Party Review – the Spanish Nationalist People’s Party (PP) focuses on stopping the “independence delirium”

Barcelona (ACN).- As opposed to the rest of Spain, the PP is a small party within Catalonia. In the last Catalan elections, they got their best results ever, increasing from 14 to 18 seats in the 135-seat Catalan Parliament and obtaining an historical 12.37% of the votes. In the last elections, the Catalan branch of the People’s Party, led by Alícia Sánchez-Camacho, focused on immigration, the economic crisis and the use of Spanish language in Catalonia. By that time, in November 2010, the conservative and Spanish nationalist PP was not yet running the Spanish Government and was using Catalonia as a testing ground for its campaign, trying to turn its traditional marginalisation in Catalonia around. Now, in the 2012 Catalan elections, the PP has been running the Spanish Government for a year; it has passed budget cuts and an unpopular labour market reform, which has not stopped unemployment from increasing in the short-run. Furthermore, it has negotiated austerity measures with the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) – which runs the Catalan Government – affecting the public services and social protection mechanisms used by many voters. Hence, the PP is mainly focusing its current electoral campaign on the Catalan independence debate, which they absolutely oppose stating it is a “delirium”. They do not consider Catalonia to be a nation and therefore they consider Spain not to be a pluri-national state, despite the fact that the Spanish Constitution literally states that ‘Spain is formed by nationalities and regions’. However, they use the Spanish Constitution, which was approved three years after Franco’s death and three years before the Coup d’État that shaped the current Autonomous Communities map, to deny Catalonia a self-determination referendum.

The PP presents itself as the “useful vote” to stop Catalonia’s self-determination process and preserve Spanish unity. Most of the PP leaders throughout Spain, including the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, are participating intensively in the Catalan election campaign, which is something quite unusual. They are addressing their campaign to traditional CiU voters who have doubts about Catalonia’s independence and to the Catalans who were born or have their parents born in other parts of Spain. The PP is centring all of its campaign on depicting a dreadful economic and social scenario if Catalonia became independent, with pensions not guaranteed, higher unemployment figures, people obliged to change their Spanish surnames, a Catalan society broken into two antagonistic halves and an internationally-isolated Catalan state separated by border controls. They are also addressing hard attacks to the CiU and particularly its leader, the incumbent Catalan President, Artur Mas. They are accusing Mas of being “irresponsible” and are using corruption accusations launched by pro-PP media to spread doubts on Mas’ honesty. In addition, they are also using some immigration-related arguments that worked quite well for them in the last elections, such as obliging foreigners to sign an immigration contract or denying social grants to foreigners who cannot prove at least 18 consecutive months of continuous residence in Spain. Polls indicate that the PP would obtain similar results to those in past elections or even suffer a slight decrease. Surveys give them between 16 and 19 MPs. However, since the number of MPs for the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) is likely to plummet, the PP could become the second largest party in the Catalan Parliament, even if it stagnates or loses one or two seats.

Alícia Sánchez-Camacho has given the PP a central role in Catalan politics

In 2008, Alícia-Sanchez-Camacho took control of the Catalan People’s Party after years of leadership changes and bad results. In addition, she tried to put behind them the bad image the PP had in Catalonia after the anti-Catalan campaigns it had run in the mid-2000s, when PP leaders (including Mariano Rajoy) raised signatures against the reform of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy and were sympathetic to boycotts on Catalan products. Sánchez-Camacho has been trying to convince her party colleagues in the rest of Spain not to use anti-Catalan feelings to feed Spanish nationalism, which the PP represents. In addition, she focused on trying to attract the residents of working-class neighbourhoods, affected by high unemployment figures and where social services and grants are shared with immigrants. In 2010, she put immigration issues upfront, obtaining the best results ever in Catalonia, also because of the erosion in support for the Socialist Governments in Barcelona and Madrid. In fact, as in the rest of Spain, the PP is trying to attract middle-class voters and people from working-class neighbourhoods, who are disappointed by the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and, in Catalonia, from the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC).

In addition, after the 2010 Catalan elections, Sánchez-Camacho offered the PP’s support to the CiU, which was running the Catalan Government but was lacking a few MPs to get an absolute majority in the Catalan Parliament. Sánchez-Camacho was presenting the PP as a guarantee for passing the austerity measures in order to reduce the high public deficit left by the previous Catalan Government run by a left-wing three-party coalition, chaired by the PSC. From early 2011 to mid-2012, the PP and the CiU negotiated the Catalan budgets for 2011 and 2012, as well as additional austerity measures. Following the PP’s victory in the Spanish elections in November 2011 and the consequent cabinet chaired by Mariano Rajoy, Sánchez-Camacho was presenting herself as a sort of ambassador of Catalan interests in Madrid and as a link between the Catalan and Spanish Governments. However, this role soon became obsolete when the tensions between both executives rose, mainly because of financial issues and the centralist measures approved by the PP. In addition, after September’s 1.5 million-people demonstration asking for Catalonia’s independence from Spain and the Catalan President’s reaction, the PP and the CiU broke the last possibilities for understanding in Catalonia and Sánchez-Camacho shifted her role from cooperation to opposition.

Attacks on the CiU and Artur Mas

Immediately after September’s demonstration, the People’s Party built a front against Catalonia’s self-determination process and the Catalan President’s leadership of it. In the campaign rallies, Sánchez-Camacho often accuses Mas of “presenting himself as a Messiah” and says that “Catalonia does not need a Messiah”. She states that the CiU leaders, “who never step down from their official cars” she adds, are independence supporters, but the rest of the party members are not. According to the PP, the CiU is magnifying the support for independence, being in an “independence delirium”. Sánchez-Camacho and Rajoy, who is participating in many rallies in Catalonia during the two-week official campaign, accuse Mas of being “irresponsible” and “having abandoned his responsibilities” as Catalan President. Rajoy lamented “the great damage” to “the image of Spain” that Catalonia’s debate is producing. In addition, the Spanish PM stated that “Mas is a torpedo to the flotation line of the European project”, as he is fostering instability in Spain in the current times, affecting the entire Eurozone. Rajoy added that “the economy would recover sooner” if the debate about independence was not on the table.

The Spanish Deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, accused Mas of “wanting to divide Catalan society”. According to her, Mas “uses the manners of TV preachers” to push for a “laboratory debate”, which is invented, and that may provoke the situation where “no salaries enter homes, pensions are not guaranteed and our sons do not find jobs”. In addition, Sánchez-Camacho stated that “the independence challenge” to Spanish unity “slows down foreign investment”. Many PP leaders constantly repeat that an independent Catalonia would be expelled from the European Union, the Shengen Space and the Euro, being internationally isolated.

Using corruption scandals

However, the hardest attacks refer to corruption accusations. Last Friday, nine days before the elections, the Spanish nationalist newspaper El Mundo accused top CiU leaders of having secret bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The main people accused were the Catalan President, Artur Mas; Mas’ father (who died last year); the former Catalan President and historical CiU leader, Jordi Pujol; and one of the current CiU leaders and son of the former Catalan President, Oriol Pujol. The money in these bank accounts was said to have come from corrupt deals between the CiU and construction companies, according to the Madrid-based newspaper. El Mundo, which is often in line with PP’s interests, based its accusation on a secret draft that would have been obtained from the Spanish Police. However, after an internal investigation that lasted 5 days, the Spanish Police stated that the draft does not exist. In addition, according to the Spanish Home Affairs Ministry, some of El Mundo’s information came from other reports, but none of them mention the incumbent Catalan President and CiU leader and many information bits are based on Internet rumours and anonymous letters.

However, the Spanish Finance Minister, Cristóbal Montoro, stated that the Spanish Tax Agency will investigate Mas. The CiU leader denied the accusations from the first day, as did the other people involved, who have all filed a lawsuit against El Mundo for defamation.In addition, Mas accused the PP and the Spanish Government of using “the State sewers” to “destroy him” and what he represents. He also accused the Spanish establishment to play “dirty games” and try to interfere with the Catalan elections. The Spanish PM, Mariano Rajoy, stated that it is a “false” idea that the Spanish Government and the PP is building a defamation campaign against the CiU and Mas. Rajoy added that “if somebody has a problem, they should not transfer it to somebody else”. The CiU asked the Spanish Home Affairs Minister to provide the Spanish Parliament with explanations of the internal investigation and the existence of such a draft. On Wednesday, after it was known that the draft did not exist, the Spanish Finance Minister stated that “it is those who have secret accounts in Switzerland who have to provide an explanation for the Spanish society” and not the Spanish Government. In any case, the PP is not directly accusing Mas or the CiU, but is using the case to spread doubts about their honesty. In fact, on Wednesday Sánchez-Camacho stated that “Mas is asking for a blank cheque in the shape of an absolute majority” in order to have “absolute power to act with impunity”.

Electoral proposals

Some of the PP’s electoral proposals include eliminating the drug prescription fee and the tourist tax approved by the Catalan Government with their support. In addition, they propose the elimination of what they call “identity subsidies” for Catalan-speaking media and civil society organisations promoting the Catalan language and culture. They also propose taking away all the non-basic social grants for foreigners who cannot prove at least 18 consecutive months of residence in Spain. In fact, they have reused the immigration-related measures from their last programme, such as obliging all foreigners to sign an “immigration contract”. If this contract is broken, for example if they lost their job and did not find a new one, they could be deported from Spain. In this line, they would deport all foreigners who committed a felony. In addition, they would forbid the use of burqas and niqabs. Finally, artificial insemination, sex change procedures and chemical or surgical abortions would all be excluded from the public health system.