Catalans helped Pedro Sánchez become president. How will
he respond?
It’s the best thing for me and for the
Popular Party,
or to put in another way, it is the best for
the Popular Party and for me,
and I think also for Spain
and the rest doesn’t matter.
ith these typically bumbling
words Mariano Rajoy said
goodbye to his seven years
of presidency after losing a
no-confidence motion in
Congress. After many
depressing months in which the new Spanish
right — Ciudadanos (C’s) — had helped push
mainstream politics rightwards, a more
interesting political phase has begun.
The Popular Party (PP) administration has been
replaced by a fragile center-left Socialist Party
(PSOE) government led by Pedro Sánchez. Under
Rajoy, Spain took almost no refugees from the
recent crisis — despite its commitments
otherwise — something that led to big protests.
The new administration has promised to take in
hundreds abandoned by the new anti-immigrant
Italian government, but otherwise there are
plenty of reasons leftists are skeptical about its
intentions.
Under the PP premiership, the Spanish state has
become a target of concern for international
human-rights organizations and leads the world
in imprisoning musicians and other artists. Low
wages have been squeezed, employment made
even more precarious, and welfare provision cut,
making Spain the most unequal large state in the
EU. Two issues were crucial in the Rajoy
downfall. The direct catalyst was the
confirmation of systematic corruption within his
party. Corruption is a major problem that has
persisted from the dark days of Franco and has
brought down previous governments (including a
long-running PSOE administration in the ‘90s).
Under the Popular Party, it reached new
extremes.
In a historic legal verdict weeks ago, the highest
criminal court identified the PP as having run a
“system of institutionalized corruption” — under
the name Gürtel, finding that party chiefs had
operated a system of kickbacks for construction
and other contracts with a particular
businessman for over seven years. Twenty-nine
out of thirty-seven defendants in the case were
given prison sentences — including party
treasurer Luis Bárcenas, who was given thirty-
three years. When the ex-treasurer went to
testify, Rajoy texted him “Luis, be strong.” The
unusually damning legal decision sparked the
decision by Sánchez to table the motion in
Congress that ended Rajoy’s nasty
administration.
Gürtel was not the only PP scandal. Indeed no
less than twelve out of fourteen of the ministers
under Rajoy’s predecessor, José-María Aznar,
have been imprisoned, charged or involved in
corruption cases. And, most comically, the
party’s regional president in Madrid resigned
after it emerged she had faked her university
masters, and a video was leaked of her stealing
face cream from a retail store! Writers associated
with the Instituto de la Democracia y el
Municipalismo maintain that the putrefaction in
the PP has come to surface due to people’s
outrage towards the political class since the 2011
mass square occupations; but also due to score-
settling within an increasingly divided Spanish
right over political strategy and access to power.
The other, less commented on, issue that sealed
Rajoy’s fate was Catalonia. Many observers have
talked about how the new Sánchez
administration may try and pacify the conflict
that exploded over the October 1 referendum, but
much less has been said about how the dispute
itself contributed to overthrowing Rajoy. This is
despite the perceptive pro-Spanish Catalan
journalist Lola García observing that “half of
Spain” is “asking whether Sánchez has proposed
something unspeakable to the secessionists” in
order to guarantee their decisive votes to oust
Rajoy. In order to understand the relationship
between the Catalan struggle and the social-
democratic victory (and therefore what could
happen under Sánchez) it is necessary to chart
how the Catalan movement has developed over
the last year.
he respond?
It’s the best thing for me and for the
Popular Party,
or to put in another way, it is the best for
the Popular Party and for me,
and I think also for Spain
and the rest doesn’t matter.
ith these typically bumbling
words Mariano Rajoy said
goodbye to his seven years
of presidency after losing a
no-confidence motion in
Congress. After many
depressing months in which the new Spanish
right — Ciudadanos (C’s) — had helped push
mainstream politics rightwards, a more
interesting political phase has begun.
The Popular Party (PP) administration has been
replaced by a fragile center-left Socialist Party
(PSOE) government led by Pedro Sánchez. Under
Rajoy, Spain took almost no refugees from the
recent crisis — despite its commitments
otherwise — something that led to big protests.
The new administration has promised to take in
hundreds abandoned by the new anti-immigrant
Italian government, but otherwise there are
plenty of reasons leftists are skeptical about its
intentions.
Under the PP premiership, the Spanish state has
become a target of concern for international
human-rights organizations and leads the world
in imprisoning musicians and other artists. Low
wages have been squeezed, employment made
even more precarious, and welfare provision cut,
making Spain the most unequal large state in the
EU. Two issues were crucial in the Rajoy
downfall. The direct catalyst was the
confirmation of systematic corruption within his
party. Corruption is a major problem that has
persisted from the dark days of Franco and has
brought down previous governments (including a
long-running PSOE administration in the ‘90s).
Under the Popular Party, it reached new
extremes.
In a historic legal verdict weeks ago, the highest
criminal court identified the PP as having run a
“system of institutionalized corruption” — under
the name Gürtel, finding that party chiefs had
operated a system of kickbacks for construction
and other contracts with a particular
businessman for over seven years. Twenty-nine
out of thirty-seven defendants in the case were
given prison sentences — including party
treasurer Luis Bárcenas, who was given thirty-
three years. When the ex-treasurer went to
testify, Rajoy texted him “Luis, be strong.” The
unusually damning legal decision sparked the
decision by Sánchez to table the motion in
Congress that ended Rajoy’s nasty
administration.
Gürtel was not the only PP scandal. Indeed no
less than twelve out of fourteen of the ministers
under Rajoy’s predecessor, José-María Aznar,
have been imprisoned, charged or involved in
corruption cases. And, most comically, the
party’s regional president in Madrid resigned
after it emerged she had faked her university
masters, and a video was leaked of her stealing
face cream from a retail store! Writers associated
with the Instituto de la Democracia y el
Municipalismo maintain that the putrefaction in
the PP has come to surface due to people’s
outrage towards the political class since the 2011
mass square occupations; but also due to score-
settling within an increasingly divided Spanish
right over political strategy and access to power.
The other, less commented on, issue that sealed
Rajoy’s fate was Catalonia. Many observers have
talked about how the new Sánchez
administration may try and pacify the conflict
that exploded over the October 1 referendum, but
much less has been said about how the dispute
itself contributed to overthrowing Rajoy. This is
despite the perceptive pro-Spanish Catalan
journalist Lola García observing that “half of
Spain” is “asking whether Sánchez has proposed
something unspeakable to the secessionists” in
order to guarantee their decisive votes to oust
Rajoy. In order to understand the relationship
between the Catalan struggle and the social-
democratic victory (and therefore what could
happen under Sánchez) it is necessary to chart
how the Catalan movement has developed over
the last year.
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