Languish votes in the Catalan election (Take 2)

[celedhring]

By the way, what happened with Unió after they split with Convergencia? Are they still around or did they dissappear/merge with one of these splinters?

Unió formally dissolved some years ago but their spirit lives on! There are, of course, several splinters. 

- Demócrates de Catalunya: populist right separatist splinter. They were part of ERC's coalition in 2017 (because they had feuded with PDeCAT and thus didn't join the JxCAT coalition), but ran with JxCAT in 2021 (since PDeCAT had been kicked out, and they are a much better ideological fit). They score very highly on the craziness scale, they are essentially the right-wing version of CUP. They got one seat this election as part of JxCAT.
- Units per Avançar: the moderate non-separatist splinter. They are the closest to the original party. They ran in coalition with PSC in 2017 and 2021, and got 1 seat each time.

Some other members of Unió have popped up in the large array of nationalist, non-separatist microparties that have failed to capture any traction: Lliures, Portes Obertes, Lliga Democràtica, etc...

[celedhring]

And yes, the Catalan political sphere is very close to being a Life of Brian running gag.

[crazy canuck]

The new poster child for not wanting unrestricted proportional representation

[viper37]

And yes, the Catalan political sphere is very close to being a Life of Brian running gag.

Well, no one forced you to have elections during covid.  AFAIK, no one forced you to have election, point. But no, you guys had to petition the court to get your election.  Deal with the result, now, and enjoy the Life Brain!   

So many parties... Being used to the alternance of two nearly identical parties (in governance policies) for most of my life, I feel... overwhelmed...

[The Larch]

Cel, should we talk here about the PP - Génova HQ affaire, or maybe we can create a specific thread for Spanish politics? 

[celedhring]

Absolutely  I always use this thread: http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,15193.1470.html

[The Larch]

Absolutely  I always use this thread: http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,15193.1470.html

That'll do nicely indeed!

[Duque de Bragança]

The catalan hip-hopper getting jailed got some coverage over here. Plus a comparison to Navalny by a slightly nutty contact on FB. 

[celedhring]

Hasel is a nasty piece of work (he's also facing jail time for battery and witness intimidation) but the hate crimes conviction is frankly ridiculous. The government says they will reform the penal code for this but we'll see, I'm still waiting for them to reform/strike down the gag law.

[Sheilbh]

Cel mentiond Kiko Llaneras for data visualisations of covid, but I see he's also got some very interesting stuff on elections

Like this is fascinating:
https://elpais.com/politica/2021/02/19/actualidad/1613741557_146092.html

[celedhring]

Cel mentiond Kiko Llaneras for data visualisations of covid, but I see he's also got some very interesting stuff on elections

Like this is fascinating:
https://elpais.com/politica/2021/02/19/actualidad/1613741557_146092.html

Llaneras' content is always great. He actually started as Spain's Nate Silver, analyzing election polling and then he moved to other areas.

And yeah, pro-independence vote has always been tied to both income and origin (and income and origin have also been closely linked themselves). So middle-class and up Catalan-speaking dudes (I'm the weird exception) vote separatist, Spanish-speaking working class votes unionist.

[Duque de Bragança]

Hasel is a nasty piece of work (he's also facing jail time for battery and witness intimidation) but the hate crimes conviction is frankly ridiculous. The government says they will reform the penal code for this but we'll see, I'm still waiting for them to reform/strike down the gag law.

He also got convicted for being an RAF, ETA and Al-Qaeda (?!) apologist, among others. Charming fellow.

[Sheilbh]

And yeah, pro-independence vote has always been tied to both rent and origin (and rent and origin have also been closely linked themselves). So middle-class and up Catalan-speaking dudes (I'm the weird exception) vote separatist, Spanish-speaking working class votes unionist.

Interesting.

The lack of language divide is probably helpful for Scottish independence - because there the more working class and deprived an area the more likely it was to vote for independence. It might be different if there was also a Gaelic or Scots angle - although there is a wider cultural movement to improve position of Gaelic and in nationalist circles a growth in the use of a type of Scots. But neither is a particularly core issue.

[celedhring]

The Catalan language is in the best shape it's been in modern times, but somehow it's going to disappear in a couple weeks if we don't have our own nation-state (and all the relevant powers are already devolved, anyway). If anything nationalist governments have stifled cultural production with their morose parochialism. A hilarious - and slightly terrifying - example: In the first TV show I ever wrote - for the Catalan public TV - we had to have a language expert on set with the power to stop the shoot if he deemed the dialogue improper.

[Sheilbh]

That sounds not a million miles from Irish in the 20th century. Irish was taught in schools and probably in a better state than it had been for a long time, but the state didn't want to encourage anything improper. So the TV and radio shows or the books that were taught in school were even more priggish than English language content. Everyone had to learn the language but there was no love for it because the only way it was used was for 19th century women to tell stories of being very poor, devoutly Catholic and in the shadow of the Famine

It's got a lot better in the last 20 years or so - they're kind of re-discovering the (often filthy) traditional stories and irreverant modernist writers like Mairtin O Cadhain and younger writers/producers are making their own content.