About legalities, consultations and presidents

I will say it straight away, it is normal that we should be nervous, but it is not necessary.  The messages coming in on the consultation might be seen as contradictory; whether we will vote or not vote depending on what the state says. Yesterday Artur Mas once more used the argument of Catalan legality as a basis for calling the consultation, but added that this legality would depend on the opinion of Spain and specifically of its constitutional court, and he was understood to say that if the constitutional court should oppose the consultation then it would not happen. I say “understood to say” because he did not speak clearly enough to be understood, which means that we must continue talking abstractly.

Let’s take it one part at a time.  First of all there is a roadmap that no one disputes and goes as far as the decree calling the consultation, probably in early October.  This will happen. 

But we must remember that before this date comes, at least two important things will happen: the 11 September and the Scottish referendum. These are important for several reasons. The 11 September is the key to everything. If the turnout is similar to the past two years, and it only depends on each of you, it will have the same effect as then: it will oblige the political parties to go beyond what they had calculated.  As for the Scottish referendum, obviously if the ‘Yes’ vote should win, it would galvanise Catalan public opinion still further and surely oblige the European Union and its leaders to stop wasting time in view of the imminence of real facts.

President Mas yesterday talked as though these things were not important and were not even on the radar.  It is not clear whether he was making tactical announcements to corner Madrid, whether he is following a plan, or whether his real plan is to suspend the consultation if Madrid should suspend it.  However, if this is the case, if he believes that in early October he alone can decide that we are not going to have a consultation, he should know that at that moment we will all be in a very different position from now, after the 11 September, the Scottish referendum and the different manoeuvres the Spanish government will make to put an end to it all.  October 2014 will not be August 2014 and maybe he will have to take a different position to that which he now imagines.

Above all bearing in mind that it is very difficult to imagine that he might suspend the consultation without the agreement of ERC, ICV-EUiA and CUP; and it is even more difficult to imagine that his parliamentary partners would agree.

I therefore believe that we must wait to see what happens, no matter how nervous we might get.  Remain calm, especially because President Mas knows very well that if he suspends the consultation and the government announces no valid and immediate alternative, he will be committing political suicide, probably do away with CDC and certainly put an end to the present process.  And the simple question is why should he be interested in doing this?

director@vilaweb.cat

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President Mas knows very well that if he suspends the consultation and the government announces no valid and immediate alternative, he will be committing political suicide