As the Spanish region of Catalonia heads into elections this weekend, Socialist candidate Salvador Illa is making promises to get the votes of the region’s separatists.
In a debate aired live on Spanish television earlier this week, Illa announced he would reappoint former police chief commissioner Josep Lluís Trapero as general director of the Mossos d’Esquadra, the regional police force for Catalonia. He was fired in 2017 after allowing the region’s illegal independence referendum to take place.
Illa justified the promise on the basis of security. Barcelona, Spain’s second city and the capital of Catalonia, has become the most crime-ridden city in Spain in recent years.
“Security policy is very relevant,” Illa said in the debate, lamenting the rise in crime in the region.
Catalonia has been home to a strong separatist movement for years. In 2017, the regional government carried out an illegal, unilateral independence referendum. The central government intervened to stop it, but it resulted in riots that left Barcelona, the region’s capital in shambles.
Separatist parties have ruled the region for about the last decade and have said they are preparing to carry out another referendum. They are urged on by the concessions of Spain’s Socialist premier Pedro Sánchez, who is pushing through an amnesty for the leaders of the last referendum in order to gain the support of separatists in the national parliament, which he needs to stay in power.
But in this upcoming regional election, anything could happen. Polls are predicting that Sánchez’s Socialist party, led regionally by former health minister Salvador Illa, will win but not gain the majority needed to govern alone. This leaves open the question of whether the Socialists would align with a separatist party or whether the various separatist factions could unite to steal the government out from under the Socialists. Everything will depend, of course, on just how close the election results are and what the socialists are prepared to do to gain power. Additionally, more recent polls have shown the right-leaning separatist party, led by fugitive and former regional president Carles Puigdemont, is gaining popularity.
None of Sánchez’ concessions to separatists have brought calm to Spain. Instead, this situation shows once again just how much of Spain the socialists are willing to sacrifice to stay in power.
