Spanish political life has become incredibly tangled, always on the verge of psychodrama, tearing itself apart around Franco’s stifling legacy, almost fifty years after the dictator’s death. Which only makes it more fascinating. The result of Sunday’s early elections in Catalonia, Quebec’s small sister nation, came as a shock: the independence parties having lost their majority to the Socialist Party (PS), which however remains far from having elected enough deputies to form only a government, the imbroglio announces negotiations on edge, if not a political blockage likely to force the holding of a new election in the short term.
Thunderclap, certainly, since the parliamentary majority escapes the independence movement for the first time in twelve years. This means that the policy of appeasement and amnesty applied by the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has borne fruit with the aim of turning the page on the unilateral secession attempt of October 2017 and the ferocious repression. exercised by the Popular Party (PP, right) which was then in power in Madrid. Although this does not explain everything: the fact is also that, against a backdrop of low electoral participation (around 57%), the independence party which has held power since 2021, Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), was sanctioned for its government management, in particular of the severe drought which has been raging for three years. This will not have escaped the notice of the other major independence party, Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia, right), whose volunteer leader, Carles Puigdemont, still in exile while waiting to return for the upcoming adoption in Madrid of the amnesty law, adopted the old PQ slogan of “good government” during the campaign.
Affirm on the other hand, as the headline in Madrid’s major daily newspaper El País, that the socialist “triumph” happens to “bury the process” is exaggerated. The “process” in question, which refers to the conviction for those convinced that the march towards independence is irreversible, is obviously undermined by this election. Nevertheless, the pro-independence still elected 59 deputies (out of 135 in the Legislative Assembly) and obtained nearly 40% of the votes, and that Puigdemont, whose Junts came second with 35 seats, is far from giving up, having despite everything claimed to reform a government of coalition of “clearly Catalan obedience”, even if in the minority.
Also, although the PS may have made a breakthrough in Catalonia, things are not getting any easier for Mr. Sánchez, as the results present a fragmented portrait. In Madrid, his fragile coalition is particularly dependent on the support given to him by the Junts in the Spanish Parliament, in return for a promise of amnesty. Complicated discussions begin. And this is how Puigdemont, who pushes the envelope, threatens to withdraw his support for Sánchez if the separatists do not retain power in Barcelona. The scenario of an alliance between the PS and the ERC, which has become more moderate, is not implausible, which would necessarily deepen the tensions which have developed between the Junts and the ERC.
Is Spain becoming ungovernable? In any case, turbulence is coming which we hope will not only serve the Catalans and all Spaniards to sharpen their divisions, which are deep. How will Mr. Sánchez, a fine fox if ever there was one, untangle this tangle? Having come to power in 2018, the man has the merit of wanting to undo, not without provoking enormous resistance, the authoritarian and centralizing model perpetuated in Spain by the traditional and viscerally anti-Catalanist right. He is not Justin Trudeau. Spain would undoubtedly not be here if the PP had not had the courts invalidate, in 2010, important parts of the autonomy status which had been granted in 2005 to Catalonia. Nearly 15 years after this Catalan “Meech Lake”, resentments remain strong.
Scotland, another sister nation, is going through similar times. Its independence movement is also in a slump, after the fiery 2010s. As in Catalonia, independence there peaks at more or less 45%. The unexpected departure, in 2023, of the leading figure that was Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon has completely disoriented her Scottish National Party (SNP), in power since 2007. Elected just over a year ago, her successor , Humza Yousaf, has just resigned, worsening the crisis within the party. With the result, according to a recent YouGov poll, that the Labor Party is ahead of the SNP for the first time in 10 years in Scotland, in a context where there will apparently be triggered, by the end of the year in the United Kingdom, general elections in which Labor is given the winner.
So what ? Independence movements are by definition demands for freedoms. If they are dormant, all it may take is a spark to shake the proverbial “comfort” and wake them up.