BARCELONA, Spain – In polls disguised as local elections, Spain’s Catalonia region on Sunday is choosing leaders it hopes will steer the autonomous enclave towards independence, something contested by the central government but cherished by many Catalans.
“I want Catalonia to improve economically,” said Montserrat Figuerola, a Catalan dentist in Barcelona. “We are sick and tired that the central government is taking us for granted and has not given us any economic benefits (to stay in Spain),” she told Rudaw.
According to local media polls, a coalition of parties in favor of independence is expected to hoard most of the seats in the local parliament.
Catalonia has been one of the economic motors of Spain, and a worsening economic crisis in Spain has been fuelling nationalistic feelings.
Just as the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq wants greater control over its own resources and revenues, the economically-vibrant Catalans are demanding greater fiscal powers from Madrid.
Catalonia, a region of 7.5 million people, does not have the constitutional power to hold elections for independence. But the center right-wing party in power, Convergencia, has made an alliance with leftist parties to present themselves as the standard-bearers of sovereignty.
If Catalonia votes ‘yes’ to separate from Spain, it will find itself on an unknown path. European Union leaders have said that an independent Catalonia could not be part of the European Union; banks and businesses have said they may leave the region in the event of secession.
Anxieties among many Catalans over seceding from Spain have increased over the past years, ever since tensions between Barcelona and Madrid rose in 2010, when the Spanish Supreme Court undermined key points in Catalonia’s autonomous status.
Catalan politicians have fuelled a general complaint that the rich region is contributing excessively to the central budget of the country in order to subsidize other poorer regions.
Francesc Cardellach, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Barcelona, said his vote for independence came more from the heart.
“I have voted yes for parties supporting independence as a matter of dignity,” he said. “I feel Catalan and I have the right to my language and the possibility to have my own legislation. We are a nation which has been annexed to Spain since 1714,” he noted.
A non-binding independence referendum in November ended in a ‘yes’ to secession, but it was declared illegal by Madrid.
The political coalition Junts pel Si (Together for Yes) hopes to take Catalonia to independence after 18 months of wining the elections. But some analysts say that a ‘yes’ could also be a good way for Catalans to bargain with Madrid for greater economic and fiscal powers for the region.
Susana Mateo, a political activist from Barcelona, says she favors Catalan independence, but there are more important considerations at this time.
“I have voted for a party that wants a federal State and a change in the Constitution and I feel the option to vote for independence is a manipulation from the local authorities in Catalonia. There are more important things in Catalonia at this stage, such as poverty,” she pointed out.
Others, like a civil servant who did not want to be named, cautioned about the hype in Catalonia over independence.
“If the Catalan autonomous region has not been able to create a system of government better than the other autonomous regions of Spain, I doubt they will be able to make a better country after independence,” he warned.
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