Sabre rattling in Spain | 42 comments (42 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

The Catalan Statute was drafted by the Catalan Parliament with the Generalitat (Catalan Government) taking the lead.

The political situation in Catalunya is as follows: for over 20 years CiU (Convergència i Unió), which is a coalition of Christian Democrat Unió Democrática de Catalunya and Liberal Convergència Democrática de Catalunya held the Regional Government. The Leader was Jordi Pujol of CiU. Currently, Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida of UDC is the leader.

In 2003 Pasqual Maragall, the socialist former mayor of Barcelona (of 1992 olympic fame), led the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya to victory, and formed a left-wing coalition government with ERC (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya) and IC-Verts (Iniciativa per Cataluya-Verts). This left CiU and the PP in the opposition.

Finally, the success of the tri-party coalition government in Catalunya led to PSC, ERC and IC-V to run common candidates in the 2004 senate elections, which they swept in Catalunya (the PSC would normally have run alone, in lieu of the PSOE). This means that the Catalan Senators form a Senate group separate from the PSOE, unlike in the past.

ERC was already around in the 1930's during the Second Spanish Republic, and was the political arm of Terra Lliure (free land), a short-lived Catalan Independentist terrorist group active in the late 1970's.

Zapatero gained the post of PM with the votes of ERC and IU/IC (IU is Izquierda Unida, the United Left "coalition" around the Communist Party). Between 1993 and 2000, both PSOE and PP supported themselves on the Christian Democrat nationalist parties PNV (Basque) and CiU (Catalan) as well as the Canary Coalition. This means Zapatero's government is arguably the farthest to the left that any Spanish government has been since 1936. CiU and PNV are "loyal opposition" because Zapatero is favourable to reviewing both the Basque and Catalan Statutes.

To asnwer your question, ERC has proved itself a source of embarrassments both for Maragall and Zapatero, as they are rather radical and are enjoying new prominence after huge gains in votes and seats in both the regional and national parliaments. Also, the PSC is relatively at odds with the rest of the PSOE on the issue of the Catalan Statute, and the fact that their senators are in a Catalan group rather than the PSOE group may not help.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jan 8th, 2006 at 11:17:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Parties (none / 0)

I knew about the 2003 Catalan government change and about ERC, but not about the intra-socialist split and the senators.

So if I got it right, it's both normal uncalculating nationalism (or calculating only short-sighted, using Zapatero's dependency), and bowing to demands from extremists within the governing coalition.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Sun Jan 8th, 2006 at 01:23:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Parties (none / 0)

The PSOE has an explicitly federal structure. That is, it is composed of regional parties which are, to a large extent, sovereign, and are coordinated at the national level by a Federal Executive Commission. This gives rise to extremely powerful regional leaders, known as Barons, one of which (from Castilla-La Mancha was Defence Minister José Bono.

The strongest regional parties are the Galician PSdG, Basque PSE-EE (E for Euzkadi), Catalan PSC, on account of their national status; and then the parties from Andalusia, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha, on account of their size and their status as PSOE strongholds.

For instance, Extremeño leader Rodríguez Ibarra has criticised the Catalan Statute as strongly as the moderate side of the PP. The PSOE's territorial commission in charge of negotiating the national party's position on the Estatut is effectively under control of Alfonso Guerra, former Vice President under Felipe González who is an apparatchik and arguably one of several Andalusian "Barons" (together with regional president Manuel Chaves - González, though he is from Sevilla, generally stays above the fray and used to rely on Guerra to control the party apparatus when he led it).

While we're at it, both Rodríguez Ibarra and Bono were considered Guerristas back when it mattered.

(Although I have not been in Spain for a while, I can say all these things with confidence because these same people have been playing the same roles for over 20 years)

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jan 8th, 2006 at 02:41:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Parties (none / 0)

Ah, thanks for the little Spanish Kremlinology :-)

BTW, does the Nueva Vía party wing still exist - or is comparison with Bliar' NuLab (and Schröder's Neue Mitte) not longer comfortable for Zapatero & followers?

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Mon Jan 9th, 2006 at 07:42:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Parties (none / 1)

I am not quite sure what the deal is with Nueva Vía. I think the comparison to Blair and Schroeder is inappropriate. After Gonzalez lost his majority in parliament and until Zapatero gained the leadership (1993-2000) the PSOE was dominated internally by the conflict between Guerristas (traditional socialists, apparatchiks, barons, followers of then already former VP Alfonso Guerra) and Renovadores (renewers: third-way-ish centre left close to Gonzalez). Zapatero's nueva vía was in my opinion new with respect to this split.

Nueva Via was unheard of outside party circles before the leadership contest won by Zapatero, and has not been talked of since. Zapatero used other memes in his campaign to return PSOE to power.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 9th, 2006 at 05:10:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Parties (none / 0)

Just to confirm that the Barons are alive and well...

El Pais: The PM dines at La Moncloa with socialist barons (12-01-2006)

The appointment was at 20.30 at the Palacio de la Moncloa and called to it were the regional secretaries of PSOE and the presidents of autonomous governments, as well as the mayor of A Coruña, Francisco Vázquez, as presidente of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces; the [PSOE's] Organization secretary, José Blanco, and the [party's] parliament spokesmen, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and Joan Lerma.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jan 12th, 2006 at 08:16:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Typo (none / 0)

Hopefully clear form context, but...

Jordi Pujol of CiU

CDC

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jan 8th, 2006 at 06:21:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Typo (none / 0)

Yes, it was clear from context :-)

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Mon Jan 9th, 2006 at 04:21:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Catalan Kremlinology (none / 0)

The Leader was Jordi Pujol of CDC. Currently, Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida of UDC is the leader.

Actually I was wrong: the leader of CiU is now Artur Mas of CiU, but there was a considerable amount of jockeying between him and Duran i Lleida to succeed Jordi Pujol. Unió is the junior partnet in the coalition (I don't know based on what, given that CDC and UDC have never contested an election separately AFAIK), but Duran i Lleida was widely perceived as more of a heavyweight than Mas and, after over 20 years of playing second fiddle to Pujol, Duran and UDC generally probably felt it was their turn to take the lead for a while. It did not happen, but without Pujol at the helm and having lost the Catalan government, Duran is a more towering figure and enjoys national exposure since he is the one leading CiU's parliamentary group in Madrid while Mas leads the opposition to Maragall in Barcelona. Duran and Mas will often contradict each other in public when reacting to national issues.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 9th, 2006 at 05:02:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Catalan Kremlinology (none / 0)

Nice partners, heh.

Actually I was wrong: the leader of CiU is now Artur Mas of CiU

Some errors insist on being repeated :-)

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Mon Jan 9th, 2006 at 05:12:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Sabre rattling in Spain | 42 comments (42 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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