Posts Tagged ‘Carles Puigdemont’
Candidatura d’Unitat Popular – a Catalan Left, from Independent Republic to Leaving the European Union.
Països Catalans Today.
The CUP defines its economic platform as socialist and favours the nationalisation of all financial institutions, transportation and communication networks. It also promotes the complete independence of Catalonia from Spain and subscribes to the broad definition of Catalonia as incorporating the Catalan Countries (Països Catalans), which in addition to Catalonia proper include Spanish regions of Valencia and the Balearic Islands, the Catalan-speaking eastern franja or border region of Aragon and the Catalan-speaking region of southeastern France. The party also favours the withdrawal of an independent Catalonia from the European Union (EU) and from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
The French site of Ensemble describes CUP’s origins in currents such as the third-worldist, Marxist-Leninist and pro-Basque armed struggle group, the Partit Socialista d’Alliberament Nacional dels Països Catalans (PSAN) which has more splits and fusions than even the maddest of UK leftist faction and a Marxist Leninist groupuscule, coming from the armed organisation, called terrorist, Terra Lliure. They also list some of the more recent groups which joined in the CUP, some of whom it describes as Trotskyist, such as En Lucha (tied to the British SWP), Corriente Roja (section of the IWL, Morenoist), Lucha internacionalista (La Unidad Internacional de los Trabajadores (UIT-CI) and Revolta Global-Esquerra anticapitalist which has links with the Izquierda anticapitalista and the Mandelite Fourth International,various activist campaigning groups, the original and important Occupy Movement in Spain, the Indignados, (not the US counterpart), the peasant Pagesos per la Dignitat Rural Catalana. Okupas (Occupy, on housing and land issues), self-managed social centres, (CSOA), etc.
They also indicate the key role CUP played in the promoting the right-wing Carles Puigdemont, as President of the Catalan Representative body, the Generalitat.
Ensemble: Catalogne : Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP), une organisation « assembléiste » et indépendantiste.
France 24 concurs on their role in pushing the right-wing Puigdemont forward,
He’s the successor to Artur Mas who was pushed out by the far left after Mas was accused of implementing a policy of austerity.
They add, clarifying why he had got elected.
Puigdemont has had to forge a tenuous coalition of separatists (Junts pel Si), made up of a range of parties that extend from the far left to the centre-right, and vary widely on their positions on economic and social issues.
Politicians describe him as a savvy strategist.
“He’s a person who listens a lot then decides with total and absolute liberty,” says his friend and biographer Porta.
Puigdemont doesn’t worry too much about economic or social issues, says José Antich, director of El Nacional, a Catalan online newspaper.
“His priority is independence, independence, independence,” he adds.
He also has to deal with the CUP, which is not part of the official coalition of right and nationalist left but is needed to get voting majorities through the Parliament.
One notes this, as the Financial Times puts it,
Despite its radical roots and positions (which include taking an independent Catalonia out of Nato and the EU), the CUP has so far made common cause with the more centrist, business-friendly elements of the independence movement.
One obvious reason for the alliance between self-styled leftists and the Catalan nationalist bourgeoisie is that although it makes much of being anti-capitalist the CUP puts the official promotion of the Catalan language and National Identity at the heart of its politics. Generously allowing for private use of other tongues, the reinforcement of the cultural texture of the “Països Catalans”, that is including the above “Catalan counties” beyond the existing legal borders, form the centre of its programme (item 5 out of 6).
La defensa de la llengua i la identitat nacionals. Promoció i oficialitat del català en tot el territori nacional sens perjudici de les parles de l’àmbit privat, garantia de la unitat de la llengua, indústries culturals pròpies i autocentrades, reforçament del teixit cultural d’arrel popular arreu dels Països Catalans.
Oddly, or perhaps not, this item is absent from their English language version, which contains this dithyrambic oration,
The CUP’s rupturist position is opposed to the hegemonic Catalanist position, as independence for the country without a breakaway from capitalist institutions is not something that the CUP’s revolutionary position would support. Significantly, the CUP is opposed to the reformist position of the other independentists, as it doesn’t desire social democratic reforms, rather a rupture from the capitalist system.
Other parts of the CUP’s International section include a few articles in Spanish and others in approximate English, (“a hooligan state policy by Bourbon orders”) and French (though I am rather fond of the ” le cinisme (sic) criminel qui nous protège en nous tabassant” though less endeared with “nous nous sommes rebellés contre l’Europe honteuse. En prenant l’humble décision de ne pas reculer”).
Although some claim that it is one of the biggest radical left groups in Europe its own site only lays claim to around 2,000 members, albeit with 385 councillors and 10 MPs in the Catalan Parliament.
D’aleshores ençà l’organització no ha parat de créixer, local, nacional i políticament. A hores d’ara ja compta amb quasi 2000 militants, 385 electes als municipis i més de 150 assemblees locals i assembles o nuclis de suport arreu dels Països Catalans. Les eleccions del 27 de setembre de 2015 van permetre l’entrada de 10 diputades i diputats al Parlament de Catalunya.
There is little doubt that there vote has grown over recent years.
Finally the CUP lays claim to social laws, all of which are laudable, although you can’t help being a bit reminded of European local councils in the 1980s who passed resolutions making their towns and cities “Nuclear free Zones”
The last fifteen laws we have passed in the Catalan parliament have been banned by the Spanish state. But these are not independentist laws — many of them are social laws: for example, a law about sanctuary for those fleeing persecution, a law banning energy companies from turning off people’s electricity, and a law for a higher minimum wage. We want to use our autonomy to improve people’s lives and we are forbidden. People see this and respond. They want to decide the future of Catalonia and that is not possible in the current arrangement.
Luc Salellas – councilor for the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP) in Girona and a member of the party’s national executive.
Excellent resolutions…..
Meanwhile the CUP have just demanded that sets a timetable to declare a Catalan Republic (
La CUP pide por carta a Puigdemont que proclame la república catalana)
You can listen or watch these events on the Madrid State’s official Catalan language Radio (Ràdio 4) and Television (TVE Catalunya) services.
More: Candidatura d’Unitat Popular
For more rational politics see:
Puigdemont Betrays National Cause of Catalonia – Socialist Worker.
Puigdemont: Betraying United Catalan National Cause, Say British Leftists.
El presidente de la Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, declaró este martes la independencia de Cataluña pero abogó por suspender durante varias semanas los efectos de esta declaración para lograr una mediación.
“La suspensión” of the full implementation of the declaration of independence was in all the media this morning.
You can watch the right-wing leader’s speech here.
It must have been easy for the SWP to write this, immediately.
Carles Puigdemont betrays hopes of Catalan independence – but the fight is not over
Today’s Socialist Worker.
Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has betrayed the hopes of the movement for independence from Spain by saying that “dialogue” must come first.
He told a session of the Catalan parliament on Tuesday night that he would “suspend the effect of the independence declaration” in “a gesture of responsibility in favour of dialogue.”
Before the referendum—held on 1 October in defiance of repression by Spanish cops—Puigdemont had vowed to declare independence within 48 hours of a yes vote.
Some 90 percent voted for independence. But Puigdemont did nothing until Tuesday, 48 hours and one week later.
By then he only said, “The voting said yes to independence and this is the way I’m going to follow”—eventually. First, “We have to start a dialogue because otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to reach our goal.”
But the Spanish government of Mariano Rajoy has shown no interest in dialogue, responding only with repression and blackmail.
Puigdemont urged politicians and the media to “calm” and “de-escalate” the bitter row rather than ratcheting it up. He called on businesses moving their legal headquarters from Catalonia to return.
His climbdown only hands the initiative back to Rajoy.
Outside the park that contains the parliament building, where thousands of demonstrators were watching the speech on big screens, many responded with anger and disbelief.
Members of the pro-independence anti-capitalist party CUP shouted, “Shame on you”. They warned Puigdemont’s party—whose government CUP props up, that “It’s the end of our patience”.
Others were more positive, telling reporters they hadn’t expect Puigdemont to risk a unilateral declaration of independence yet. One man told the Euronews channel it felt like “The first day without the king of Spain.”
The fight for independence clearly isn’t over, but Puigdemont’s speech is a major setback.
Senior European Union (EU) politicians may have helped broker the backsliding.
Socialist Worker ends this article by supporting the movement for “democracy and independence.”
Today the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular, CUP, demands that Puigdemont fixes a limit, a date, for negotiations to end.
Their twitter feed is full of demands that Catalan sovereignty be recognised, but little that is recognisably socialist.
The most recent declarations of the other main left nationalist group, Esquerra Republican, (Republican Left) also lacks any socialist dimension, referring vaguely to a “social” dimension to the Catalan republican ideal.
No doubt Catalan national unity, and demanding that Carles Puigdemont, a right-wing career politician, leads the struggle for Independence come what may, against the Spanish Government, and the European Union, is more important in the fight for the Nation than class struggle, or any form of socialism or social democracy.
Meanwhile, for entertainment, we note this: (Socialist Party).
- For a socialist republic of Catalonia!
- The workers can finish what Puigdemont won’t!
This groupuscle managed to see a working class moblisation at the centre of the Independence Campaign.. NO doubt the workers were hard at inside the main cultural force for independence, the wealthy, business and Catalan government funded Òmnium Cultural, not to mention…see below.
Meanwhile in the Catalan Parliament, Junts pel Sí (the bloc behind right-wing Puigdemont, which includes the so-called Republican left, has 62 seats, the CUP has 10.
Despite having only 10 of the Catalan parliament’s 135 MPs, this anti-capitalist force has become one of the central kingmakers in the process of self-determination conducted by the Catalan government. Its deputies are crucial for ensuring a separatist majority in the chamber, and so, while voting to put a pro-independence government into power, its radical anti-capitalist view has frequently clashed with the Catalan establishment and the liberal parties in charge of the Catalan government.
New Internationalist. Marc Almodóvar
That has not stopped the CUP setting aside such differences in the interest of the Catalan Nation and People and reaching an agreement to keep the right in power.
Government (62)
- JxSí (62)
Confidence and supply (10)
- CUP (10)
Opposition (63)
This another example of ‘left-wing’ drivel being circulated at the moment.
Update: SWP calls for international support for coalition of right and left fighting for an independent Catalonia.
Please organise yourselves. Set up united solidarity campaigns with Catalonia. Mobilise in support of democratic rights in Catalonia and against repression. If they smash us, they can smash you tomorrow. Everybody has a stake in this.”
Meanwhile about the only people speaking sense are Podemos.
Francesc Xavier Doménech, deputy for Unidos Podemos, tells the Spanish government: “You are denying reality. This is a state crisis. This crisis cannot be resolved by applying the same measures taken to date, which are basically repressive measures.”
Tendance Coatesy 