CATALONIA
Catalonia’s Crisis Is Just Getting Started
Spain's prime minister tried, and failed, to strong-arm Catalonia. The result is an enduring stalemate.
By RICARD GONZALEZ
Since October, all across Catalonia, the lampposts, bridges, and
facades have been decorated with yellow ribbons. It is not a Christmas
tradition, but a show of solidarity with two pro-independence
politicians and two well-known activists who have been in pretrial
detention for almost two months. In general, yellow has become the color
of resistance in this autonomous region, whose government failed in its
attempt to gain independence from Spain last October. And it is this
spirit of resistance that explains the results of last week regional
elections.
Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, called the
regional election after the Catalan government held its own referendum
on independence on Oct. 1. Madrid declared that referendum, which showed
a large pro-independence majority, illegal. The Spanish government sent
masked riot police to raid polling sites and confiscate ballot boxes
and later called for a new “legitimate” election. Rajoy had hoped that a
defeat of pro-independence parties in an election sanctioned by Spain’s
central government would solve the Catalan conflict; he was wrong.
