{"id":3667,"date":"2023-10-17T10:25:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T10:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewitnessexet.wpengine.com\/?p=3667"},"modified":"2023-10-29T22:03:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-29T22:03:28","slug":"the-conflict-of-amnesty-the-spanish-state-divided-in-the-aftermath-of-the-last-general-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/?p=3667","title":{"rendered":"The Conflict of Amnesty: The Spanish State Divided in the Aftermath of the Last General Election"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>4 Minute, 46 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n

Just over six years after the referendum in Catalonia and almost four years after the sentences for the politicians involved were released, the question of political amnesty has monopolised Spanish media and politics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the unforeseen announcement for elections and their subsequent, the conservative Partido Popular (\u201cPopular Party\u201d) found themselves with the highest number of seats in the Spanish congress yet unable to form a government alongside the far-right party, Vox, due to the reluctance from the rest of the political groups in the chamber to align themselves with the rhetoric of the party. Pedro S\u00e1nchez, the leader of the centre-left PSOE (\u201cSpanish Socialist Workers\u2019 Party), was \u2018offered\u2019 the chance to present his candidacy once again before the MPs in another investiture debate and vote prior to the 27th of November. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This leaves S\u00e1nchez in somewhat of a difficult situation: he either renounces his chances at another term as Spain\u2019s Prime Minister, triggering the dissolution of the parliament and the call back to polls for the sixth time in the past nine years or alternatively, he might decide to form an alliance with the Catalan independentist parties, particularly Junts and ERC (“Republican Left of Catalonia”), driven by his need to secure votes in favour from the hardline pro-independence parties. Notably, an alliance with the Junts, led by the ex-president of the Generalitat who fled the Spanish state six years ago in order to avoid arrest over his role in \u201cmasterminding the attempted secession\u201d<\/a>, Carles Puigdemont, would result in the attainment of votes through unpopular amnesty policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This led to the more unionist groups in Catalan society, particularly Societat Civil Catalana (\u201cCatalan Society\u201d), in company with groups and parties that operate statewide, to call for a demonstration on the 8th of October to express the public discontent felt about the Socialist party\u2019s decision to consider an amnesty on what they claim is a proof of PSOE\u2019s significant reliance on Catalan separatist parties. Elda Mata, the president of SCC, claimed that their role is to “give voice to the citizens of Catalonia and the rest of Spain” who are against Catalonia becoming an independent state. Under the banner ‘Not in my name \u2013 no amnesty, no self-determination’, the organisers wanted to present a \u201cunitary and transversal\u201d show of Spanish unionism. Amongst the people that gathered outside of Gaud\u00ed\u2019s Casa Mil\u00e0 (also known as La Pedrera) chants of \u201cViva Espa\u00f1a\u201d and lines that called for Puigdemont to be sent to prison and which stated that Catalonia belongs to Spain were loudly proclaimed and quietly received by the spectators.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the subsequent march, amidst the tens of thousands of people that marched through Barcelona\u2019s Passeig de Gr\u00e0cia, there was a stark contrast in attendance figures – 300,000 according to the organisers and no more than 50,000 estimated by the Barcelona local police. Politicians from across the right made their presence known from Alberto N\u00fa\u00f1ez Feij\u00f3o, the spurned candidate for the office and leader of the PP on a state level, Isabel D\u00edaz Ayuso, leader of the aforementioned party in Madrid as well as the majority of her cabinet, to Santiago Abascal, the leader of Vox were among those present.  All of them agreed that the proposed deal was unconstitutional. This deal would constitute the largest amnesty granted in the Spanish state since blanket amnesty was granted in 1977 during the Transition period for crimes committed under the Francoist dictatorship, as well as being the first amnesty law approved within the European Union since 1991. They argued that the deal was a strategy for Pedro S\u00e1nchez to maintain his coveted position, and this perspective resonated widely among the march’s attendees. Javier Tapia, a 55-year-old worker in the chemical industry argued that “An amnesty would undermine the judiciary. An amnesty would put the government above democracy and the rule of law”<\/a>, an argument shared with Abascal – whose rise as a politician along with the rise of his political party is largely owed to Spaniards fervent and visceral opposition to Catalan independence and nationalism, calling the amnesty \u201can assault on the constitution\u201d and accused the interim prime minister of carrying \u201creal abuses\u201d in order to hold on to power for longer<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite these claims, S\u00e1nchez has insisted that whatever step he decides to take will always be in accordance with the rules established in the constitution and \u201cin the common interest\u201d<\/a> of the greater Spanish public. On the other hand, the current Catalan regional president, Pere Aragon\u00e8s (ERC) described the protest as no more than a failure from the organised Spanish right-wing. He believes that their presence in the Catalan capital would only fuel a stronger drive for independence. Critics took to X (previously known as Twitter) to complain about the large number of people descending from the Madrid-Barcelona high-speed train early on the morning of the 8th with Spanish \u2018rojigualda\u2019 flags (the red-yellow-red constitutionally approved version of the Spanish flag) around their necks, leading to claims that the protest itself didn\u2019t represent the actual Catalan opinion as those who attended were not really Catalan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It does beg the question, with the possibility of more than 1,400 people potentially benefiting from the amnesty, will the acceptance of the latter improve relations between the central and the regional government or will it empower the independence movement into a second attempt at a referendum? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image: Javier Ortega, Secretario General de VOX y Pedro Fern\u00e1ndez, Vicesecretario Jur\u00eddico de VOX; junto a los equipos provinciales de Barcelona y Gerona encabezan la manifestiaci\u00f3n del D\u00eda de la Hispanidad en Barcelona<\/a> 2018 \/\/ PDM 1.0 DEED <\/p>\n

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Just over six years after the referendum in Catalonia and almost four years after the sentences for the politicians involved were released, the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":3669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,12,29],"tags":[258,255,35,226,44],"class_list":["post-3667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-latest","category-world","tag-catalonia","tag-global","tag-protest","tag-spain","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}