(FOTO: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)
Elections alone do not make a democracy. This statement rings truer in Catalonia, where political leaders are in prison for carrying out the political agenda voters elected them to complete. That agenda includes the separation from Spain, a country governed by a cabal of political mob bosses, whose supposed leader, Mariano Rajoy, continues to challenge the legality of the democratical process.
Millions of Catalans elected a government, whose work included reforming laws and ordinances which allowed the region to vote in favor or against independence from Spain.
Political leaders were dutifully elected and legally able to present motions and changes to existing laws and to carry out a referendum so people could decide if they wanted to continue being part of Spain or not.
After months of organizing a lawful and binding consultation, Catalan people voted to remove themselves from Spain last October 1. Unfortunately for Catalonia, in Spain, democracy only works when it helps existing political power. Spain sent police thugs to indiscriminately beat up voters and to remove ballot boxes from voting places.
Rajoy and his cabinet did not like it when the wealthiest region of the country chose to be independent, so they imposed article 155 on Catalonia. The result was the imprisonment of Catalonian political leaders who are captive in Spanish prisons for alleged crimes the State has not even come close to prove.
Former Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont and some of his advisers left Catalonia hoping to find support from European Democratic institutions, but the EU leadership refused to recognize Catalonia’s legitimate right to seek and obtain independence. Only a few individual European nations decided to informally support Puigdemont and the Catalan struggle. One of those countries was Belgium.
Rajoy and the political cabal, who are members of the most corrupt political party in Spain, the Popular Party (PP), demanded that new elections were held and that a new government was formed. Catalans had no other option but to vote again. Elections were conducted and a new parliament was formed.
Last week, the Catalonian parliament elected the new President, Quim Torra, who was elected by a narrow margin of one vote. Despite the legality of the process and although the Catalonian leaders followed Rajoy’s instructions, the Spanish government now refuses to lift article 155.
According to Rajoy, the decision to keep control of the regional government comes from the fact that Mr. Torra named current political prisoners as members of his government.
Despite Torra’s call for Rajoy to initiate talks without any preconditions, the intervention of the State in Catalonia will continue.
The Government will maintain Article 155 of the Constitution because of the actions of the President of the Generalitat. By keeping Article 155 in place, Mariano Rajoy denies the Catalan government the financial capital to operate, which means the recently proclaimed government will not have a way to carry on with the Catalan people’s business.
This type of coercion and political terrorism is not new in Spain. According to the Spanish government, the decision to keep Article 155 in place was the response “to the provocation” of Torra that, according to La Moncloa, seeks “confrontation with the State.” Mariano Rajoy spoke last Saturday with the heads of the two largest political parties, Pedro Sánchez and Albert Rivera to make them part of his decision.
The list of people who Quim Torra wants in his government includes Josep Rull, Jordi Turull and Lluís Puig, who are accused of disobedience and embezzlement, and Toni Comín who is accused of embezzlement and rebellion. The same charges have been made against former Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, who is now in Germany awaiting a decision from a judge on whether such charges are valid or not.
For the Government, this proposal is “a provocation”, which it will not tolerate. If Torra maintains “the confrontation with the State,” there will be no lifting of Article 155 of the Constitution.
The list that Torra presented is not effective since it does not count with the approval of the central government, and this time resulted in the inclusion of two political prisoners and two advisers of former President Puigdemont.
The statement issued the Spanish government explains that “Article 155 of the Constitution remains in force.”
In their meetings with the president, Sanchez and Rivera agreed that Article 155 would be lifted only if there was the establishment of a legal government in Catalonia, but that 155 will remain in place because illegalities were committed.
Torra appointed Josep Rull as Territory advisor and Turull as head of the Presidency. Both are in preventive detention for alleged crimes of rebellion and embezzlement. On the other hand, Lluís Puig was also appointed by the president as Culture Advisor.
“The president of the Generalitat disapproved of an opportunity to demonstrate his will to recover normality, since the decisions he made maintain a strategy of confrontation with the State and the majority of Catalan society,” said the central executive on Saturday in an official statement.
In the next few hours, the State apparatus will provide the formal response to Torra’s proposal, which announced the intention that the councilors will take office in the middle of this week.
“The Government of Spain, through its secretariat, which is the only competent authority for the publication of the decisions made in Catalonia, is now analyzing the viability of the new Government, the personal circumstances of some of the appointees,” said the Executive in a statement.
On Friday, Torra “wanted to stage a willingness to dialogue that lasted less than 24 hours, as his proposal for new counselors is a new provocation because several of them were found to have escaped from justice or in a situation of provisional detention,” says a statement from La Moncloa.
“This proposal demonstrates that the will to express the dialogue in the letter that refers to the President of the Government is not sincere,” continues the reply. A combined action of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the Government of the Nation will prevent these appointments.
The Constitutional Court, instances of the Government, pronounced against the remote investigation of Carles Puigdemont. On Friday, the government’s spokesman, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, appealed “to common sense” to ask the Catalan president not to propose people who “are in prison or with search and capture orders” in Spain. But it is what he has done
