Catalonia: The Referendum and its Previous Lives
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 22 August 2017 23:00
- Written by editor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1472 .... August 23, 2017
_____________________________________________________
Catalonia: The Referendum and its Previous Lives
Josep Maria Antentas
In June 2017 a referendum on Catalan independence was announced by the Government of Catalonia, formed by members of the Junts pel Sí coalition, supported by the Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), for October 1 2017.
The Spanish state government opposes any regional self-determination referendum, maintaining that the Spanish Constitution does not allow for a vote on the independence of any Spanish region.
1. The referendum on independence for Catalonia scheduled for October 1, 2017 comes five years after the beginning of the independence process marked by the gigantic demonstration of September 11, 2012. It reappears shaped by its three previous incarnations: first, as the official perspective of the movement in 2012-14; second, in... the form of the mutation of the parliamentary elections of September 27, 2015 into a plebiscite on independence after the alternative consultation of November 9, 2014; third, in the proposal for a referendum agreed with the state within the framework of a new constitutional political majority formed by En Comú Podem;[1] and Unidos Podemos in the general election campaigns of December 20, 2015 and June 26, 2016. The referendum obtained a new and unexpected viability after September 2016, following the commitment of the Generalitat [Catalonian government] to hold it by the end of 2017. It was reborn as a result of the phantasmagorical incompleteness of its three previous lives: the failure to reach its goal in 2012-14, the imposture of the plebiscite version, and the impossibility of a short-term favourable majority in the state (an impossibility, however, parallel to the great evocative power of the proposal launched by En Comú Podem that destabilized Catalan politics).
