A government for a people

ARA's Editor-in-ChiefWe now know the members of the government, announced with nine political prisoners and six exiles, after three failed investitures, with a new president of the Generalitat following a vicarious calling, and an expectant nation. Just going back to the events of last October, the political outlook is hard to believe, even having lived through it. Obviously, we must also look at the aggression connected to the October 1st referendum and the saddest unilateral declaration of independence in history, a desperate act without any follow-through strategy.

With tensions still high, society is eager to know if it will collectively enter into a period of détente, renewed confrontation with the Spanish state in the name of a symbolic Republic, or compliance with the autonomous region model. So far the parliamentary majority has respected legal limits with the goal of regaining the Generalitat, but has done so as a last resort, highlighting the exceptionality of the situation and the lack of political rights.

A new skirmish is starting, which will be the presence of two exiled politicians and two political prisoners in the new cabinet. A public confrontation is guaranteed, if the Spanish justice system keeps them in custody. But the replacement of the imprisoned Ministers has also been planned. Beyond the gestures will be the management and intelligent use of public resources that should have been recovered months ago.

Gestures aside, the tone of the new political term will be built on a day-by-day basis, conditioned on the contrasting intentions of the players who are also under pressure from the calendar. In Catalonia the future will be determined on the legal front, and in Spain, above all, by the election calendar.

In any case the likelihood of a long term is uncertain. President Torra could call for fresh elections, depending on legal trials, and the PP could be tempted to invoke Article 155 again [thus bringing back direct rule].

In Spain, Rajoy is apparently in a weakened position, pressured from the right by the new Spanish nationalist party Ciudadanos and the surly ambitions of its leader. Their strength in the polls encourages the aggressive attitude of Rivera and his comrades, and this in turn favors a pact between the constitutional parties of the Transition to face the challenge. In accord with the maxim that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Mariano Rajoy has approached Pedro Sánchez's PSOE, abandoning the strategy of giving Podemos media fodder. Sánchez wants to start answering Cs strategy of also casting its nets for socialist votes in Spain, as it has already done in Catalonia.

The Basque Nationalist Party has also edged closer to Rajoy. Urkullu, the Basque leader, knows that his worst enemy is Ciudadanos because it is the only party that dares to challenge what is most precious to him: Albert Rivera is willing to put an end to the Basque quota and, with it, to the privileged finance system that allows the Basque Country to play a political role. When it seemed, once again, that he was on his political deathbed, the fear of Cs has given Rajoy a safety net that will allow him to approve the budget and comfortably reach the 2019 municipal polls and 2020 general elections. Only the preventive application of Article 155 in Catalonia could throw a spanner in the works.

After confrontational policies and war against the use of Catalan in Catalonia, and having fueled the fracturing of Catalan society, Cs is tossing off its inhibitions in Spain, where until now it had tried to present itself as a modern liberal (free market) party. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a highly respected conservative politician from the Transition said in private: “So far we have known only sociological Franco-ism, but Cs is ideological Franco-ism". Rivera's calls to ignore the law and to apply Article 155 preventively, even before the previous application has been lifted, reveal his willingness to do away completely with the Catalan language, public media outlets, the police force, and any other unique feature in Catalonia’s self-rule.

If Spain is experiencing a battle for power between the PP and Cs, Catalonia is still living in uncertainty. The election of President Torra guarantees the recovery of the as-yet intervened institutions, but his symbolic efforts to open a parenthesis leave many unknowns.

As to what his government will do, the coalition is tense due to the diverging strategies and interpretations of the past few months and for the tension between JxCat and a severely weakened PDECat. Torra's proposals are the same as those of the Puigdemont administration, and the new items are focused on recovering the laws suspended by the Constitutional Court. An administration that is, incidentally, falls very short of gender parity, with only 3 women and 10 men.

The president of the Generalitat has referred in his speeches to "the life" that must be recovered. The life of the prisoners and also of the people who have believed in a project that appeared to have moved beyond identity-based nationalism. This term will be the chronicle of a disappointment, if the broad-based majority that has defended the sovereignty of Catalans to decide their future falls apart. We cannot add two Catalonias to the two Spains that are increasingly united. The virtue of the independence process is its diversity, the overcoming of the nationalism of family names, social classes, and where people spend their summer vacation. Up to now, only Cs and the PP have used the essentialist element. The campaign to turn the process into xenophobic populism is already underway in Spain and in Europe. Any gesture that does not fight this will lead to demobilization and to a shrinking of the support base of a movement that had overcome traditionalist nationalisms.