The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Independence alive and still unresolved
Votes: Nationalists failed to secure the majority they wanted
The football chant “champions, champions” rang out from Placa Espanya in Barcelona on Thursday night, but it was the unionists who were singing.
For all the confident words from nationalists since winning a majority of seats in this week’s election, they know victory eluded them.
Exiled Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont claimed victory as the largest nationalist party and called for talks with Madrid. The Spanish prime minister rejected this and declared the unionist Citizens party the victors as the largest single party.
Madrid is signalling that legal charges against Puigdemont and other nationalists remain live and Spain will not recognise a nationalist government in Barcelona. An election meant to end the independence issue has only served to keep it alive but unresolved.
Victory for nationalist parties in yesterday’s snap election means independence for Catalonia remains a live issue. However, with less than 50% of the vote, the nationalists failed to secure the majority they wanted.
Catalonia stands where it did before the government was dissolved, and before the independence referendum, of October 1.
Nationalist parties hold a majority of the seats in the regional parliament, but cannot claim to represent a majority of the people.
The problem is that Catalonia’s voting system has an inbuilt bias towards nationalist areas. This gives them a majority of seats but on less than 50% of the vote. What looks like a clear win to an outsider is misleading.
That explains why election night saw the smiles of confident nationalists turn to grimaces. The technical victory is theirs but the moral one eludes them.
Not only is the independence question unresolved, it’s not even clear if Madrid will restore powers it suspended in retaliation for the illegal referendum two months ago.
Carles Puigdemont called the result a “victory for the Catalan republic” as his party claimed 34 seats and the other pro-independence parties, the ERC and CUP, claimed 32 seats and four seats respectively. This gives the nationalists 70 seats, a majority of two in the regional parliament.
Yet this doesn’t tell the real story. Nationalists went into the evening hoping for a clear mandate for independence and expecting more seats.
This democratic mandate would have forced Madrid to release the jailed proindependence leaders, restore the authority of the Catalan parliament and concede a legal referendum on freedom. As it stands, none of that may happen.
With 36 seats and an increase in their vote, the unionist Citizens party was in no doubt that independence had been stopped in its tracks.
The result is inconclusive for Catalonia and Spain and a pain in the neck for the EU. Brussels had sided with Madrid after the October referendum but now appears to stand against democracy by supporting Madrid’s crackdown. What’s more, Europe still has the live issue of discontent within its borders.
As for Scotland, there are lessons to be drawn. Repeatedly asking people to s upport independence without a solid economic plan is not enough.
Catalan nationalists offered no detail on how the region would become a nation which may explain why they didn’t win new supporters.
The other lesson from Catalonia is don’t believe your own propaganda. Nationalists I spoke to here say they had lost sight of the passion for the union and under estimated the appeal of Spain.
An election is over but the matter rumbles on.