It's not easy to find a date. But it does not seem unreasonable to place the origin of the degradation of Spanish politics – it is not that it was previously a pristine place and free of pollution – on May 3, 2016, when the Official State Gazette published Royal Decree 184/2016 that dissolved both the Congress and the Senate in order to call new elections. It was the first time that elections were repeated in the recent history of Spain, and since then politics has entered into twists and turns that were unthinkable not too many years ago..
Erosion, although perhaps we should speak of debasement, is certainly not a problem that should be linked to the breakdown of the two-party system in the previous general elections, those of December 2015.. After all, the previous system had failed after the financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent political crisis, but the metastasis began to flood the entire political system in light of the bankruptcy of an unappealable principle.. Democracy is based on the existence of basic consensus that enables coexistence, and on which the identity of a nation is built.. For example, its territorial structure, its common cultural and symbolic features, the proper functioning of its institutions or even the organization and autonomy of its judicial system.. Also, the political climate.
Since then – just seven years have passed – three general elections have been held (including a second electoral repetition) and no party has ever won more than 137 seats of the 350 seats in Congress, despite the fact that the electoral system clearly benefits both. majority parties. Without this representation premium, their majority would even be very inferior.. The system, to put it directly, is broken, which explains the succession of events and the accumulation of unaddressed problems.. Not because parliament has been fragmented, but because bipartisanship has been replaced by bibloquism.
It is evident that the ammunition that has sown discord – there are other factors but they are less relevant – originally comes from the Catalan independence movement, always disloyal to the rule of law since the times of Francesc Macià on April 14, but the current state of affairs It would not have been possible without the help of the two major parties, which since 2016 have dug deep trenches until reaching the current situation.. The new parties, there is the dramatic case of Ciudadanos, which ended up becoming a hooligan of sectarianism instead of providing fresh air with innovative ideas, have made the trench a little deeper.
The photo of Columbus
“We are not going to agree, we are a radically different party,” said Pedro Sánchez, according to this report from El País, in the federal committee of the PSOE just 48 hours before the Cortes dissolved.. Nor has the PP—neither with Rajoy nor with Casado nor Feijóo—done anything to seek a way of understanding.. Quite the contrary, since at least 2018 (already in full competition with Vox) he has thrown himself into the arms of the extreme right that seeks to liquidate the State of the autonomies and outlaw political parties, and with whom he shared the ominous photo of Colón, institutionalized with the agreements after 28-M.
No one can be surprised, therefore, that the country has serious problems of governability – a concept that goes beyond the approval of laws – and that it has resurrected a trompe l'oeil that consists of understanding politics as two models that are incompatible with each other, when In practice, it is Europe that sets the limits of political action. The independentists know this well because not only did Article 155 put an end to their secessionist delusions, but it was the European Union itself who said that it would never accept Catalonia into its fold for obvious reasons: many more nations would come after it.. Those who maintain that Sánchez can enable a process of self-determination in 21st century Europe are lying, therefore, and not only because it is openly unconstitutional, but that the European Union would never allow it..
Crying over spilled milk, however, is meaningless.. Probably, the worst thing that Spanish politics can do now is to start arguing about who is to blame for reaching this state of affairs.. Obviously, unless politics is understood as a boxing ring in which the contenders end up knocked out by so many blows.. Unfortunately, and given the absence of alternatives, it seems that they want to continue this strategy. It is in this context that we must place the current debate on the more than probable amnesty for those accused of 1-O, whose approximate number would be about 700, according to Òmnium Cultural, audited by Verificat, of which seven would be the escapees. of the Spanish justice.
Clean slate
Amnesties, in principle, are neither good nor bad. They depend on the goal they seek. And it is not necessary to resort to an exercise of comparative law to understand that in certain historical periods they have fulfilled that function.
It is therefore false to say that an amnesty means a clean slate with the past (another thing is from the point of view of the judicial file).. From the political point of view, which is the truly relevant one, nothing is forgotten. Everyone knows and remembers clearly what happened on October 1 and the days that followed, so it makes no sense to insist on comparing the amnesty with either amnesia or oblivion.. It does not even, of course, imply a disqualification of the judging courts because they did their work in accordance with democratic law, approved by popular sovereignty, and there is nothing to reproach.. On the contrary. As former Minister Tomás de la Cuadra recalled a few days ago, it is no coincidence that initially the Ministry of Justice was called Grace and Justice..
The extraordinary nature of the amnesty is precisely what makes it a delicate instrument. In particular, because its concession – which is perfectly legitimate, including in consolidated democracies such as Spain – must be placed in a specific context.. Without context there can be no amnesty, as happened at the beginning of democracy or even when in the first half of the 1980s pardons were granted – comparable in this case to an amnesty – to ETA-PM militants with blood crimes. after 1977. Nothing happened and there were no scandals, simply because they were situated within a certain context: their dissolution.
As a matter of principle, therefore, the priority is to know what is intended with the amnesty. Or what is the same, what is the good to be protected that necessarily has to be of a superior nature to the granting of the amnesty itself, whose nature is political, as is the Constitution itself, which is what sets the limits of its execution. In this case, according to the Government, it facilitates coexistence in Catalonia.
The argument, from a formal point of view, is unappealable.. There is little doubt that if the amnesty, in the general interest, normalizes the political situation in Catalonia – the main source of our current territorial conflicts for more than a decade – it must be granted.. Now, the obligatory question is whether with its approval there are guarantees that what in terms of coexistence can be called the normalization of Catalan politics will be recovered.. Or, at least, the famous implication that Ortega spoke of in his fertile debates with Azaña about Catalonia is temporarily materialized.. And what is no less important, if it is guaranteed that after political peace, in the figurative sense of the term, victory does not come. That is, the construction of a Catalonia based on the will of others, which would be a calamity..
A lame debate
That is why the current debate on the amnesty is lame if it is not framed in a broader context of territorial policy, which is the one that corresponds to the parties with a vocation for Government.. Not only about the fit of Catalonia in the organization of the State, but, in general, about a global review of Title VIII of the Constitution that avoids, for example, converting Congress, through the back door, into a territorial chamber, to which requires qualified majorities that the majority of the left has today..
Political emergencies, however, have led to the construction of the house on the roof being started.. Instead of beginning to move towards a territorial reform that could well lead to an amnesty, we begin with the second, which can only cause confusion and noise.. The same thing happened after the reform of the Statute and the subsequent ruling of the Constitutional Court, instead of seeking solutions to a devilish problem, such as the TC overturning a text approved in a referendum by its recipients, on which at that time popular sovereignty rested. , nothing was done, which led to the events of 2017.
Confusion and noise because the amnesty is framed today in the investiture debate, since the socialist candidate needs the votes of the independentists, who are the ones who demand amnesty now. That is to say, it becomes a matter of State, such as the amnesty, since it affects the entire political system and the constitutional order, into a matter of Government.. A matter of State, by the way, that not only concerns whoever holds power, but also the main opposition party, which precisely because it is a very relevant issue should not engage in demagoguery.. Among other reasons, because of those dusts (the denial of political action) these sludges.
The fact that the amnesty is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to facilitate political normalization in Catalonia should be at the center of the political debate. It is not. Precisely, because of the instrumentalist and even Manichean character, in the most miserable sense of the term, that is intended to be given to the amnesty by stripping this measure of grace of the underlying problem, which has to do with old problems not resolved due to the apathy of one and the other, and that is what could have emptied the independence desires of content.. This Sunday's demonstration is the proof of the nine. As is thinking that with the amnesty a conflict that has poisoned coexistence is extinguished. In short, a matter of State converted into an auction.