Article by Vicent Partal, "The King and the judges show their true colours and the crisis in Spain is becoming colossal", in Vilaweb (25 SEP 2020)

Editorial by Vicent Partal in Vilaweb, published on 25 September 2020. Translated into English by MS, with the author's permission.

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Original (Catalan): https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/el-rei-i-els-jutges-es-descaren-i-la-crisi-a-madrid-es-monumental/

The King and the judges show their true colours and the crisis in Spain is becoming colossal

We shall have very few occasions, 'momenta', like the one that is looming on the immediate horizon. And we squander our time with squabbles between parties

I've been issuing warnings for months: Madrid is blowing up. The permission that the PSOE granted to the monarch and the judges in 2017 to carry out a coup against Catalonia bore consequences. And these consequences are a coup d'etat, alive right now, also against them. You can't tell people to stage a coup and then try and tell them how far they can go.

Yesterday Esquerra Unida first and Podemos later could bear it no more and had to stand up. During the day, the provocation was such that they could hardly hold back any longer. If on 23 February 1981 it was the military, today those who are bringing out the tanks, metaphorically speaking, are the judges. But the white elephant is the same: the Bourbon king. With one difference: Juan Carlos was a corrupt bon vivant and in return for a good party he was capable of accepting any transition. King Felipe is a Fascist.

And yesterday Felipe did the same as on October 3, but with the PSOE and the government of Pedro Sánchez as his target. Whereas Zarzuela* on that occasion usurped a capacity he did not have and made a one-sided speech, without Moncloa**'s permission, now Felipe has sided with the coup plotters and has made it known, to the point of unleashing a collosal crisis. Yes, Madrid is blowing up.

A few days ago in an interview here at VilaWeb, the leader of En Comú Podem Jaume Asens warned of the 'constitutional' coup that would take place on the 30th. The run-up is all of what has transpired now: the Bourbon phoning Chief Justice Lesmes and leaking that he wanted to come to Barcelona and was not allowed to do so. The CGPJ set a trap for the minister who travelled to Barcelona with this barrack-style shout of ‘Viva el Rey’, which was a challenge to political power, similar to the last days of Allende’s Chilean democracy. And the extreme rightwing press is setting the context and igniting the street. The thing is straight out of the handbook: the monarchy manoeuvers to get rid of Pedro Sánchez's government or, probably, to redirect Pedro Sánchez or the PSOE - and note the distinction - towards Ciudadanos and the PP. Towards the split with Podemos.

I said ‘note the distinction’ because Pedro Sánchez belongs not to the PSOE but to Pedro Sánchez, all he cares about is his personal power. And he knows that if he breaks the government with Podemos his head may roll as well. Watch out, then, for possible surprises on this flank.

The key to all this is that the Spanish right has a patrimonialist concept of power. If they are not in power in Spain, the government that rules is automatically illegitimate. And the Spanish judges, a Francoist bunker with power, have their own political agenda. Politics. Which coincides, and not surprisingly, with that of Vox. That is, with that of the monarch.

So the war, has already broken out and the question is what will become of Podemos, Pedro Sánchez and his government; but, above all, what are we - the pro-independence activists - to do, what do we have to do. For we shall have very few occasions, momenta, like the one that is looming on the immediate horizon. And we squander our time with squabbles between parties.

Madrid is blowing up. Three years afterwards, the Catalan republic is proclaimed but does not exist, that's true. But it is also true that the independence movement has managed to shatter the entire Spanish institutional architecture. All the equilibria, all the fabcy dresses, all the gallantry. The state has found itself naked as it is: a tyrannical misfit in the hands of post-Francoists that tolerates (less and less so), a certain concealment in the political sphere and that's all. This is happening before our very eye: the deep state wants to rule Spain without counterweights, because they let it rule against Catalonia and now it wants to impose its criterion on Madrid-Spain as well.

And all this in the midst of a pandemic management that, especially in Madrid, can easily lead to a huge social conflict and, on top of all that, with the debarment of President Torra in the oven. All this that may happen next week is not to be taken lightly.

And I must confess that when I heard what police deployment was being prepared to stop possible protests against the debarment, I was surprised. I don't see any mobilization now that can be in any way comparable to that of last year's Republican October. But I know the police have plenty of tools to monitor the state of the population that I don't have. So I wonder if they can detect anything I don’t detect.

And I ask myself, because a second hot October on the streets would be different from last year's in one way: in Madrid the regime people are already killing each other. And also that these judicial coups, of which the debarment of President Torra is one of the most serious and indefensible cases, are beginning to be perceived by a sector of Spain and Europe as the real threat to democracy, as the big problem. That at such a grave time the pro-independence parties are hanging around to play election games is unfortunate, insane. But we need never to forget that the last word - remember the First and the Third of October, remember the occupation of the airport, remember the Marches for Freedom, remember the victory of Urquinaona - is always in the hands of the people.

PS. The Bourbon king has an obvious Achilles heel: corruption. He's just an English or Swiss headline away from having to resign for corruption, too. This is another of the keys to all that we can see and to which we need to be very, very attentive.

Notes

* The Royal residence

** The Prime Minister's office

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 Version française: https://estudiscatalans.blogspot.com/2020/10/article-de-vicent-partal-le-roi-et-les.html

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