Catalunya’s Revolt Will Shake Spain Again
On November 10, Spain faces its fourth general election in as many years. As the national question continues to polarize Spanish politics, the rising protests in Catalonia are reenergizing the pro-independence left — and causing further strategic dilemmas for Podemos.
Young demonstrators gather following a week of protests over the jail sentences given to separatist politicians by Spain’s Supreme Court, on October 18, 2019 in Barcelona, Spain.Sandra Montanez / Getty
November 10 will see Spain’s second general election of 2019, after the center-left PSOE failed to reach a governmental pact with Unidas Podemos. While each party blamed the other for the breakdown in talks, in truth only Podemos was ever really interested in forming a progressive coalition, as it accepted humiliating conditions in its bid to take up ministries in a PSOE-led government.
The approach taken by Podemos leaders around Pablo Iglesias never enjoyed unanimous backing. The leadership turned a deaf ear to the radical left (including both Izquierda Unida and Anticapitalistas) as well as the supporters of the party’s former number two Íñigo Errejón, who all preferred to maintain Podemos’s oppositional role even while reelecting the PSOE’s Pedro Sánchez as prime minister.
Such a choice was also favored by Catalunya’s biggest pro-independence party, the center-left Esquerra Republicana. It offered unconditional support for such an arrangement — a position much criticized in Catalunya, given both the trial of the leaders who organized the October 2017 independence referendum and Sánchez’s refusal to broker a negotiated route out of the Catalan conflict.
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