Not that I really care about the outcome (two parties could've won, and they are both progressive, so I will be unhappy either way), but the methods have crossed a few red lines.
Amnistia for tax evaders, it is democracy.
Amnistia for those protesting making a performance-like referedum (everyone knew it would not actual effect), that's not democracy.
It's a logic that I can not comprehend, I only can explain it if you consume so much mass media that you actually believe everything that is thrown at you.
[1] https://www.eldiario.es/catalunya/gobierno-aznar-indulto-dia....
[2] https://www.eldiario.es/economia/rato-franco-narco-100-benef...
I don't agree with pardons; it's something that simply shouldn't exist in this day and age. It doesn't matter to me what brand of progressivism does it.
By the way, I am not against independence FWIW. It is just the way things have been conducted are very aggraviating.
On the other hand Spain started a revolutionary process of a constituent nature, the government of President Sanchez is already of a clearly totalitarian type.
As a Spaniard I see a dark future.
No, we do not. The degradation of institutions in these five years is aggraviating.
Seems a bit of a hyperbole for "Spain is under a fragile minority government".
By that metric, the UK is a dictatorship in most years.
The current Spanish government is a very fragile minority, but it was voted by 7 out of 9 party groups in Congress (that is everyone except the right wing and far right parties), and the executive power has people from five different parties. Quite exotic for a dictatorship indeed.
A regional party can have like 6-8 times more representation than a national one with the same amount of votes nominally speaking.
It is legal, but makes no sense, more so taking into account that independentist parties are forbidden in Portugal or France and that here they not only are allowed (I can agree with that), on top of that they can oresent themselves to the national parlament and do national politics when their interest is to break the system (I do not agree with that).
The law for overrepresentation was done to not smash minorities. However, what is happening is the exact opposite: minorities are driving the majority of people instead. Which is even worse and a privilege of a few over most.
Anyway, I agree that having 50 general election districts (one per province) results in skewed votes. This was done by design as an attempt to have an easier-to-control two party system, and enshrined in the Spanish constitution, so it's not easy to change. It's probably easier to change provinces themselves than the constitution in the current political climate. For instance, merging all provinces in each region together would solve most issues with the voting system, as it would increase the amount of seats in contention.
Regarding the argument about this being a government by a minority of people: the parties that voted for the current government represent roughly 50.5% of the total votes. The current opposition parties represent 45.6% of total votes.
Any midly-responsible governor would have, no matter how much some people dislike it, fone a deal between PSOE-PP.
I do not vote myself BUT this is what looks more sensible, political tendencies apart, for stability: only two homogeneous groups that represent a big amount of the population. Even if I do not feel represented myself.
> taking into account that independentist parties are forbidden in Portugal or France and that here they not only are allowed
This is not true at all. Search for corsican auto-determination. France actually has even allowed auto-determination referenda for DOMs in the very recent past. Certainly it's not exactly the same and I'm oversimplifying (many simply want to get rid of these regions), but please stop pointing fingers to France; you may realize we are not as different from Spain as you think.
It is a far better outcome to seperate through political means than by uprising.
Could say exactly the same about the socialist party. Or any other party, really.
Also: the party that you call right wing is as progressive as the socialist party. They have never done and will never do any change that is not progressive. Last time they were in power they raised taxes, did nothing to the homosexual marriage, abortion, and domestic violence laws, etc etc.
They may not seem extreme to some people, but that only says something about the political leaning of those people.
This is a matter of perception. Far right is isually (literature) described as right, violent and collectivist (facist) wing. Which by the way is quite similar to communism, just with a couple principles changed if you analyze it seriously from individual vs collective rights. How "far right" is used in Spain and a lot of media is not like that at all. Far right is España 2000 and Democracia Nacional.
> They may not seem extreme to some people, but that only says something about the political leaning of those people.
Again, that is your perception. Your perception comes from the status quo, and seems reasonable from a social point of view. However, when the media uses a term incorrectly and politically so often, then it loses its meaning.
That is why it is a good thing to know what we have in front of us and call it by its name. Otherwise all words end up losing their meaning. Far right is often not what most media calls far right by standard literature terms. Maybe by propaganda terms. But even Popular Party or Ciudadanos was tagged as far right sometimes. That's just the political tagging game.
I'd rather see what parties propose rather than qualifying them as something. I think it is more useful for everyone.
Either this is the opposite to dictatorship, or maybe we will need to redefine a lot of classical democracies with most power concentrated in one party at a time.
About the right, they only can blame themselves. Is very ironic that they are blaming everybody for the same own situation what they, and only they, could have been stopped at any time. They didn't even tried to play. Choose to stop breathing instead.
And don't make me start talking about the Doñana's national park fiasco. Probably one of the most stupid right party plots to assure to lose voters weeks before an election.
You know there are three powers in a state right? Pedro Sánchez has more power now than the old socialist party or PP with qualified majority (mayoría absoluta) ever had because he made all institutions his particular home at his very service. Violating the most basic ethic rules.
These arguments are empty. The GP was claiming "Pedro Sánchez" has extremely little power as it is on a minority government and seemingly one of the smallest ones in the history of his party, all verifiable facts. You counterargue by claiming that he is making all institutions dance at his tune. This is a circular argument. How does he exactly get the power to make "institutions his particular home at his very service" if he has the least power to do so, _even less power_ than on his previous term?
I find it ridiculous that from all angles this looks like an absolutely powerless and extremely fragile do-nothing coalition (as some of the self-determination parties are as right-wing as they get, and therefore unlike to allow him to do anything even remotely left-wing), which looks to be disintegrating as we speak (if the news from my country are to believed), and yet at the same time I read claims of a "dictatorship". What is it that you see that apparently no one else in the world does?
It is about colonizing every corner by finger-naming positions from government.
The state has never been as partial in so many of its institutions as it is now...
No, it is not ridiculoua. There's been a massive wave of protests like never in 40 years. Socialist positions get insulted in the street, they cannot go anywhere, with words such as betrayor and others, anywhere randomly. This is totally abnormal in Spain.
I can tell you, as a spanish, that for this to happen a lot of red lines must be crossed. Even in a new survey 46% of socialist voters are against amnesty. And that is the socialist: all right wing is against it also... they are doing an illegal law to get a government against more than 70% of the population.
This amnesty hides the first step for a change of regime. I hope they are not successful.
Wait and see if you do not believe me. I hope I am wrong and things get broken on the way. But what this guy is trying is obvious to kany of us for years. Now it got worse.
About being fragile the government: you underestimate what this president is capable of doing to maintain the power: he just put 15 billions of debt from Cataluña into the rest of spanish besides the amnesty. Probably there is more to come.
Also, if you are not spanisj, the lists and representatives do not work per district as in England. The power is accumulated here by the head of each party and once you vote you are in the hands of the party no matter what they do (this was always like that).
This is still the same circular reasoning. How is it that he can "finger-name" positions now that they are in a minority government, and he could not before that when he actually was in a majority one? What exactly is that gives him the power to be the autocrat that you claim he is? "he is an autocrat because he is an autocrat" is not really a valid argument.
> This amnesty hides the first step for a change of regime. I hope they are not successful.
So the problem is with a political amnesty? That certainly looks like an unquestionable mark of a dictatorship (/s).
This is just yet more evidence of a minority government that has to make concessions everywhere. They are going to be a ridiculously weak government, like every other such government in the history of the world. Amnesties are not the mark of a strong dictatorship; I believe they prefer the part where they get to put people in prison.
Also, I am going to bet that to do that he requires support from the chambre. Which means that, yet again, this _is_ about chambre representation: a majority of the chambre must be in favor of this amnesty.
> About being fragile the government: you underestimate what this president is capable of doing to maintain the power
This again keeps assuming that for some reason being minority is going to bring him more power to maintain his power, and not significantly less.
> he just put 15 billions of debt from Cataluña into the rest of spanish besides the amnesty. Probably there is more to come.
OK it seems you do not understand what it means to keep Cataluña as a region of Spain. You _have to take care of their debts_. The idea that Cataluña can have "billions of debt" separate from Spain's one is an optical illusion. Whichever amount you claim it is it must _already_ be part of the Spanish large debt and therefore it already comes out of your pocket _no matter what_. To assume otherwise is to have your cake and eat it too, _both_ for Spain and Cataluña, as Spain reaps the profits but allow Cataluña to go bankrupt on its own, which is nonsense possible only in politician's dreams (I have seen that very frequently here).
In another comment here I was saying that France has let some regions do self-determination referenda, making it appear to me as more progressive than Spain. I also admitted this was an over-simplification because a lot of people want to get rid of these regions, while I was assuming that Cataluña is a core province (sorry for the EUIV lingo) of Spain and therefore no one wants to get rid of it.
Do you want to know why France wants to get rid of these regions? Because they cost friggin' money ! Patriotism is nice and all but it brings you exactly zero tax savings.
If you claim that Cataluña is costing you money, let them do their auto-determination and go away !
(I really doubt Cataluña is costing Spanish' tax payers any money whatsoever: my goal here is not to encourage to vote for independence, but to point out an argument that does not appear to be coherent).
> The power is accumulated here by the head of each party and once you vote you are in the hands of the party no matter what they do (this was always like that).
I really do not understand the point that you are trying to make here. I am quite sure that "the head of the party" has exactly the same power over a member of the chambres as in any other democracy of the world.
EDIT: I was googling around and most definitely representatives in the Spanish Congreso can vote against the party and cross the floor, same as representatives in the UK parliament, and frankly, same as in every other representative democracy of the world.
how? forming a coalition seems to be the opposite of dictatorship, no?
The problem is the system also, yes. But it is more than that only. They think institutions are their private property or something like no other national party so far IMHO.
if it's not, and you are talking about recent "amnistia" events, it's hilarious, because some people in Catalunya were prosecuted for crating a referendum, I guess for you that's not democratic and on the other hand exonerating those with charges related to it, turns the country into a dictatorship.
What an irony.
Btw, I'm not Catalan nor want Catalunya to part ways, far right wing narratives like the one you present only create more and more "independentistas".
The "referendum" was obviously not democratic.
You seem to have doubts still about that, so let me kindly illustrate you, about how real democracies work.
There is not a single democracy, not a single one, where common people can replace unilaterally the powers of the state.
Democracy does not mean that my friends and me can "vote" if we take your house and properties and chase you off, or don't do it (This is exactly what they were trying with the majority of the population in Catalonia).
I can't create my own taxes, or decide that I am too beautiful to pay the taxes that I dislike.
I can't replace the police and start driving like a mad in the highway while shooting people.
I can't build my own army, or trial somebody unilaterally acting as prosecutor and judge.
And of course I can't start an election, specially one that requires people to vote in a f*g cardboard urn, placed in the headquarters or a f*g political party.
The power to start elections lies in the elected president. Period. The state has the monopoly of a lot of things. If you start elections by yourself is, first, a farce, and second, not democratic.
oh well... thank you, but I'd rather go other places to illustrate myself than reading someone angry on the internet.
> The power to start elections lies in the elected president. Period. The state has the monopoly of a lot of things. If you start elections by yourself is, first, a farce, and second, not democratic.
I'm sure you know the difference between referendum and election, so I won't kindly illustrate you.
You weaken your argument tremendously by using slurs like these.
In any case is time to shut my mouth with apologies by the rambling. Lets better return to the real theme here.
What I cannot support is to violate the law in every other neighborhood at convenience. If we all did what Cataluña does in Spain (the Constitution forbids this kind of referendums and it was supported by 88% of the population.
You cannot come and suddenly start to do these things when not even in Cataluña and after 40 years of institution colonization you do not have even 50% of support.
That is just playing stupid games that can create civil conflicts.
As I said, I am not against independence. But we have laws. If they say through law they cannot, maybe they are not doing a good enough job for their cause or people just do not wish it as much. That is why after doing a lot of things, I won't give details here but believe me, MANY, they did not reach even 50%.
This separation according to the law should be voted by all spanish.
Even more: if they won by 51%, independent forever? Will they let people do a referendum to join back to Spain?
No, it makes no sense how they are doing things. They just do not have enough support. I am spanish, I am the son of people from Cataluña.
Careful with what you believe from what you hear around.
Inside the law, ok. Outside of the law, not ok. Otherwise many people will have lots of reasons to workaround laws they do not like, right?
Promote changes in the law, ok. But not this cheating that will only create bigger problems, in Cataluña itself even more than in the rest of Spain. Half of the people or more are not supporting this.
On top of that it was made public.
Spain is turning at this moment, btw, in a dictatorship and I am not exaggerating. I am spanish.
I am figuring out what to do and whether to leave or not. I have my family here so that's what keeps me here. Otherwise I would have left already.