Spain: More than five million Catalans were called to the polls yesterday to vote on a new Statute of Autonomy to give them more home rule. Before the vote, the government said it would consider a 50 per cent participation sufficient, though it hoped for more.
They were to be disappointed when only 48.6 per cent of the people cast their vote, although after almost 67 per cent of the ballots had been counted, 73.9 per cent had voted in favour of changes. Only 20 per cent voted against, and 5 per cent put a blank paper into the ballot box.
The road leading to this statute has been plagued with clashes and insults as the nationalists and separatists fought for even greater powers, and the Madrid-based parties refused to relinquish powers and privileges. In spite of weeks of campaigning and publicity, more than 70 per cent of Catalans admitted they had little or no knowledge of what the statute contained, nor had they read the document.
One casualty of the bitter fighting was the collapse of the three-pronged coalition, known as the "tripartit", of the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), the separatist Republican Left (ERC) and the Greens, who have governed Catalonia for the past two years. ERC and the Greens demanded that Catalonia should be described as a "nation" and its inhabitants hold Catalan "nationality", a demand that was eventually watered down to include these descriptions, but only in a preamble to the main document.
Pasqual Maragall, the president of the regional government, was forced to expel his tripartit partners from his government for disloyalty two months ago and govern with the unofficial support of the main opposition Convergence and Unión party (CiU). He needed to win sufficient support for the statute to avoid being forced to dissolve the regional parliament and call early elections.
As he cast his own ballot paper yesterday Mr Maragall described the vote as "decisive - because the Catalan people are voting for their future". They were also voting for Mr Maragall's own political future, which now hangs in the balance, since many of his own party have expressed their dissatisfaction with his performance.
Voters had the choice of three ballot papers: Yes, No and blank. The PSC and CiU had campaigned for a Yes vote. The conservative opposition Popular Party (PP) campaigned for a No because they fear further autonomy threatens the unity of Spain. But it goes further than mere regional politics; Mariano Rajoy PP leader called on his supporters to vote No to "punish" the Zapatero government.
At the same time, the separatist ERC, which fought for more than two years for the statute, called for a No because it didn't go far enough to meet party demands. This decision lost it votes because supporters would rather go against their own party than vote the way of their arch enemies, PP. Josep Lluís Carod Rovira, leader of ERC, said he will continue to press for more home rule and has also called for a new referendum "for independence like Montenegro".
The threat to the unity of Spain is one which concerns many Spaniards. The Ministry of Defence has ordered an enquiry after Gen Alfonso Pardo Santillana, the former chief of defence staff, was warned that unity was in danger when he proposed a toast to King Juan Carlos, who, he said, was the only guarantee of unity. He explained, rather unconvincingly, that his words were improvised and he was misunderstood.
The low turnout will mean further soul-searching for politicians. Mr Maragall will have to consider his own future, the PP will have to decide whether its leader Mr Rajoy chose the wrong path and politicians of all hues must decide what caused this apathy in the electorate.