CATALONIA -- Parties supporting self-determination vote collectively reaffirm their will to vote on November 9 - VilaWeb
Parties supporting self-determination vote collectively reaffirm their will to vote on November 9
They reaffirmed their unity of action and their will to vote even if the Constitutional Court was to ban the call
After the controversy of the last few weeks about whether the
independence consultation initially scheduled on the 9th of November
might be postponed if the Spanish authorities were to ban it, the 4
Catalan Parliament groups supporting this vote appeared together on
Wednesday and reinstated their commitment to such a consultation. They
reaffirmed their unity of action and their will to vote even if the
Constitutional Court was to ban the call, which will be based on the Law
on Consultation Votes to be approved by the Catalan Parliament in
September. Leading figures from the governing centre-right pro-Catalan
State coalition CiU, the left-wing independence party ERC, the green
socialist and post-communist coalition ICV-EUiA and the radical left and
independence party CUP emphasised that the "people had democratically
elected to decide on their collective future through the polling
stations". They were referring to the results of the last Catalan
Parliament elections, which were like a plebiscite on the right to
self-determination and the organisation of an independence vote. Back
then, with the highest turnout in years, 80% of the elected MPs promised
to support a legal self-determination vote.
In the last
year and a half, since Catalan elections were held in November 2012, the
Spanish Government has totally rejected to even talk about how such a
vote could take place and has made a restrictive interpretation of the
Constitution, saying such a vote was "illegal". After waiting months for
an agreement with Madrid, in December 2013 a two-third majority of the
Catalan Parliament approved the organisation of a self-determination
vote on the 9th of November, 2014. This left the
Spanish Government, chaired by Mariano Rajoy, enough time to react and
negotiate or propose an alternative. Rajoy has not done any of the two
options. In addition, in the last few months, Catalan representatives
have repeated that they are willing to review the exact day and question
of such a vote if the Spanish authorities wanted to sit and talk about
it.
The Spanish authorities have closed the negotiation door on numerous
occasions and they have even refused to work on finding a better
accommodation of Catalonia within Spain through a reform of Spain's
territorial model. The People's Party (PP) and Rajoy himself have
rejected several times the mild reform of the Constitution proposed by
the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), which does not even recognise
Catalonia as a nation. The last time the PP strongly rejected a
Constitutional Reform was this summer, when firstly its Secretary General María Dolores de Cospedal and later, Mariano Rajoy, closed the door to even discuss about it. In front of all this, Catalan
representatives have insisted they will not accept Madrid's blocking,
neither the PP's unilateral and uncompromising attitudetowards an
issue that has been on the table for years and on which the Catalan
people have given their explicit support through the 2012 democratic
elections.
In the last few weeks, as November approaches, and coinciding with
August summer holidays, there have been several voices within the CiU –
which runs the Catalan Government – who have proposed the possibility to
postpone November's vote, if the Spanish authorities were totally
against it. The most notorious one was the Catalan Vice President, Joana
Ortega. After
Ortega's words, the ERC, the ICV-EUiA and CUP representatives
complained loudly and insisted that November's vote had to take place,
even if the Constitutional Court was to ban it. They argued that the
right to self-determination was not "owned" by Spanish authorities and
they also stressed that the Constitutional Court was formed by people
directly appointed by Spain's two main parties: the People's Party (PP),
which runs the Spanish Government, and Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE).
The day after the quarrel, the President of the Catalan Executive, Artur
Mas, sent a unity message and insisted that if the Constitutional Court
bans the self-determination vote, the Catalan reaction will be agreed
among the parties supporting such a vote. He also insisted once again that "the only plan is to vote".
Catalans will "exercise the will of an entire people in the ballot boxes"
On Wednesday, in a round table discussion organised in the Catalan
Pyrenees, representatives from the CiU (Josep Rull), ERC (Gemma Calvet),
ICV-EUiA (Josep Vendrell) and CUP (David Fernández) stated that their
parties are fully committed to November's self-determination vote. On
that day Catalans will "exercise the will of an entire people in the
ballot boxes". In front of a hypothetical veto from the Constitutional
Court, they engaged in finding alternative formulas to put the ballot
boxes on the street, because "legality" and "democracy" are on their
side, despite what the Spanish authorities say, they stated. The
legality is based on the Catalan legal framework, developed during
decades of self-government and by a democratically-elected parliament.
Furthermore, there is a democratic mandate from the last Catalan
elections, pushing parties to organise a self-determination vote.
Besides, since "the road [toward the 9th of November] will
not be easy", they asked citizens to participate in the massive
demonstration scheduled on Catalonia's National Day (the 11th of
September), in order to pave the road towards the independence
referendum. In 2012 and 2013, massive pro-independence demonstrations
had already been organised on that day, respectively gathering 1.5
million and 1.6 million people, according to the Catalan Police.
The representatives of the 4 parliamentary groups supporting November self-determination vote (by A. Recolons)
