It was on an interview with Mariano Rajoy (PP leader) on October, 3rd:

"Estoy dispuesto a proponer la reforma de la ley electoral, porque en este momento es un asunto especialmente importante. Le voy a explicar por qué. Si los políticos catalanes van a decidir sobre lo que ocurre en Cataluña y el resto no puede intervenir, ¿por qué van a decidir sobre lo que ocurra en el resto de España?"

"I'm ready to propose the reform of the electoral law, because at this moment it is a specially important matter. I'm going to say you why. If catalonian politicians are going to decide over what happens in Catalonia and the rest can't intervene, why should they decide over what happens in the rest of Spain?"

El Mundo

In the interview he explained that the reform was so that a party should have more than a 5% of national votes in order to be present in the national parlament.

Fernando

Fernando,thanks for the link.

I've read the interview completely and Rajoy says nothing about a specific system of 5%.

I've found that your system was initially proposed by Ibarra ( PSOE antinationalists) in january, 2004. The propose was refused by all political forces. PP refused and derided "Ibarra electoral plan" saying that it was the biggest proposed electoral reform in Spain and that it was going against the plural Spain. PP said that when they were governing Spain.

El Mundo 1

El Mundo 2

El Mundo 3

After that big blow to Ibarra, he said : "I was wrong"

Despite of that, its true that Rajoy is preparing a new reform for the electoral system. And I assure you that is not the "5% plan". First, because it can be avoided quickly by a coalition.
And secondly, and the most important, because they refused the system last year.

This is the famous "plan B" of Mr. Rajoy if finally the catalan statute is approved. FAES (PP's think tank) is now working on that , and Rajoy will present it the next year. I think it will be similar to this proposed reform of El Mundo ( supported by some PSOE members).

Reforma del sistema electoral

And I will applaud Rajoy if he finally presents this. It's good for Spain if PP propose new projects, instead of proclaming the final days of Spain.

It's true, I didn't remember it was first proposed by Ibarra. It's a pitty that PP and PSOE didn't support it at the time.

But I'm almost sure that the reform proposed by Rajoy was in that way. Anyway, I fully support the idea Ibarra proposed, and will support Rajoy's proposal if it is reasonable.

Fernando

EmilioJ, Do you know that the new catalan statute was a electoral promise of Zapatero? You know that the proposed statute has been aproved by PSC, CiU, ERC and ICV ? Beside of the statute ( because you think the catalan statute is only a demand of ERC)
what other demands of ERC have been accomplished and approved by PSOE ?

Untrue.

Zapatero promised Estatuto's changes, not THIS Estatut. Zapatero didin't promise an non-constitutional reform of the Estatut.

I know this and YOU know this. Even more: some PSOE members are surprised and upset by the Estatut text, and they have spoken it in the media. Even ex-president Gonzalez and ex-vicepresident Guerra. It's not just me.

Yes, I know.

So what is your point.

My point is exactly the same: Maragall needs ERC and ICV in regional Parliament as Zapatero needs ERC in National Parliament.

CiU approved the Estatut (although they declared that it was not perfect for them) because they didn't want to seem "less nationalistic" than ERC and lose the nationalistic votes.

But when CiU was in the regional government, they didn't show any intention of making such non-constitutional reforms... and once said that, we can start to think about, you know, the 3%. I guess you'll know what 3% am I talking about.

Are you kidding me?.

I don't consider a "catalan statute reform as a concept" an exclusive demand of ERC, because anyone can propose a reform. I consider THIS statute and some of his non-constitutional points a demand of ERC.

In fact, MANY different ERC demands are built-in within the Estatut. Have you read the Estatut? A part of it? Do you think that certain number of articles are a reflection of PSOE's politics, or of the ERC demands? The proposed Estatut contains proved Non-Constitutional articles. It's not me who says that. Just read past weeks newspapers.

And, what do you think about Zapatero saying that "the National Parliament will approve ANY Estatut that the Catalan parliament send, without making any changes?". How do you call to this effective renunciation from Zapatero to effectively control what a Comunidad Autonoma does? Do you find "logical" that a national President agrees to *blindly* approve an Estatuto's reform? Or do you think that I'm paranoid when I'm see in that a payment to ERC for their parliamentary support?

But maybe all of this was a genuine PSOE's crazy idea and ERC has nothing to do with it, as well as the Salamanca's archive transfer, the leaving a legally recognized (in the Valencian Estatut! Ooops... what a fright! no? We have an Estatut here in Valencia! But Zapatero just doesn't love it as much as the Catalan, as I infer from his null consideration of what the Valencian Estatut says) regional language without an own version of UE Constitution (this was "corrected" later but we both know why and how), the retirement of national signs of Cataluña's barracks, the tribute to Companys on National Parliament (???? explain me that, please), etc. etc. All of this were trinkets, though, compared to the "new" (well, not approved yet) Estatut.

And on and on.. but, this is weird, all the PSOE's crazy ideas (which as you say hjave nothing to do with ERC) and others that I forget for sure, always favor ERC and the Catalan nationalistics. Such a funny coincidence.

I repeat: it's not me who say this. Almost anyone outside from Cataluña says this, even many PSOE's members or voters. Everyone says this because this is an evidence. It's obvious for any reasonable individual who is not biased by his nationalistic desires.

Just read the Estatut and read the National Constitution. There are *several* incompatible articles. There are contrradictory articles. If this estatut is approved without cleaning the non-constitutional articles, it will be the biggest parliamentary betrayal to Constitution since 1978. Because a lower law (an Estatuto) CAN NOT contradict or creat conflicts with the highest national law, the Constitution.

This is a Laws basis: a law cannot change, modify or contradict a higher level law. Not to say the *highest* law.

Now you tell me that PSOE promised, before the elections, to contradict the Constitution with a bunch of Estatut's articles or any other law. "If we win the elections, we're gonna make non-constituional laws".

Please.

Going back to the original post....

It always bothers me when the military complex within a nation feels that they have a right to sway public opinion, or throw out any inuendo as to "which way they are swayed" when it comes to law, and the will of the people.

The military is supposed to be an instrument of protection for the people, and one that supports the standing lawful government without having a political bias themselves.

If I was a Spaniard, this would be my primary concern. Why does the military even have a voice in civil affairs? They should never have an opinion.

It might be time to start realigning the military heirarchy before they believe they are powerful enough to "rule the state" like they did with Franco.

Wolf

EmilioJ , please tell me only one statement in the new statute that doesn't pertain to the electoral program of PSC, so they have been obligated to include it because of the coalition with ERC.

The statement " Catalunya is a nation", perhaps?

Do you think that the 'salamanca papers' were not in the electoral program of PSC?

Also, I recommend you to read this
PSOE is going to emend some points of catalan statute


English Translation

I think your idea of ERC governing over PSOE is failing too quickly.

--------------------------

Wolf, I'm agree with your opinion but I'm not agree with the title of this thread "Spanish military states opinion on Catalan Regional Statute". From my point of view, the head of spanish army was in a conference to talk about terrorism, immigration, and other questions related to his responsibilities. Some people asked him about the term 'nation of nations', the problem with nationalists, the integrity of Spain, but no one asked him about the proposed catalan statute. He responded very accurated to a question , the integrity of Spain,and refused to respond the other questions. And he remembered the art. 8 of Spanish Constitution, as I have said in other post in this thread. I don't see any opinion on that. But it's true that some spaniards are interested in proclaiming this as a clear opinion against the new statute.

Second warning: "A Lt. General has stated that the army should intervene if an autonomy statut passes the limits of the Spanish Constitution".

El Mundo

Fernando

Well, as far as I'm concerned Fernando is right in some points but saying that Spain is on the verge of a Civil War is WAY exaggerated.
This is not going to happen, you can bet your house.

But a lot of points that he make are good: nationalists are creating all the troubles of world to this country and Prime Ministre Zapatero is giving them all cause he need their support to stay controlling the government of the country.

There's specially one catalonian law, passed last week, wich is one of the worse atacks to the freedom of speech in a First world country in the last 30 years, probably one of the worst atacks to the democracy along with the illegal tape wire of Bush.
The Law's name is "Comunication Law"

And it says in the article 3:

"2. La llibertat de comunicació audiovisual resta subjecta al règim d'intervenció administrativa que estableix la llei, si escau, en garantia del pluralisme, d'altres drets i de l'interès general."

Transalation:

Freedom of speech in audiovisual comunications could be sanctioned by the government of Catalunya.
Now a channel, newspaper, radio station etc...
can only speak, inform and report about facts based on "veracity", if your information is not based on "veracity" they can fine the owner and close the channel, AND WHO JUDGES WHO IS SAYING THE TRUE???? OBVIOUSLY THE CATALUNYA'S GOVERNMENT.

THAT'S A SHAME.

THIS LAW SHOULD BE DECLARED INCONSTITUTIONAL AS SOON AS POSIBLE.
AND THIS LAW WAS PASSED BY THE PSOE THE ULTRA LEFT NATIONALISTS AND THE COMMUNISTS OF CATALUNYA.

Pippo: I agree that the situation is far from a civil war (yes, it's an exaggeration, I admit), but I also think that this government has started a very dangerous path on the verge of a conflict (of any nature).

As for the law passed in Catalonia, the Spanish Government has stated that a similar law is to be passed at national level, thus giving the Government the ability to close unfriendly media, which is directly against our constitution.

What's worse, they have just nominated the president of the Constitutional Court, which is the court that should decide if a law is constitutional or not.

Fernando

Talking abut a civil war is absolutely inmoral, inadequate, alarmist and just what some extremists want.
I never thought that Fernando was an extremist, but right now this is the feeling I have.
That stupid military has been expelled. That's good, our country is as strong as ever.