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Pro-Independence parties win Catalan elections
Jordi Oriola Folch    Off_Guardian , 17 February 2021
off-guardian.org/2021/02/16/pro-independence-parties-win-catalan-elections/


For the third time in a row, the Catalan pro-independence movement wins with an absolute majority in the Catalan elections. It has won resoundingly with 74 seats, more than the 68 that establishes the majority (in the previous elections it had won with 70). This time also with 51.22% of the votes, making it the majority among the voters.

The elections were due next year, but they were brought forward because the Spanish courts overthrew Catalan President Joaquim Torra for having disobeyed an electoral board that ordered him to take down a banner criticising the imprisonment of Catalan politicians. The President refused, citing freedom of expression, and the Spanish judiciary considered that the contempt was sufficient to force the removal of the President of the Parliament of Catalonia and cause the elections to be brought forward.

Furthermore, after consulting experts on the pandemic, the provisional Catalan executive decided to postpone the elections for five months until the third wave of Covid-19 had subsided. However, yet again, the Spanish judiciary interfered forcing the elections to be held on 14th February.

This is the same Spanish Justice that keeps 9 Catalan politicians and activists in prison, that has issued search and arrest warrants against 7 exiled Catalan politicians (which the German and Belgian courts rejected because they did not see the accusations as justified or because they understood that there were no guarantees of a fair trial in Spain), it is the same Spanish Justice that maintains the search and arrest warrant against a Majorcan musician –exiled in Belgium– for singing against the King of Spain and that is imminently going to imprison another Catalan musician, Pablo Hasel, for also having sung against the King.

In this context, and despite having the entire state apparatus and the Spanish press against them, independence has won again, and has done so obtaining a larger absolute majority than ever and with over 51% of the votes. In front of the pro-independence movement, we have the former Spanish socialist health minister during the pandemic, who has had the full support of the state, the press and unionism in general, and also the Spanish extreme-right of VOX, which has burst onto the Catalan Parliament with 11 seats.

Given this scenario, the Spanish state and the European Union cannot deny the right of self-determination of Catalan society, which must be expressed in a referendum with democratic guarantees, transparency and without foul play.

All in all, democracy is about allowing citizens to decide at the ballot box, not about violating their will with the application of laws that should in fact serve to guarantee there is a framework that respects what societies want for themselves.

Jordi Oriola i Folch is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and founder of Transforma Films. His work has been broadcast on television stations around the world and touches on issues of human rights, sustainability, democratic participation and community work, historical memory and the economic crisis. He has also taught audiovisual classes in the Basque Country, Catalonia, South America and Africa. He can be reached through his website or twitter.



https://english.elpais.com/society/2021-02-08/spain-approaches-end-of-phase-1-of-covid-vaccination-campaign.html

El Pais - PABLO LINDE
Madrid - 08 FEB 2021 
Spain approaches end of phase 1 of Covid vaccination campaign

Spain’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign is entering the final stages of the process of immunizing residents of senior residences, while the majority of healthcare workers have also received their first jab – many have also got the second. Meanwhile, the final part of this first phase, inoculating adults with need for daily assistance even if they are not in residential care, has begun in the Canary Islands, Murcia and Navarre. This process is expected to get going in the rest of the country before the middle of February.

EL PAÍS has collected statistics in an attempt to take a snapshot of where the vaccination process has got to in Spain and these are the principal conclusions. Despite a year having passed since the first coronavirus infections having been detected in the country, the system for collecting data on the health crisis is still deficient. The Health Ministry has not centralized the collection of information on the vaccination process and just 11 of the country’s 17 autonomous regions have supplied sufficiently detailed figures.
The process is both complex and flexible. The first three groups in phase 1 of the campaign overlap in order to optimize the process, and so that it continues without pause. Healthcare workers started receiving the vaccine before the process finished in senior residences, and adults with need for daily assistance will start being immunized before all healthcare staff have had their doses.

Along the same lines, some regions are already planning for the over-80s – who are the first group in phase 2 – to start the process before phase 1 has finished. There are around 380,000 adults with need for daily assistance, and they are a complicated group to vaccinate given that home visits are often needed. It could be more efficient to vaccinate non-dependent seniors at the same time – this group is made up of 2.8 million people and accounts for six in every 10 Covid deaths in Spain. In January of this year, more than 1,300 people over the age of 80 died every week with the disease.

To complicate the situation further, not all of the approved vaccines are going to be administered to everyone. The AstraZeneca vaccines, which will start arriving in Spain this week, will only be given to people aged between 18 and 55, given that this is the group where clinical trials have proved it to be effective. For now, the Health Ministry has decided that it will be used to immunize healthcare workers who are not on the front line, and next week a decision will be made on which section of the population to prioritize – it could be essential workers or young people with underlying health conditions.
This, in effect, is what some regions are already doing. It is not completely clear which healthcare workers are being immunized in phase 1, and in many cases, the authorities have opted to give all staff in hospitals their doses, independently of their role. In Madrid, for example, a higher percentage of healthcare workers have received the second dose of the vaccine than among seniors who live in residences. This is despite the fact that senior residences – where more than half of official Covid deaths took place in Spain, according to the Health Ministry’s figures – were the absolute priority of the central government’s vaccination plan.

That said, the available data suggests that immunity is not far off for residents of the country’s senior residences. With the information supplied by the regions, nearly all residents and staff have got their first dose, and the majority of regions have administered the second dose to more than half of the recipients.

The process in residences is being delayed due to outbreaks in some of these centers. According to regional health departments consulted by EL PAÍS, this is not presenting a problem given that the process is simply being postponed where there is a high number of people infected.
Data supplied last week by the Catalan regional authorities show that the vaccines are starting to have an effect, and that number of new infections is rising less inside such residences compared to outside. Fernando Simón, the director of the Health Ministry’s Coordination Center for Health Alerts (CCAES), also said on Thursday that outbreaks in these centers are falling and that comparisons made by the ministry between the over-65s who live in residences and those who do not show a lower infection rate among the former.

The full protection offered by the vaccines, however, does not arrive until a week after the second dose. With the extreme levels of transmission that are currently being seen in Spain – the 14-day cumulative number of coronavirus cases per 100,000 inhabitants is around 750 – it is no surprise that the virus is finding its way into senior residences during this process, infecting inhabitants, and even claiming the lives of those who have been inoculated. The risk after the first shot is low, but it still exists.
The latest data from the Health Ministry shows that all regions have administered more than 70% of the doses that they have received. The authorities insist that the problem now will not be the capacity to deliver the vaccines, but rather the number that Spain will receive. From this weekend onward, that number will rise, with, for example, AstraZeneca sending 1.8 million doses this month. And it will go up even more in March, which is when a new vaccine – from Janssen – may be added to the list. The vaccination process for adults with need for daily assistance even if they are not in residential care will be a good means to measure the agility of the system.
With reporting by María Sosa, Isabel Valdés and Lucía Bohórquez.
English version by Simon Hunter.









Leftinspain
I am a  bit of an anomaly, a British  migrant, an expat if you like,   living in Spain, who sees life from a left point of view.

Spanish Turmoil - By Javier Moreno

19/5/2019

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An analysis from  ''Fundación por la Europa de los Ciudadanos'' for the European Elections in Spain, right after the national elections and the new framework that is being shaped.

After a period of increased electoral support to forces considered progressive, we are currently in a period of re-composition of the political landscape, marked by the new far-right party, “Vox”, which has entered the political scene forcefully starting both from the last regional elections of Andalusia (December 2018) and the recent general elections. Therefore, we have quite many reasons to believe that they will also get representation in the European elections. Vox grows fundamentally from the dissatisfied electorate of the Popular Party (which is in crisis due to the corruption cases that affected it) with an anti-immigration and anti-feminist discourse as well as a “pro-unity of Spain” narrative as an answer to the political crisis in Catalonia.


​On the other hand, the left represented in the Congreso de los Diputados by Unidos Podemos (coalition that brings together Podemos, Izquierda Unida, Cataluña en Común and En Marea) faces a crisis at different levels in the upcoming local, regional and European elections. In some municipalities and regions, such as Madrid, it is not possible to reach consensus on common candidacies. That implies a scenario of having two or even three different candidacies in the next local and regional elections from the same currently common space. Fortunately, it has been possible to reach a common agreement regarding the European Elections, with a candidature composed by independents candidates and members of Podemos, Izquierda Unida and Cataluña en Común.

Concerning the state level, the majority that made possible in the Congress the motion of censorship against the conservative government of the Popular Party revealed too fragile to continue. The Socialist Party forced early elections after the lack of agreement in the General Budget for 2019. The results of the recent elections show us a new composition of the Congress where the Socialist Party increases six points of electoral support (passing from 85 to 123 seats) and Unidos Podemos and its regional convergences loses 29 seats (losing 6,79 points of electoral support). On the conservative pole, the Partido Popular loses the half of its electoral support (-49,41% and 71 seats) since their votes were picked up by Ciudadanos (from 32 to 57 seats) and the far right party Vox (24 seats and a 10,26% of votes). The final numbers, having into account other regional parties, imposes a future government based in the support of several parties but always with the Socialist Party as the main actor in the play.

Moving into the main debates articulated in the public dialogue: 

The territorial organization of the State. After the process launched by the Catalan government on its bigger autonomy and the response of the PP government with the support of PSOE to apply an article of the Constitution that temporarily suspended the self-government of Catalonia (with additional political repression), the territorial model has occupied the center of the political debate. The positions are polarized between nationalist parties with presence in the Congress as ERC, PdCat or PNV (in favour of the right to self-determination) and those who defend a greater centralization of the State in defense of the unity of Spain (PP, Ciudadanos, Vox), while Unidos Podemos is in a negotiated, democratic and inclusive exit position.

Μigration is another issue that occupies the headlines in the media. In this sense, the extreme right of VOX is ruling the agenda setting with its proposal for the citizens to report on the presence of illegal migrants and call for their deportation. This proposal has managed to mobilize also PP and Ciudadanos. The socialist PSOE defends proposals for a regulation of migration through the model of the contracts with the countries of origin, for example, but on the other hand is symbolically placing itself in the anti-immigration camp when they banned the Open Arms ship to be docked in Spanish ground. On the contrary, Unidas Podemos stands for human rights and therefore against the current Immigration Law by defending proposals against the “Detention Centers”, racist raids and deportations.

In foreign affairs, the Venezuelan crisis is at the center of interest. All parties, expect from Unidos Podemos, stand close to the position of recognition of Guaido as a self-proclaimed president. Unidas Podemos support the solution of an international mediation led by Mexico and Uruguay.

During the last few months, the taxi sector has been fighting against the deregulation of VTC licenses, which has had a great impact on the media. We could say that this is representative of a wider struggle against digital capitalism disguised as a “collaborative economy”. The only political party that raises a regulation of this sector with defense of the public goods is Unidas Podemos.

Focusing on the European Elections question, we shall admit that is not a question of the current political agenda. However, we can identify issues related to Catalonia (the Catalan government appeals to the European institutions as a field of political pressure for its interests in the struggle against the central government). Other topic would be the Brexit and its impact for the Spanish community residing there and for the definition of the borders with the territory of Gibraltar.

As mentioned above, the candidature “Unidas Podemos Cambiar Europa” (United We Can Change Europe) would include Podemos, Izquierda Unidaand Cataluña en Común. In this same list there would be parties that are currently part of the Party of the European Left (IU, PCE, EUiA), of GUE/NGL (Podemos, IU) and the Green Group (ICV). Among these parties, some have expressed sympathy for initiatives such as the Plan B (Podemos).






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    I am a  bit of an anomaly, a British  migrant, an expat if you like,   living in Spain, who sees life from a left point of view. 

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