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by ErneX 2430 days ago
91% of the people of catalonia voted for the current spanish constitution back 1978, these are the rules of play for all us.

Any change to that constitution should be made by the mechanisms it itself provides, and even in the case a new one is made, it'd have to be voted by the whole country in a referendum.

This crisis has been provoked by irresponsable politicians that have taken shortcuts clearly out of the law in order to secede a whole region of Spain from it, and we also need to keep in mind half of the people from or living in Catalonia do not want to split from Spain.

My 0,02.

1 comments

>91% of the people of catalonia voted for the current spanish constitution back 1978,

Many of these people are dead. There was no alternative to this constitution as it happened in a very unstable climate after the death of the dictator, where the constitution was seen as the one way to stabilize the country and advance towards a democracy.

>This crisis has been provoked by irresponsable politicians that have taken shortcuts clearly out of the law

These "irresponsible" politicians exhausted all avenues and did what they did because they had no alternative left to actually act on what their constituents, the people who voted for them, put them in place for.

And the fact people want this is in no way unrelated to what happened to the Estatut d'Autonomia, which defines the relationship between Catalonia and Spain. The current version of the document was written in Catalonia, revised and cut several times until Spain was OK with it, then voted in a referendum in Catalonia and put into effect, only to be cut down dramatically shortly after by the constitutional court, acting on the behalf of a Spanish nationalist political party which gets almost no votes at all in Catalonia. This was perceived as a massive insult to Catalan people.

Not only the situation was not repaired, but Spain's attacks on Catalonia's self government continued. This is the main reason why independence took a hold, perceived as the only option going forward.

>and we also need to keep in mind half of the people from or living in Catalonia do not want to split from Spain.

I have to ask for the source of this data. Certainly not a referendum, nor an election. At best, some newspaper poll.

My 2¢.

Data is actually the Catalonian government statistics office (Centre d'Estudis d'Opinió):

https://elpais.com/ccaa/2019/07/26/catalunya/1564132750_8266...

This and all the recent catalonian parliament elections, you clearly see the split between pro independence parties and not pro independence.

The 1978 constitution is the current rule of law, it can be changed, but that needs political support in the spanish congress. If you want to simply ignore the rule of law because you don't like the constitution or "many of the people that voted for it are dead" that's your problem (sorry to be blunt, but that can't be a serious argument).

The CEO is just an opinion poll, but it shows that there's a lot of people for independence, if anything.

The two referendums (the older non-binding "consultation", and the newer binding), along with the results of elections, and the fact the current government is pro-independence, are the best data we've got, by mere size of sample.

There hasn't been a binding referendum because a secession referendum does not legally exists in the current constitution. If the pro-independence side calls for these referendums and we all know those are non-binding, the only turnout those will have are of those who are in favor of secession. Those results cannot be taken in any way seriously.
>the only turnout those will have are of those who are in favor of secession

There was plenty of turnover, and plenty of No votes, in the referendum famous for the use of force by the Spanish "Guardia Civil" police.

There just happened to be a lot more Yes votes. Like how people voted in another pro-independence government again in the Catalan elections organized by the Spanish government after they forcibly disolved the Catalan government, just a few weeks after this referendum.

In no way those non binding events had significant participation from the side that does not want to split from Spain.

Plus there was no active voting census and people could vote multiple times, you can't seriously consider the turnout from those events as valid in any way.