Spain: The agreement between PSOE and Junts: a weaker government within the militarization of the State
Featured image: demonstrator of a reactionary mobilization against the agreement. Source: El Diario
We publish an unofficial translation of the article of Servir al Pueblo from the Spanish State.
On Thursday, November 9, the agreement reached between the PSOE [Translator’s note: Social Democracy party who ruled in the previous government] and Junts per Catalunya [Translator’s note: nationalist bourgeois party in Catalonia] for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez was made public. The full text can be consulted here. In an opinion article that was published in Servir al Pueblo after the results of the electoral farce of July 23, we can read the following:
“We see how PSOE and Sumar – in the previous government “Unidas Podemos” – cannot govern with their usual partners. It remains with 172 deputies, four short of the absolute majority. Pedro Sánchez needs Junts to be able to renew his government (…) The first option, a PSOE government with its old and new partners, is the most likely. But for that, whether it is the PSOE or Junts, it will have to swallow its own words and break all the electoral promises and supposed “blockades based on principles” (…) If there is a new government, whatever it may be, it will be unstable and will be forced to carry out concessions to its partners (…) The future government is in the air. Whether or not the elections are repeated, there will be a crisis in the “governance of Spain” . The parliament is fragmented and no bourgeois party has the numbers necessary to govern. It is possible that there are unnatural pacts and the clowns take off their masks. There’s a circus for a while! ” (The bold is ours, not from the original article)
We see how the opinion article published was correct in its analysis: both the and Junts have broken their electoral promises. Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE has been forced to make several parliamentary concessions, including the future Amnesty Law, when it repeatedly stated that there would be no amnesty. On the other hand, the Junts platform led by Carles Puigdemont facilitates the repetition of the PSOE government in exchange for these concessions, but throws away its own words of “referendum [for independence], yes or yes.”
If we read the agreement that PSOE and Junts have signed, we realize two things:
First, that PSOE – current manager of the Spanish imperialist State, that is, manager of the Spanish financial oligarchy – makes temporary political concessions to Junts – political representatives of a part of the Catalan national bourgeoisie. These political concessions materialize in the fact that there can be a parliamentary way to achieve economic advantages sought by the Catalan national bourgeoisie, such as “ an institutional system of the Generalitat that facilitates the transfer of 100% of the taxes paid in Catalonia ”; “ promote the return to Catalonia of the headquarters of companies that changed their location to other territories in recent years ”; “ the direct participation of Catalonia in European institutions and other international organizations and entities ”; etc That is to say, the Catalan national bourgeoisie wants to become strong in an internal market and take steps to make the leap to becoming an imperialist bourgeoisie.
Second, despite what was said above, the text is wet paper . Both formations show their “deep discrepancies” and there are political issues of vital order for the Spanish financial oligarchy that will never allow them to occur (the path towards independence, the Catalan national bourgeoisie controlling a hypothetical Catalan market of its own, etc.) The worst thing is that both of the representatives of PSOE and those of Junts know that it is a temporary agreement that sooner or later will be broken. The agreement is a race to get as much as possible from the rival before they no longer need each other: PSOE wants to guarantee its government, and Junts wants to get all the economic, political and personal advantages it can before the PSOE no longer needs them.
Third , as we already said, the future Amnesty Law – which are mere intentions today, there is no law yet – will be a false amnesty that will come from parliament and not from the struggle in the street. It has already been said that the law will not amnesty many Catalan political prisoners, and will amnesty police officers and various members of the State forces who participated in the repression of October 1, 2017 and in the subsequent months.
Fourth , and as conclusion: the agreement is a wet paper that sooner or later will explode. The main reason is that you cannot have an internal Catalan market, controlled economically, politically and militarily by the Catalan national bourgeoisie, inside the Spanish State. If the Catalan national bourgeoisie advances in its objectives, the Spanish State will simply say enough is enough, and will never let it reach that market it craves. That is why the only real option for the Catalan national bourgeoisie is the breakup and creation of its own State.
And yet, PSOE and Junts are forced to sign the agreement because it is a lesser evil. The repetition of elections would bring even more instability in a context of deepening the crisis of social democracy and crisis of the old State, something that neither the PSOE nor Sumar is interested in. As for Junts, the base of pro-independence masses has been seeing, year after year, how the independence of Catalonia is continually betrayed, and needs a minimum political and moral victory (something that Junts is propagandizing, and also ERC, although it has not participated in the negotiations, because it has already validated the candidacy of Pedro Sánchez)
In this context, the parliamentary right continues its growing reactionization and fascismization. Various leaders of the PP [Translator’s Note: liberal party] accuse the agreement of being a betrayal of the country of such magnitude as the Coup d’état of 23F or “the murders of ETA terrorism “, while these days there have been mobilizations against the negotiations for the reactionary and fascist amnesty called by La Falange and Democracia Nacional [Translator’s note: both fascist parties] in front of the PSOE headquarters in Madrid, to prevent “Spain from breaking up.” The most reactionary sectors of the General Council of the Judiciary (judicial apparatus of the State, self-government of judges) have already positioned themselves against it, while fascist associations of the Civil Guard (political-military police) announce that they will defend the constitution by shedding their blood. .
We increasingly see the characteristics of the crisis of the old State : growing bipolarization of society between the “left” and “right” of the parliamentary arc and growing anti-communism in both sectors; deepening of the crisis of social democracy, delegitimization of bourgeois democracy and succession of weak governments that do not achieve stable government majorities; the “democratic institutions” of the State becoming more fascist and active mobilization of openly fascist individuals; disputes between sectors of the financial oligarchy against other sectors of the bourgeoisie, and among themselves, over how to specifically manage governability crises, etc. To sum up: the imperialists cannot govern as before. Circumstances have changed, and we clearly see how the crisis of imperialism is in its most advanced phase of decomposition.
“Y en el gran desorden, se levanta el sol” [From a great disorder the sun rises]
