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Well, they’ve now voted in the referendum over the Catalan Statutes of Autonomy, and a pretty farce that turned out to be. During the campaign, which was used by the Socialists to slam the Partido Popular, conditions went from bad to worse for the PP when ‘nationalists’ who had been called by SMS messages (remember March 13?) carried out a series of attacks against members of the PP in some cases pelting them with eggs, in others, rocking and spitting on their official cars. None of this was condemned by the Socialists, indeed one of the directors of the Catalan Socialists, Industry minister Jose Montilla stated that what was happening to the members of the PP ‘was their own fault’.
Anyway, it was finally revealed that only 49.4% of the electorate turned out, which meant that 35.7% of the total amount of Catalan voters polled a ‘yes vote’. The 49.41% turnout is the lowest ever recorded and fell well short of expectations of the Prime Minister, the incumbent President of Catalunia or the EU voting norms. However, never mind all that, the Socialists, taking the poor voting attendance to be 100% - when it was far short of that – stated that 73,9% of the votes cast were for the implementation of the Statutes, whilst 20.7% were against, with the remaining 5.4% casting empty or blank ballots.
Results
These results were painted various ways by the various parties. The Socialists of course stating that it was whoopee time, whilst the PP expressed the opinion that two-thirds of the voters were against the new Statutes. Curiously enough the big loser of the day turned out to be Josep Lluis Carod Rovira, whose radical ERC party that was once allied with Pascual Maragall’s Socialists, now found itself siding with its ‘arch-enemy’ the PP in that it, too, was now against the statutes (as they were removed from any sort of power play after Artur Mas of the CiU party stepped in and took over the final phase of negotiations with the Madrid Government). The voting in fact means that the result one way or another has affected every single political party operating in Catalunia.
For incumbent Socialist President Pascual Maragall, who never participated in any sort of debate during the campaign prior to the voting, the results mean him stepping down and calling for early elections in the autumn. He has stated that he does not intend to stand again as President of Catalunia ‘as I have taken the autonomy as far as I wanted’, and his place could well be taken by Jose Montilla, the current Industry Minister, who was said to be very much in favour of both the statutes and the Catalan Audiovisual Committee that sets out exactly what the average Catalan citizen may or may not do and may or may not listen to. Whether he will stand, and whether he has enough charisma to carry the vote in the autumn is still very much an open question.
The CiU Party was said to be exuding a ‘quiet confidence’ over the result as it is that party in the form of Arthur Mas that stands to gain the most from the autumnal elections, so the party of veteran politician Jordi Pujol may yet rise to power again.
As for Mr Carod Rovira, he has probably suffered almost the biggest upset, about-face and ultimately political disgrace as a result of the voting. Skipping into power on the wings of Mr Maragall at the recent election, he firstly proclaimed that all things Catalan were ‘great’ and that ‘Catalunia is for the Catalans’ and other nationalist statements including several rumblings about how Catalan should be known as the official language of the autonomy. Then, he brought about his own downfall, as in the absence of Mr Maragall, who was on holiday, it was he who in his capacity as de facto President that decided to go to Perpignan, have discussions with the Basque terror group ETA and emerge waving a ceasefire agreement for Catalunia ‘as our struggle is the same as yours’. This brought disgrace and exclusion from the Catalan Government, but later, in Madrid, he had a pivotal role in the enthronement of Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whom he constantly reminded that it was he who held the power strings. However, when the Prime Minister turned his back on him and chose Mr. Mas for his negotiations over the statutes, Mr. Carod Rovira stated that his party and its followers would vote ‘no’ as the statutes were presented in both the Madrid Parliament and the Catalan referendum, effectively placing him close to the party he ‘absolutely detested’ – the PP, and in the process discovered that they weren’t so bad after all.
As for the PP, that has long been something of a political outsider in Catalan politics, the results of the referendum stand to reinforce its views that the new Statutes are not good either for Catalunia or Spain, but this will probably do nothing to improve their chances in the autumn local elections.
So after all the kerfuffle, where are we now left in Catalunia? Probably in much the same position as before, with no steps forward, no steps back and an election on the horizon.
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