People protest as police try to control the area in their attempt to cast their ballot at a polling station in the referendum vote on October 1, 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. NurPhoto/Press Association. All rights reserved.There may be disagreement about
whether what happened yesterday in Catalonia was a referendum of
self-determination. The Catalonian president, Carles Puigdemont, has declared
that yesterday’s events has given Catalonia “the right to have an independent
State”, while the Spanish government has congratulated itself for avoiding any
resemblance to a lawful plebiscite. Choosing the middle ground between these
two sides, the Spanish left has defined it as a legitimate form of political
expression with no legal implications, and has heavily criticized the violence
from Spanish policemen against peaceful protesters.

Regardless of the term used to
categorize yesterday’s events, the scenes of police brutality against peaceful
crowds shocked Catalonian and Spanish societies, as they did the rest of the
world. Both Spanish and Catalonian governments have contributed significantly
to the escalation of the confrontation. The Spanish government and, notably,
the Christian-Democratic party, have not budged from the defence of the status
quo and have only proposed a de-politicized solution to the ‘Catalonian issue’,
via an arguably partisan use of the legal system.

On the other hand, the Catalonian
government, and especially the main governing party, have used nationalism
politically to cover up a number of internal scandals. According to the
Catalonian public polling agency, only 15% of Catalonians wanted independence
in 2008. But during the last regional elections, 47.8% of them voted for parties
that promised a disconnect from the Spanish State.

How has this situation come
about? We can trace the roots of this conflict back to 2003, when a tripartite
leftist coalition came into power in Catalonia. One of the most important
points of their governing pact was updating the ‘Estatut’, the law that
regulates the relations between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. This
initiative was welcomed by the Spanish Socialist party, which promised to
accept the proposal to come from Catalonia when the Spanish Socialist party won
the elections. In 2006, the new Estatut was approved both by the Spanish and
Catalonian parliaments. It was also supported by Catalonian society in a
regional referendum.

This new law provided more
financial and political independence to the region and referred to Catalonia in
its preamble as a “nation”. The PP challenged the Estatut in the constitutional
court, which was made up of a majority of conservative judges. Four years later,
on June 28, 2010, the Constitutional Court resolved that most of the Estatut
was unconstitutional and that the reference to Catalonia as a nation in the
preamble was legal but held no juridical significance.

This created widespread outrage
and a massive demonstration took place in Barcelona. This situation was used by
CiU (Catalonia’s main governing party), which had returned to power in
Catalonia after the 2010 regional elections, to divert attention from several
corruption scandals in their party as well as the budget cuts they were
implementing.

They considered ‘austerity’ to be
an unfair tax system that took money from Catalonia in favour of poorer regions
in other parts of Spain. The aim of the CiU seemed to be to make a controlled
use of nationalism until they could go back to ‘business as usual’. The
majority of the party has never been in favour of separating from Spain and
this radicalization of the nationalist discourse effectively led to an internal
split within the party. However, the nationalist discourse got out of hand when
civil society organizations took over.

They managed to radicalize it and
mobilize massive numbers of people on key dates, especially the ‘Diada’, the
day of Catalonia, on September 11. Regional elections took place in 2012 and
the governing coalition of CiU and ERC (a leftist party which has always
supported separation) agreed to organize a referendum on self-determination,
negotiated with the central administration. Seen as the opposition to the
Christian-Democratic Spanish government, they finally decided unilaterally to
hold a referendum in 2014. Given the political tension that this generated at
the time, the original idea of a referendum was then downgraded to a
non-binding consultation.

Unlike today, at that time, there
were no reactions aimed at preventing this mobilization but most people against
independence did not participate. Finally, 2.4 million people (out of 7.5
million Catalonians) voted during the mobilization, the result being 75% in
favour of independence. In 2015 the Catalonian government called for regional
elections and presented them as a plebiscite for independence. If a majority of
voters supported separatist parties, the Catalonian parliament would
unilaterally declare independence.

Pro-independence parties won the majority of
the seats but ‘only’ obtained 47.8% of the votes. Given these results, the
newly formed government promised to hold a referendum on independence before
the end of the legislature. In the beginning they attempted to negotiate with
the central government, who turned a deaf ear. Finally, the Catalonian
government decided to hold a referendum unilaterally. This referendum has been
declared illegal both by the Spanish Constitutional Court and the Catalonian
High Court of Justice. It has also been severely obstructed by the actions of
the police, who have confiscated over 9 million ballots, a number of ballot boxes
and censuses.

Some of the reactions during
these last few days (police detentions and sanctions to high-level employees of
the Catalonian government, numerous website shut downs, raids on the
headquarters of pro-independence parties and NGOs, prohibition of talks about
the right to self-determination organized all around Spain…) have been seen by many
progressive groups that did not support independence as episodes of exaggerated
and illegitimate repression.

The Spanish government has been
accused of acting in an authoritarian manner, limiting the rights of freedom of
speech, assembly and demonstration. Consequently, many groups beyond Catalonian
separatists framed Sunday’s events as a defence of democratic rights, rather
than a vote on a referendum of self-determination. Yesterday evening protests
despising police brutality and showing solidarity with Catalonians filled the
squares of all main Spanish towns, bringing back memories of the
15M/Indignados’ times.

So, what now? The central
government has successfully prevented the implementation of a referendum with
minimum democratic warranties, both from a legal and political perspective.
Legally, under threat of the Spanish police closing many polling stations, the
Catalonian government has allowed citizens to vote in any polling station,
instead of just in the one where they are registered.

To avoid people from voting
multiple times, the census was supposed to be controlled electronically but the
system failed during the vote count. Moreover, this permission contradicts the
law passed by the Catalonian parliament regulating this referendum.

Politically, only those in favour
of independence have carried out a campaign and it seems that a significant
number of people against separation stayed at home. Hence, the results are
unlikely to reflect anything close to the real opinion of the Catalonian
people. Nevertheless, the episodes of police violence that appeared in all
international media outlets gave the Catalonian government the international
legitimacy it was lacking during the period before October 1.

These images may foster
international support for a new referendum, this time based on a consensus
between both administrations. It seems that the events of October 1 are going
to deepen the conflict even further.

Spanish PM, Mariano Rajoy, has
spoken at a press conference defending the “firmness and serenity” of the Spanish
police. Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, has also made a public statement
showing his determination to implement the results of the referendum. This
situation will just continue the partisan use of the conflict from both
parties, consolidating their supporters on each side. The PP will be seen as
the sole guarantor of Spanish unity, receiving substantial social backing in
the central regions of Spain.

On the other hand, the support
for pro-independence parties will go beyond separatism and be considered a
reaction against repression by the Spanish government and the conservative
values that it represents. To add to this division a protest against Catalonian
independence took place in Madrid the day before the referendum, in which
relevant figures of the PP, such as Esperanza Aguirre, former minister of
education and former president of the region of Madrid, participated. Protesters
displayed fascist salutes and sang ‘Cara al Sol’, the anthem of ‘FE de las
JONS’, a fascist party that contributed to the military uprising that led to
the Spanish civil war and Franco’s dictatorship. These actions saw no reaction
from police forces.

Hence, this increased
polarization is expected to reaffirm both administrations’ positions and lead
to a deepening of the conflict.