Editorial/Opinion
The misguided story of the Catalan Statute
By h.b.
Jun 18, 2006 - 11:24 PM

EDITORIAL COMMENT - The pollsters got it right – 74% supporting the new Catalan Statute but from a turnout of only just under 50%.

As after any election, all those implicated have their particular public spin on the results, taking comfort and making claims where they can. But this poll is a lot harder to read.

The reason for this is the unlikely bedfellows found in the Partido Popular, the national right wing party, and the ERC, the Catalan left wing republicans. They were the only two parties calling for a no vote. The former as the Statute gives too much power to Cataluña, and the latter as it does not give enough.

If one thing is clear from the numbers is most people do not care sufficiently enough either way to go out and vote. Turnout was ten points higher and saw 88% support for the previous statute back in 1979, but then emotions were higher as the Catalans were at last free to flex their political muscles after years of repression under Franco. A lower turnout now could have been expected.

The Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has had a lucky escape on this one. When campaigning in Cataluña he rashly promised the Catalan Socialist Party, and it’s leader Pascual Maragall, that his government in Madrid would ratify any Statute passed by the parliament in Barcelona. It was a stupid thing to say, and film of his blunder has been repeated since on frequent occasions. Maragall took Zapatero at his word, but the Prime Minister never imagined that he would be presented with a draft Statute quite so radical. ‘Cataluña is a Nation’ it said, and the words were such that it was immediately considered to be unconstitutional.

At this point the Partido Popular were quite correct in voicing strong and robust opposition to the document, although the cost of them collecting signatures against the document across the country proved to be little more than an expensive publicity exercise.