Catalonia’s post-crisis election set to create more chaos

Bloomberg

When Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy forced an election in the rebel region of Catalonia, the aim was to halt the political chaos after a declaration of independence by separatists that reverberated across Europe.
Instead, more upheaval looks set to emerge. It’s going to be tough to discern any real winner from the vote on Thursday following a campaign riddled with mutual suspicion and infighting.
The final polls before a blackout period began on Dec. 16 showed the three parties pushing to break away from Spain may win the slimmest of majorities in the
135-seat parliament in Barcelona.
The likelihood of securing more than 50 percent of the vote is more remote, though, as is an agreement on who might actually form a government.
Two months since the rebels were slapped down by the Spanish authorities, Catalonia remains divided over if, when and how to cede from Spain. It makes
any of the possible coalitions look complicated for a region that accounts for a fifth of Spain’s economy and is too big and
important to let drift.
“It will require a great level of creativity and flexibility to get out of this quagmire,” said Guillem Lopez Casasnovas, an economy professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. “Even if pro-independence parties win a majority of votes, the evidence of the last two years show that it’s impossible to move ahead when half of the society isn’t with you.”
A mess is better than an organised and mobilized rebellion for Rajoy. The separatists have bowed to the authority of the Spanish state since he shut down their administration. A court in Madrid jailed its leaders for sedition and rebellion after their illegal independence referendum
on October 1 snowballed into a full
declaration of the Catalan Republic.
The Spanish government signaled it may be prepared to enter talks with Catalan separatists if they secure another majo-rity, though the sticking point remains
the 1978 constitution.
The pro-independence camp wants the law changed to allow it to hold an official vote on breaking from Spain.
Spain is adamant that can’t happen.
Enric Millo, the government’s representative in Catalonia, said Rajoy’s People’s Party would vote to block any attempt by the Catalans to make a referendum on
independence legal.
If they can win a majority of the votes “that will force us to sit down and talk,” Millo said at his Barcelona office, where access is barred by a double line of security fences. “The government will talk about how to channel the concerns and aspirations of the Catalan people within the framework of the law.”
The median of the last seven surveys published on the final day of polling projected that the separatist parties will get 47 percent of the vote and those opposed to independence would get 44 percent. The pro-Spain Ciudadanos party is on course to win the most votes with 23 percent. Esquerra Republicana, the biggest separatist group, would get 22 percent.
The separatist movement includes ousted President Carles Puigdemont’s pro-business party and the left-wing radicals of the CUP. It’s been riven by internal
divisions over the dash for independence.
An alliance between Puigdemont’s party and Esquerra Republicana, the traditional standard bearers of Catalan independence, broke down last month. Oriol Junqueras, Esquerra’s leader and Catalonia’s former vice president, remains in jail in Madrid along with three other leading separatists.
Any alternative majority would have
to combine either progressive parties
that were on opposite sides in the battle for independence, or pro-Spain groups from across the ideological spectrum. Spain’s governing People’s Party was headed for a humiliating loss, further
damaging the legitimacy of Rajoy’s direct rule from Madrid.
“After the elections there will have to be some kind of approach and or negotiation at least some areas,” said Pablo Simon, a political science professor at Carlos III University in Madrid. “It’s in the interest of everyone including the separatist leaders who need to stop and regroup.”
Puigdemont has abandoned his pledge to break away from Spain if Rajoy refuses to engage in talks. He is still in self-imposed exile in Brussels and his party’s
first goal is simply to win back the ground they lost as the push for independence
unraveled in October. It wants to restore self-government, get public investment moving again and to end the criminal probes of separatist leaders.