The right of self-determination of the Catalans and the voting held in the Catalan Parliament on the 13th of March 2013

The Catalan Parliament went another step further towards the objective of exercising the right of self-determination, approving a resolution by 104 votes out of the 135 of the Parliament and 3 “critical” abstentions. And this is a very remarkable fact.

Why is this new voting of the Parliament so relevant when, on the 26th January 2013, the same institution approved the Declaration of Sovereignty and the right of self-determination of the Catalan people? There are various reasons:

• Because thanks to this voting another political party joined the majority in the Parliament that already claimed the right of self-determination, the right to vote democratically. Apart from “Convergència i Unió”, “Esquerra Republicana”, “Iniciativa per Catalunya” and “Candidatura d’Unitat Popular”, the Socialist Party has joined. The final results were 104 votes in favour, and 3 critic abstentions from the CUP, because of their disagreement with the convenience of this voting. The result is 77% of the Parliament in favour of the right to decide including the CUP.

• Because these 104 members, together with the 3 abstentions, represent in total 2.625.230 citizens. 72,19% of the votes issued in the last elections held on the 25th November 2012, which had a participation of 3.668.310 citizens (67,76% out of a census of 5.413.769).

• Because, again, it is very clear now that the 27 votes of the members of parliament that voted against the democratic right to vote, represent a very noisy minority of society, that is 23% or 446.688 citizens. They are the ones that vote for “Partit Popular” and “Ciutadans”.

• Because thanks to this voting that the Catalan socialists have joined the process for the right of self-determination. They joined a position they should never have abandoned.

• Because once again, as already happened with the Declaration of Sovereignty, it is on the table that our first option is a dialogue with Spain so that we can agree on our exercising the right of self-determination. A Declaration that stated as an action principle, literally: “Dialogue. We will maintain a dialogue and a negotiation with the Spanish government, the European institutions and the international community”.

• Because in order to obtain international support, if Spain refuses the right to vote, we will need to have plenty of arguments in our favour. And we will only get the international support if we show clearly that despite trying again and again to engage in a dialogue with the Spanish government, this has turned its back on us.

• Because, first of all, we need a wide majority to exercise the democratic right to vote and decide the political relationship we wish to have with Spain.

From Spain the democratic right to decide is presented as an attack to the indivisible unity of Spain, and therefore, a right which is impossible to exercise. Because from their point of view, something ethereal called Spain is above the citizens will. All the Spanish political range shares this view. This view that they sum up as follows: right of self-determination means independence.

I would like it to be like this but it is not. And the ones who believe that the best option for Catalan people is to have our own State need to be aware that to vote does not meet to win.

Because in case the referendum does not meet minimum quorum requirements they can make it fail. The quorum that will only be possible if they all vote: the ones that are for the independence, the ones that are for a federalism and the ones that wish to continue being an autonomic region or a region with less autonomy.

And this is the first objective we have to meet: the quorum.

This is the reason why it is so annoying to hear or read the comments from Catalan ultranationalists that brand as a traitor and coward anyone that does not wish to declare independence immediately. We should ask them: the day after a unilateral declaration of independence, with its acronym being DUI, what are we going to do? Who will acknowledge it? Because we are not Kosovo, which had NATO’s support, neither Lithuania with the Baltic countries and a USSR falling apart.

We need to join in support and this voting has been one step further to this end.

 

Jordi Colomines

Spanish