The Secretary General of the Catalan Socialist Party asks the King of Spain to abdicate

Barcelona (ACN).- On Wednesday, Pere Navarro, the Secretary General of the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), publicly asked Juan Carlos I “to resign” and ensure “a quiet replacement” in favour of the Crown Prince Felipe. According to Navarro, who declared himself to be “a dedicated Republican”, the abdication is “necessary” and would “answer the needs of our times”. Navarro insisted that Spain needs a profound constitutional change, a sort of second Democratic Transition. According to him, the current King cannot face such a challenge and Navarro suggested that Prince Felipe should play “a relevant role to mediate the deep changes required in our country”. Immediately after this, the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) – which the PSC is part of as a federated member – totally rejected Navarro’s proposal and said that they considered it to be “totally inadequate”. Since last September’s massive demonstration in support of Catalonia’s independence from Spain, the PSOE and the PSC have shown some public friction regarding the reform of the Spanish State and Catalonia’s right to organise a self-determination referendum. However, it is the first time that a top member of the PSOE and the PSC has explicitly asked for the King of Spain to resign. Navarro chose an event organised by the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce in front of many businesspeople to make his statement. He also chose the same day that Spain’s main annual parliamentary debate started - the ‘Debate on the State of the Nation’, where the PSOE leader, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, engaged in a dialectic fight with the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy. Navarro’s statement has partially eclipsed Rubalcaba’s intervention.

The Spanish monarchy’s own ‘annus horribilis’

In the last few months, popular support of the monarchy has dropped in Spain. This crisis has even affected the King, who in the past was extremely popular, according to opinion polls. The reasons for that are mostly to be found in a corruption scandal affecting the King’s son-in-law, Iñaki Urdangarin, married to Princess Cristina. The scandal popped up a few years ago, but in the last few months more details have become known. This corruption scandal, in times of economic crisis, has acted as a political bomb. Furthermore, the King himself contributed to the crisis affecting the monarchy when, while many Spaniards were losing jobs and suffering from drastic budget cuts in public services, he travelled to Botswana with a female friend to participate in a safari to hunt elephants. Because the King had an accident, a medical plane had to be flown to transport him to Spain early for surgery. This case created another scandal, with international echoes, and made Juan Carlos acknowledge in public that he had made a mistake. Since that moment, the Royal House has tried to improve the King’s image, but lately the monarch’s intervention in the political debate regarding Catalonia’s independence and especially his hipothetical implication in Urdangarin’s corruption scandal – which has not been proved – have put Juan Carlos I in the spotlight again. And on top of this, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Pope Benedict XVI have resigned in the last few days, showing that abdication is an open way-out.

Pere Navarro asks for a second democratic transition, to be carried out with a new leadership

“Today I openly propose the need for the abdication of the current Head of State. It should be a quiet replacement and should answer the needs of our times”, stated Navarro. According to the PSC leader, if this change is not made, democracy is in danger. “Many citizens could believe that what should be done is to change the very democratic system”, if Juan Carlos does not resign, warned Navarro. “I think they would be right if there is not a reaction on time”, he added. Therefore, Navarro suggested that the Spanish monarchy should “modernise itself” and consider this to be a “change of period”. “I honestly think that the role of Prince Felipe has to be relevant to mediate the deep changes required in our country”, he continued. This “second Transition has to be built on a new and modern institutional basis and in line with our times”, he explained. Finally, Navarro acknowledged that his proposal was “ambitious”, “some can think too ambitious” – he recognised – “but today we need ambitious objectives that reflect the exceptional moment we are going through, probably the worst political moment since the democratic transition” after Franco, he stated. Previous to this statement, Navarro had declared himself to be “a dedicated republican”, preferring to eliminate the monarchy in Spain. However, he considered “Juan Carlos I to be a good king who was one of the protagonists of the Transition in the 1970s and 1980s, and who most of the Catalans and Spaniards thank for the work he has done”. However, according to Navarro, now “we need a new Head of State to make the Transition towards the 21^st century”.