On February 14, regional elections took place in Catalonia. These have been rushed due to the accusation and the following removal of Quim Torra, who was the president of Generalitat (the institutional-administrative system of Catalonia) at the time: his accusation became effective in 2019, on April 2, because of his non-cooperation and disobedience of legal decisions.
From that moment, the heavy machine of a new Catalan election - that saw the light on February 14 at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic - started working, in a moment where many people around the country where already infected. Despite of this situation, the High Court of Justice of Catalonia suspended the electoral prorogation. From that moment it was clear that elections had to take place as soon as possible. The independentist block consisting of JxCat, (Junts per Catalunya), ERC (Esquerra Republicada de Catalunya), Cup-G (Candidatures d'unitat popular- Guanyem Catalunya) and PDeCat (Partit Democrata europeu Català) was gambling to renew the majority
and its power in order to have the chance to keep ruling Catalonia, or, otherwise, to lose their majority and reopen the possibility for non-independent PSC (Partit socialita de Catalunya), PP (Partido Popular), CS (Ciutadans), ECP (En Comú Podem) e VOX, as varied as independents themselves.
These latter arrived at the top of the Catalan government after a ten year government held by independentist hands, during which many illegal consultations and referendum happened one after the other and throughout which the Catalonia’s independence declaration occurred on October 1st 2017. This very last event caused the imprisonment of its main leaders and the escape in Brussels or in Switzerland in order not to deal with Spanish justice. These elections’ results happened to be the expected ones. The PSC victory was able to occur after the “Illa effect”, who had been the Spanish minister of health since the beginning of the electoral campaign, the one who acquired a great fame thanks to his pandemic management. This gave the socialist party the possibility to be, once again, the main politic power in Catalonia since the 2016 election. The results have been the following ones, considering a total of 135 seats to assign. (PSC) 33 seats;
(ERC) 33 seats;
(JxCAT) 32 seats;
(VOX) 11 seats;
(ECP-PDeCat) 9;
(Cup-G) 8; (CS) 6; (PP) 3.
To fully understand these results, it’s important to take a look at the lack of participation: only about 50% of the ones able to vote took advantage of their right (to vote). This low percentage is probably due to the population’s exhaustion after many electoral repeats, the independence issue and also the current pandemic.
The tiredness coming from the elections, mainly caused by the independence manner, made impossible for the representatives of the central parties (PSC, CS and PP) to vote, and this
facilitated those who organized themselves better to mobilise and actually vote, especially the Spanish extreme nationalists from the right party VOX and the independentists from the parties ERC, JxCAT e Cup-G.
Also, it seems necessary to take a look at how the votes coming from the right wing made some disappointment emerge after the poor service coming from PP and CS, and how it slowly moved towards VOX, radicalizing itself into this other party, while the PCS is growing because of the reasons discussed about before, without having enough consents to push away the independents’ party. In this way, Catalan people are awaiting some more years (no one knows how many) of political paralysis, where the main issues discussed in the parliament will still be the independence, the oppression of Spain, and not political debates in Mayuscaulas (a political view that puts people as the main focus of the debate, especially the most vulnerable ones, instead of putting Catalan middle class’ priorities first, safeguarded by the left wing, ERC and Cup-G).
Comments