary majority.
The elections have been presented as a regional “reset.” But many forecasts predict a very similar result to the region’s 2015 elections, in which pro-independence parties narrowly lost the popular vote but commanded a parliamentary majority. Unlike in 2015, this time there will be no broad pro-independence coalition. But pro-independence parties, which in addition to Puigdemont’s center-right party (PDeCAT) include the Left Republicans (ERC) and the radical Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), may well end up, once again, with a majority of seats in the Catalan parliament, prompting a potential repetition of moves in a Catalan version of Groundhog Day.
Still, the past several weeks have clarified a number of key issues in this latest chapter in the Catalan saga. First, the Catalan government never really meant to become independent—at least not anytime soon. Second, Catalans are deeply divided over independence. Third, the crisis has provided the central government in Madrid a golden opportunity to divide the opposition and curb not only regional self-rule but constitutional rights more broadly. And, finally, the crisis has served to embolden all sectors of the Spanish right, from neo-fascists to neoliberals. The young anti-independence Ciudadanos (Citizens), once considered a buttoned-up pro-business party, has increasingly embraced the right-wing populism that is so popular elsewhere in Europe. Today, Ciudadanos is soaring in the polls.
The Catalonia crisis has provided the government in Madrid a golden opportunity to divide the opposition and curb not only regional self-rule but constitutional rights more broadly.
The divisive effects of the recent escalation have been most devastating in Catalonia itself, which in two months’ time has seen a massive influx of Spanish police, a corporate exodus, half a dozen mass demonstrations—both for and against independence—and two general strikes. Although many Catalans would like to remain part of Spain, support for an independent republic is strong among nearly half of the population. An overwhelming four-fifths’ majority supports the right to self-determination. Yet the politicians who claimed to guide Catalonia toward a bright, independent future turned out to have no actual plan in place. For the journalist Guillem Martínez, this was obvious from the beginning. In his view, the “road map toward independence” that the Catalan government has brandished since 2012 was little more than an opportunistic ploy, part of an elaborate game to shore up electoral support, force Madrid to allow Catalonia more fiscal autonomy, and hide the dirty laundry of President Puigdemont’s party, which has rebranded itself as the Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT). Even the culminating parliamentary vote on October 27, it turns out, was not quite a declaration of independence but a nonbinding proposition urging the Catalan government to proclaim the republic, which it never actually did.
Back in Madrid, the Spanish central government conveniently pretended that it had. Invoking Article 155 of Spain’s Constitution, it suspended 40 years’ worth of regional self-government with a stroke of the pen. Prime Minister Rajoy presented a battery of unprecedented measures—not just the dissolution of the Catalan parliament but the takeover of all government functions, including the police force, the educational system, and public radio and television—as necessary steps to restore the rule of law and return to “normalcy.” But governing Catalonia now is the PP, a party that in the last regional elections came in fifth with just over 8 percent of the vote, while the democratically elected government is in prison or facing jail sentences.
Despite the PP’s stark zero-tolerance approach, its endgame, too, is far from clear. Driving Rajoy’s actions, it seems, is a thirst for punishment driven by short-term electoral interests, a deep-seated ideological investment in the unity of Spain, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to thwart constitutional and political change. The prime minister’s decision to call for elections early, setting a clear and short-term endpoint to the revocation of Catalan self-government, was widely praised as an exercise of restraint. Behind it, however, was a threat of further intervention from both the executive and the judicial branches. In an October 29 interview with the national newspaper El Mundo, PP parliamentary spokesman Pablo Casado warned that the actions of the Catalan leadership “will not remain unpunished.” He also put the rest of Spain’s 17 autonomous communities on notice. “Article 155 is a warning. Any secessionist challenge, whatever the majority it may have, is not going to succeed.” Talking about Catalonia, he stated categorically that the region “has never been independent, and never will be.”
The PP’s standoff with Catalonia began in 2006, when the party, then in the opposition, filed an appeal with Spain’s Constitutional Court against a newly approved statute of autonomy for the region. Since then, the PP has repeatedly resorted to the judiciary to do its political dirty work, using the attorney general as an extension of the executive branch to put pressure on the courts in an attempt to cow political opponents. The PP has also used the Constitution and recent changes to security legislation—known as the ley mordaza, or “gag law”—to curb freedom of assembly and press coverage. Conservative members of Spain’s judiciary have been happy to play along. In recent years, rap artists, puppeteers, Twitter personalities, and comedians have found themselves in court facing charges of “extolling terrorism” or “offending religious sentiments,” while journalists have been charged with “disobeying authority” and slapped with hefty fines for such actions as stepping from the sidewalk into the street during a demonstration in defense of press freedom. On November 17, Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that the crime of extolling terrorism can even apply to a retweet.
In late October, the anti-corruption prosecutor delivered a devastating report that wrapped up a decade-long investigation into the illegal financing of the PP.
Leftist Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau, Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias, and many others in recent weeks have called the jailed Catalan politicians and the two civil-society leaders “political prisoners.” The right’s push to criminalize legitimate political positions may lead not just to the detention of political leaders but to the banning of political parties. Casado, the PP spokesperson, has approvingly recalled the prohibition, in the 1990s, of Herri Batasuna, the Basque party linked with ETA, the terrorist pro-independence group, suggesting, in so many words, that political parties in favor of Catalan independence should therefore be illegal. Ironically, Spain has a legal fascist party, whose vocal members have, in recent weeks, been seen brandishing Francoist flags, making fascist salutes, singing fascist hymns, and violently attacking anti-fascist protesters. The PP leadership has been slow to condemn these actions. In fact, the PP has long resisted calls to bring Spain in line with other European countries by making fascist symbols illegal.
he most consequential outcome of the Catalan crisis may have little to do with the crisis itself: It has served to distract citizens from the wide-ranging corruption revelations in the Partido Popular. In late October, during the days leading up to the independence vote in the Catalan Parliament, anti-corruption prosecutor Concepción Sabadell delivered a devastating report that wrapped up a decade-long investigation into the illegal financing of the PP. Sabadell is in charge of the Gürtel case, named after the mastermind of the corruption ring, Francisco Correa, whose last name means “belt” in Spanish (Gürtel in German). Sabadell’s report confirmed that several of the PP’s regional branches, as well as its national headquarters, for many years kept a set of shadow books to log illegal commissions pocketed from corporations in exchange for major government contracts. Among the direct beneficiaries of these commissions were middlemen (Correa and his accomplices), dozens of PP politicians (who received bribes or under-the-table salary supplements directly from the party’s treasurer), and the party organization itself, which used the money, among other things, to finance its campaigns—in effect undermining the legitimacy of the elections.
When Prime Minister Rajoy was called to testify in the case, in late July, he claimed he did not know about the corruption scheme because he had never been in charge of the party’s finances. He also denied ever having received payouts from the shadow books. But that testimony was undermined on November 7, when Manuel Morocho, chief inspector of the economic and fiscal delinquency unit of Spain’s national police, testified before a congressional committee charged with investigating the PP’s illegal financing. Asked whether he believed that Prime Minister Rajoy had been the recipient of under-the-table payouts, he confirmed there was evidence to indicate that he did. Morocho’s investigation of the party, so far, extends back to 1999 and includes all of the party’s leaders and treasurers. He described having found “corruption in its purest form” but lamented the party’s numerous attempts to “destabilize” his investigation through spurious lawsuits. While such revelations would be grounds for Rajoy’s impeachment, its coverage in major newspapers has been minimal and, on Spanish public television, practically nonexistent.
The Gürtel case, moreover, is only one of many such investigations keeping the Spanish courts busy. In mid-November, Francisco Granados, a former top PP official in the regional government of Madrid, faced trial for his involvement in a similar corruption scheme. Meanwhile, on November 15, the PP itself was criminally charged for tampering with evidence. (In 2013, the party leadership ordered the destruction of two hard drives that potentially contained data on its shadow books.) On November 17, a trial opened against former PP economy minister and IMF director Rodrigo Rato, for cooking the books during his tenure at the helm of Bankia, a major Spanish bank.
Behind a cloak of martyrdom, Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont and his party have blurred the memory of their own corruption scandals.
These cases point to the measure of independence that parts of the Spanish judiciary have managed to maintain. But, more consistently, they have revealed the high level of collusion between the executive branch and the courts. An intercepted phone conversation between an indicted PP official and a former PP minister in a parallel case, for instance, showed how the official was able to influence a key judicial appointment that directly affected his case. Such dealings behind closed doors are assumed, by many Spaniards, to be commonplace.
Just as the Catalan crisis has served to distract from PP corruption, it has also given the Catalan right an opportunity to whitewash its own image. Behind a cloak of martyrdom, Puigdemont and his party have blurred the memory of their own corruption scandals—also based on systematic illegal commissions in exchange for major contracts. And, today, many no longer remember their implementation of harsh austerity measures in the wake of the Great Recession and the violent repression of citizen protests that followed. “The conflict with Madrid has helped improve the image of the Catalan right,” the journalist Emilio Silva told us. “In the speech he gave after Rajoy fired him as president, Puigdemont spoke of a Catalan Republic whose citizens would live in equality, liberty, and fraternity. Well, that’s the same Puigdemont who, as mayor of the city of Girona, put padlocks on supermarket dumpsters to prevent those who had no other resources from taking food from them.”
What might sound like electoral catnip for the opposition has been anything but. In the Spanish Parliament, where the PP governs without an absolute majority, the Catalan crisis has somehow further divided the country’s two largest opposition parties, the social-democratic PSOE and the young anti-austerity party Podemos. While the PSOE supported the imposition of direct rule in Catalonia, Podemos has from the outset argued that the only political solution to the Catalan challenge is a binding referendum on self-determination. The PSOE’s submissive role as a handmaiden to the PP’s hard-line centralism has alienated its progressive allies in Catalonia. (Its party leadership went ahead with supporting the PP’s invocation of Article 155 without consulting its membership, a move some believe was meant to avoid an internal vote against the deal.) But Podemos’s middle-of-the-road position, too, would likely punish the party at the ballot box were a national election to be held anytime soon. The Catalan crisis, fueled by a politicized media, has polarized opinion around issues that for many in Spain are deeply emotional. Any political stance that falls somewhere between strongly pro-independence and strongly anti-independence has little galvanizing power. To make matters worse, the issue has caused fractures within Podemos. Ciudadanos, by contrast, whose aggressive Spanish nationalism in response to the Catalan independence movement has pulled the PP even further to the right, is seeing its support skyrocket.
The collusion among corporate, political, and media elites that the scandals reveal has long been the bedrock of what many in Spain call “the regime of 1978”: the political order that emerged from the negotiated transition from the Franco dictatorship to a parliamentary monarchy. It was against this order, which featured an insurmountable two-party system, that, in 2011, thousands of “indignant” Spaniards took to plazas across the country in protest. Three years later, Podemos was created in order to break it. But the elites in Madrid and Barcelona, today at each other’s throats, have both bought themselves new leases on life, quelling the once-powerful citizen critique.
Still, the hope for political renewal remains strongest in the three bilingual regions that have long had their own national identity: Catalonia, Galicia, and the Basque Country. In all three regions, the presence of nationalist parties since the transition to democracy meant that the two-party system never fully took hold. It is there, too, that Podemos and its allies have made their deepest inroads, leaving the country’s two major parties, PSOE and the PP, with barely more than a residual presence. For the December 21 elections in Catalonia, Podemos has joined Catalunya en Comú (“Catalonia in Common”), founded last year by Barcelona mayor and former anti-eviction activist Ada Colau, and headed up by Xavier Domènech, a charismatic historian from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Although “Els Comuns” are being outpolled by the pro-independence ERC and PDeCAT, they may well end up playing a key role in the formation of a regional government if the pro-independence bloc falls short of a parliamentary majority. With their focus on the economy, they are well-placed to siphon progressive votes from two of the three pro-independence parties, ERC and CUP. Electoral success would allow Domènech and Colau to push the focus away from independence and toward the economy. It also may put into play what they see as the only political solution to the national question: a binding referendum.
Decentralization and regional self-rule enjoy broad support in Spain, especially in the regions furthest removed from Madrid. One of those is the Basque Country. One of the key figures in the failed attempt to reach a negotiated solution between Madrid and Barcelona at the end of October was the president of the Basque Country, Íñigo Urkullu, who belongs to the conservative Basque Nationalist Party (PNV). Three days after Catalan self-rule was revoked, on October 30, Urkullu visited Quebec. In a little-publicized speech to the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations, he called on the European Union to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Referencing the Clarity Act adopted in response to Quebec’s 1995 referendum for independence, Urkullu expressed the need for a similar directive from Europe. This, he said, would provide an answer to the question that Brussels has so far refused to consider: “What should be the democratic response from a European state when, in its midst, a people has repeatedly, and by a majority, expressed a desire to decide on the status of its sovereignty, co-sovereignty, or interdependence?” “Democracy,” he added, “means that all ideas may be defended”—but also, if they enjoy majority support, that “they may eventually materialize.”


Sebastiaan FaberSebastiaan Faber is a professor of Hispanic Studies at Oberlin College.

Bécquer SeguínBécquer Seguín is an assistant professor of Iberian studies at Johns Hopkins University.
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