Spain’s crackdown on the Catalan secessionist referendum: Podemos looks for its “Syriza moment”
By
Alejandro López
29 September 2017
As the day of the Catalan independence referendum approaches, October 1, the Spanish pseudo-left party Podemos has stepped up efforts to present itself as the party most capable of resolving the secession crisis without sparking social opposition.
Podemos sees the crisis as a “Syriza moment” in its efforts to join a bourgeois government and save Spanish capitalism precisely at the point the ruling elite’s fear of mass protest and social revolution has reached new heights.
On Sunday, Podemos held an “Assembly of Coexistence” in Zaragoza to discuss and draft a manifesto urging the right-wing Popular Party (PP) government to “initiate dialogue [with the Catalan separatists], cease exceptional measures and respect the democratic principles, so that Catalans can express themselves.” Podemos was “defending democracy against the Popular Party,” party leader Pablo Iglesias declared.
The PP government, backed by the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Citizens, has initiated the largest security operation since the end of the fascist regime of General Francisco Franco in 1978 in an attempt to prevent the referendum. Police have raided offices, seized ballot papers and posters, closed down websites and arrested Catalan officials. Thousands of extra police are being dispatched to the region.
These repressive measures have sparked protests in Barcelona and throughout Catalonia. As anti-secessionist Lluís Bassets warned in his daily opinion piece for El País, “There is a week left [for the referendum] and the omens could not be worse. The worst is yet to come. […] The judicial machine is under way and there is no doubt that it will…