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Velasco
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« Reply #375 on: October 26, 2015, 05:03:41 PM »

Mariano Rajoy dissolves parliament.

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/26/inenglish/1445875171_273653.html

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On Catalonia.

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Velasco
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« Reply #376 on: November 01, 2015, 01:54:47 PM »

October polls.

Sigma Dos / Mediaset (15/10/15)

PP 27.4%, PSOE 23.7%, C's 18.1%, Podemos 16.3%, IU 4.1%, CDC 2.2%, PNV 1.5%, Others 8.3%

Invymark / La Sexta (19/10/15)

PP 28.6%, PSOE 23.9%, C's 18.3%, Podemos 13.5%, IU 3%, Others 12.6%

TNS Demoscopia / Antena 3 (25/10/15)

PP 26%, PSOE 20.5%, C's 19.2%, Podemos 14.6%, IU 4.4%, Others 14.8%

Metroscopia / El País (28/10/15)

PP 23.5%, C's 22.5%, PSOE 21%, Podemos 17%, IU 6.3%, Others 9.7%

Projection of seats (Metroscopia): PP 93-100, PSOE 88-98, C's 72-84, Podemos 42-46, IU 5, Others 33-34
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Nanwe
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« Reply #377 on: November 02, 2015, 03:59:30 AM »

http://www.elespanol.com/actualidad/20151029/75242536_0.html

Interesting article, with an average of polls and a prediction of seats. Also looks at the possibilities of coalition-building.
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Velasco
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« Reply #378 on: November 03, 2015, 09:51:34 AM »

Past week Catalan secessionist parties declared the beginning of the independence process:

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/27/inenglish/1445940124_546366.html

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On Tuesday PP, PSC and C's filed a joint appeal against the separatists' motion:

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/03/inenglish/1446545121_442805.html

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As long as Catalan separatism is the heart of the debate, good news for C's and bad for PSOE and Podemos.

In other news, "mixed signals" from labor market:

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/03/inenglish/1446540384_041032.html

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(4.1 million is the number of the officially registered unemployed. The Labour Force Survey -EPA- published every three months provides more realistic figures).
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Ex-Assemblyman Steelers
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« Reply #379 on: November 03, 2015, 10:12:28 AM »

Threshold is 5%?
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palandio
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« Reply #380 on: November 03, 2015, 10:48:47 AM »

No de-iure threshold at all. The de-facto threshold comes from the province-based d'Hondt method seat allocation and varies between ca. 2.5% (Madrid) and ca. 25-30% (Soria). Most provinces have between 3 and 8 seats, so the de-facto threshold is ca. 10-20%. Regional parties like CDC, ERC, PNV, Bildu, BNG will get proportional representation, because they are strong in a few provinces. Relatively small parties with more equally distributed support like IU may get seats only in the big provinces of Madrid and Barcelona, even if they get over 5% nationally.
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Velasco
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« Reply #381 on: November 03, 2015, 11:48:38 AM »

No de-iure threshold at all. The de-facto threshold comes from the province-based d'Hondt method seat allocation and varies between ca. 2.5% (Madrid) and ca. 25-30% (Soria). Most provinces have between 3 and 8 seats, so the de-facto threshold is ca. 10-20%. Regional parties like CDC, ERC, PNV, Bildu, BNG will get proportional representation, because they are strong in a few provinces. Relatively small parties with more equally distributed support like IU may get seats only in the big provinces of Madrid and Barcelona, even if they get over 5% nationally.

There is a threshold. In order to win seats, only lists getting more than 3% are considered for the allocation of seats in every province. The 3% threshold only works de-facto in the provinces of Madrid and Barcelona (36 and 31 seats, respectively). In the rest of provinces it works like you said.
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Ex-Assemblyman Steelers
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« Reply #382 on: November 03, 2015, 12:46:21 PM »

Thank you both of you guys.  I asked because of IU.
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« Reply #383 on: November 03, 2015, 03:32:45 PM »

How efficient is the renovating IU vote? Is it diffuse or concentrated to a few odd provinces?

Also will the parties in Catalonia be the same as what was in the provincial election (I.e. CDC + ERC and Podemos+Greens+IU)?
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Velasco
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« Reply #384 on: November 03, 2015, 06:54:48 PM »

How efficient is the renovating IU vote? Is it diffuse or concentrated to a few odd provinces?

Also will the parties in Catalonia be the same as what was in the provincial election (I.e. CDC + ERC and Podemos+Greens+IU)?

I'd say the distribution of the IU vote tends to be diffuse. If you look at the 2008 election -the IU's nadir- is evident how the Spanish electoral system mistreats minor national parties. Then, IU only managed to win 2 seats getting 3.8% of the vote nationwide: 1 in Madrid and 1 in Barcelona (this one was for ICV, the IU's Catalan partner). Traditionally IU had a number of strong places such as Madrid, Asturias or some Andalusian provinces. Their chances of winning seats are basically reduced to that (add the Valencia province, being optimistic). 

CDC and ERC are going to run in their own in the Spanish General Election. As far as I know, the coalition between Podemos, ICV and IU stands in Catalonia*. On the other hand, the far-left separatist CUP has never ran in Spanish elections. The UDC will try to win a seat in the Spanish parliament, after their failure in the last regional election.

*Podemos wanted to forge alliances similar to that of Catalonia in regions like Valencia and Galicia, but I'm not sure if talks will succeed. In Valencia, the nationalist wing in Compromís is against a coalition with Podemos.
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Nanwe
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« Reply #385 on: November 04, 2015, 10:38:07 AM »

Politikon now publishes in English too and they have two interesting voting analysis:

The core of Spanish parties

The fallout of traditional parties and the emergence of new alternatives has come to tear up the relative homogeneity that existed across PP and PSOE voters. The electoral demand has become more fragmented along with the segmentation of supply, but we are still far from a whole understanding of how and to what extent has this happened.

The capital importance of the left-right or centre-periphery cleavages to understand the electoral market is taken for granted. Probably that is why these divisions get so much attention (most of it well justified) by analysts, journalists and politicians. However, there are more ways to look at this supply-demand relationship. Age, occupational structure, labour market position… These relations have strategic consequences for parties. And although class vote has not historically been a determinant aspect of the party system, the situation might be evolving in that direction, at least to a certain extent.

The data

Every party depends on specific social profiles among others. These are their core constituencies. To locate it and compare it with the overall social profile of the Spanish population we should observe the distribution of its voters and sympathisers across a series of variables. This is not about who ‘wins’ among the young, the old, the rich or the personal services employees. It is about knowing which percentage of the party’s constituency corresponds to each category.

The distribution of supporters  across age gives a good and particularly relevant data point to understand the emerging party structure. The next panel shows such distribution for each of the five main parties competing at the national level. Together with the percentage that corresponds to each party and age group I annotate the difference (in percentage points) with respect to the distribution across the whole population.



For example, 11% of Podemos’ supporters have between 18 and 24 years, 2.8pp above the average of 8.2%. But even when the youngest Spaniards are overrepresented in Podemos more than in any other party, they are only the fifth largest age group in the platform. In any case, it is true that Iglesias’ is the youngest organisation. At the other extreme, 39% of people supporting the PP are older than 64 years. This represents 15.5pp more than the average. Spain has an aging population: 23.4% of it is above 64. But the “population” of the PP is so much older. Even more than for the PSOE, whose structure is also significantly skewed toward senior citizens.

As a matter of fact, “the party of those who do not work” might be a good tagline to define the PP: 46.4% of its supporters are not part of the active population*.



The PSOE comes right behind. Needless to say, this distribution is intimately related to age. New parties do not have more than 17% of non-active voters. Podemos looks like a coalition between insider and outsider-based households. Ciudadanos, on the other hand, is considerably more skewed towards self-employed and managers, keeping still a strong base of insiders, although quite different from that of Podemos as it will be shown below.

It won’t be much of a surprise that both insiders and the unemployed (for the PP) have lost importance among classic parties’ supporters, leaving the socialists and the conservatives as quite dependent from retired people.



Not all retirees are equal. It is now the right moment to dissection each portion of the previous graph, starting with the first bloc. The PSOE has much more qualified manual workers among their retired voters, but the PP has a larger concentration of old & new middle classes, as well as higher classes.



To a certain extent, this trend is maintained when we observe the composition of insider-led household members within each party. While supporters of the PP who work and live in a household whose reference person has an open-ended contract the are mostly qualified and semi-skilled service sector employees, among PSOE’s manual and unskilled workers have a much stronger presence, although they still fail to constitute a majority.



Ciudadanos complements the significant presence of managers and self-employed in its ranks with a large number of managers and qualified professionals, but also middle class workers occupied in the service sector. The profile of ‘household insiders’ among Podemos is relatively similar, with one important caveat: the increased presence of skilled workers relative to the average, offering a mixed profile.

Among managers and entrepreneurs, Ciudadanos shows as well a markedly higher profile, in this case measured by education level, with respect to other parties and the overall population.



The trend gets confirmed when outsiders’ composition (quick reminder: people who work and live in households where the reference person has a temporary contract or is unemployed): those who support Ciudadanos, Podemos & Izquierda Unida have a higher skill profile.



However, education is not everything. It is quite illustrative to observe that Podemos is the party where overqualified workers find themselves with more relative power: above 12% of the ‘purple’ supporters fall into this category.



Overqualified does not mean poor. Observing the supporters’ distribution depending on individual income, Podemos displays an above-average profile , only below Ciudadanos and (partially) IU. The communist-green coalition has two peaks: working class (presumably from Asturias and Andalusia) and gauche divine.



The socialists display the lowest income profile. This is clearly influenced by age structure, which does not change the fact that the PSOE voter is poorer. As a matter of fact, an alternative calculation excluding retired people from the data does not significantly change the displayed profile.

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Nanwe
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« Reply #386 on: November 04, 2015, 10:38:46 AM »

Part 2:

The interpretation

All these data overload can be interpreted if the reader is willing to embark on adventurous hypothesis elaboration. A picture (or rather a useful caricature) of four prototypical parties emerge: the conservative (PP), the market-oriented reformist (Ciudadanos – C’s), the divided socialism (PSOE) and the angry youth party (Podemos).

Almost half of PP voters do not participate in the labour market. 40% are over 64 years old. Among the non-active people, middle and upper-middle classes constitute a clear majority (65%). Middle classes dominate as well among working age supporters. Its supporter with a manager status does not have a particularly high profile when it is compared with the average. But there are no overqualified people among its voters. From this point of view, the ‘adventurous hypothesis’ would be that PP supporters are those whose expectative not been dramatically affected by the crisis. In other words: those that can buy into its main campaigning message, based on “recovery is here, we have done what was needed, now it is not the right moment to experiment”.

The conservative position has not one but two nemeses. On the one side, Podemos is the party of those who radically oppose to the ‘success’ frame: there is no recovery, they seem to say, but a systemic crisis. Its supporters are way younger than those of other parties. Their income profile is a bit above the average, but 35% of them are either unemployed or have a temporary contract, contrasting with a slim 16% for the PP. Those workers in ‘outsider households’ are more skilled than the average. Therefore, it is not surprising that 12.6% of them is overqualified. Only a 18% is out of the economically active population. Around this core of ‘losers (of expectations)’, there is a cover of open-ended workers (32%) where both qualified technicians and manual workers reflect probably the vote absorbed from both socialists and communists. It looks like those who are not willing under any circumstance to assume the official narrative on crisis and recovery.

On the other side we find Ciudadanos, a party where, as in Podemos, most supporters are labour market participants (83%). And, as in Podemos, their profile is a bit younger than the average, although this time the 35-44 age group stands out. Nevertheless, outsiders are less than in Iglesias’ party (26%) and belong mostly to new middle classes, being substantially more qualified than those from other parties. As for insiders, middle and upper-middle classes from service sector are clearly overrepresented. As managers & employers, whose weight is at 11.3%. These are quite more skilled than the average, particularly when put against the PP managerial support. The class profile of Ciudadanos is clearly above that for other parties. Its reformist discourse squares well with the image of new middle classes, upper-middle classes and elites with a strong interest on advancing liberalization.

Among these three extremes, classic socialism has not found its place. It is clear that the age structure of PSOE’s supporters is more similar to the PP than to the rest. But these older, non-active people have a very different profile, with a clear majority of manual workers. The class-based differences are even more evident when observing the income profile of supporters: the PSOE is sharply below the rest. Despite the relative losses that the socialists have suffered from supporters with permanent contracts, they retain the largest core of industrial workers and unskilled. Many of their outsiders also belong to this category. The  socialist insistence on the idea of ​​”reindustrialization” is best understood under the light of this data, coupled with the fact that such voters also represent the core of militancy of the sister union, UGT. But they coexist with a huge number of working class retirees and with the highest representation of middle-low and low class among all parties. It is very difficult to build a coherent platform that leave them all well satisfied, let alone recovering lost voters or appealing to new ones. At the end of the day, the retirees has been the least affected social group in this crisis thanks to the structure of the Spanish welfare state, while the poorest working classes have taken a big blow that could have been cushioned with an alternative system. But under a heavy budget constraint it is not credible to suggest a change towards such alternative without assuming that there will be either spending cuts in other sections or tax increases. In addition, a considerable amount of people of lower middle and lower class have difficulty finding a decent position in the labor market in part because of our regulatory and welfare model, which benefits precisely the industrial working class voter. In short, a very hard puzzle.

*The division between those with permanent (insiders) and temporary (outsiders) contracts refers to the reference person in the household, who may or may not be the one questioned. This is due to the methodology followed by the CIS. Therefore, these categories represent actively working people who do not belong to any of the other categories, who are living in a household where either him or someone with higher income has a permanent contract or a temporary one. In most cases, if the reference person has a temporary contract, all other household members who work have it as well. But the opposite does not hold so often. Therefore, the bias introduced by the use of the question tends to reduce the representation of temporary workers. Whenever I make references to permanent, temporary workers, insiders or outsiders the reader must take this into account.

** From now on, the used samples tend to be smaller, which means that it is essential to take all the results with a grain of salt.
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Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan
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« Reply #387 on: November 04, 2015, 01:21:53 PM »

Great post(s), thank you for it.
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Velasco
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« Reply #388 on: November 05, 2015, 04:54:55 PM »

CIS October survey (fieldwork, Oct 1-12)



54% of Spaniards has no confidence in Rajoy, according to CIS; nearly 29% of the respondents has little confidence in the PM. As for PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez, 41% has little confidence and 35.5% no confidence at all.

In the news: "Constitutional Court rejects blocking Catalan independence motion vote"

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/05/inenglish/1446747744_752094.html

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Basque premier takes some distance with the Catalan 'process'.

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/04/inenglish/1446638204_560427.html

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« Reply #389 on: November 07, 2015, 12:00:13 PM »

    So, if in fact the PP and Ciudadanos have close to a working majority in the new Cortes, would such a coalition be the most likely outcome?
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Velasco
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« Reply #390 on: November 07, 2015, 04:03:48 PM »

    So, if in fact the PP and Ciudadanos have close to a working majority in the new Cortes, would such a coalition be the most likely outcome?

Current average polling suggests that the most viable option is a PP minority government backed by C's. The orange party is very reluctant to enter in coalition governments, unless they are the main force. Also, Ciudadanos reclaims that PP must cut Mariano Rajoy's head before start speaking. Trend in last polls shows that oranges are rocketing, to the point that some people say they will give a surprise in the elections. There's a great volatility and it's hard to say if that progression will continue.

Wiki average polling:



In the news, Podemos recruits former Chief of Defense Julio Rodríguez to run in the Zaragoza province. "It's an honor for us to be joined by Julio Rodríguez, a man who has devoted his life to defending his country”, said Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias:

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/04/inenglish/1446648712_679491.html

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The purple party is struggling to improve the downward trend after the failure in Catalan elections. I believe they'll have a hard time.
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Velasco
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« Reply #391 on: November 10, 2015, 12:48:01 PM »

The vaudeville continues, overshadowing any other relevant issue:

"Catalan parliament passes motion declaring start of secession process":

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/09/inenglish/1447067955_007589.html

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Zinneke
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« Reply #392 on: November 11, 2015, 01:52:24 AM »

The vaudeville continues, overshadowing any other relevant issue:

"Catalan parliament passes motion declaring start of secession process":

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/09/inenglish/1447067955_007589.html

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Didn't the CUP explicitly say they would only support independence if 50% of the electorate voted in favoor of secessionists?

I think this is just a measure to get a better bargaining position. The Castillans will not take it like that though. It will no doubt toughen PP's and C's stances, while Podemos and PSOE will be seen as weak moderate heroes on the issue.

They've handed the general election agenda on a plate to the polarised views on peripheral independence. 
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Nanwe
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« Reply #393 on: November 11, 2015, 07:54:47 AM »

What are these Castillians you speak of?
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Velasco
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« Reply #394 on: November 11, 2015, 08:52:20 AM »


I think this is just a measure to get a better bargaining position. The Castillans will not take it like that though. It will no doubt toughen PP's and C's stances, while Podemos and PSOE will be seen as weak moderate heroes on the issue.

They've handed the general election agenda on a plate to the polarised views on peripheral independence. 

I'm not Castilian, but I can tell you that Catalan separatists are living in a sort of dreamlike state -we'll see how hard is the awakening- and the whole 'process' is nothing but a grotesque farce, which leads to a cul de sac that sadly is going to have serious consequences in the whole 'Spanish State'. On the other hand, Mariano Rajoy's administration has a heavy responsibility in this state of affairs. I think this man should have resigned for his incompetence in handling the problem and the corruption that rots the Popular Party, rottenness that has a clear counterpart in the Artur Mas' CDC.

However, corruption and other problems are going to be pushed to the background, apparently. As for the elections, polarisation favors Ciudadanos and PP to a lesser extent. Catalan separatists are fully aware of that, but they don't care because they have embarked on that delusion called procés sobiranista. On the other hand, even Artur Mas' skills as trickster are not enough to convince the CUP to vote for him to continue in the post of 'driver of the 'process'. Terrible and grotesque mess... It's possible that part of the support for separatism in Catalonia is motivated by the desire of achieving a better bargaining position with the 'Spanish State', but the development of events might not lead to that. One thing is clear for some people in this country: Mariano Rajoy and Artur Mas are obstacles to solve the political problem. 

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« Reply #395 on: November 11, 2015, 09:40:47 AM »

What are these Castillians you speak of?
Castilla is the center-north portion of Spain, it's  sometime used as a term for the regions not looking for further  autonomy  or independence
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« Reply #396 on: November 11, 2015, 09:59:52 AM »

In the news, Podemos recruits former Chief of Defense Julio Rodríguez to run in the Zaragoza province. "It's an honor for us to be joined by Julio Rodríguez, a man who has devoted his life to defending his country”, said Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias:

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/04/inenglish/1446648712_679491.html

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This is confusing, given what I know of the Spanish Armed Forces.
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Velasco
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« Reply #397 on: November 11, 2015, 10:34:01 AM »

What are these Castillians you speak of?
Castilla is the center-north portion of Spain, it's  sometime used as a term for the regions not looking for further  autonomy  or independence

Nanwe is from Valladolid, so I'm sure that he knows where is located Castile in the Spanish portion of the Iberian Peninsula. By the way, the 'Old Castile' (currently Castilla y León) is in the center-north, while the 'New Castile' (Castilla-La Mancha) lies in the center-south and Madrid is in the center-center of the Peninsula. The point is that saying that the rest of Spaniards are "Castilian" is fully incorrect. Another question is that Spanish language is called "Castilian" in Latin America and parts of Spain like Catalonia. I'm "Castilian speaking", but certainly not "Castilian" because I was born and live in another region and don't have family roots in that part of Spain.

In the news, Podemos recruits former Chief of Defense Julio Rodríguez to run in the Zaragoza province. "It's an honor for us to be joined by Julio Rodríguez, a man who has devoted his life to defending his country”, said Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias:

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/04/inenglish/1446648712_679491.html

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This is confusing, given what I know of the Spanish Armed Forces.

I ignore what do you know, but Franco died a long ago and Spanish Armed Forces have changed a little bit since then. General Julio Rodríguez was considered close to PSOE and had a close working relationship with former Minister of Defence Carme Chacón, who is a woman from Catalonia. Apparently, the conservative Spanish government didn't like Mr Rodríguez's move. Current Minister of Defence criticised him for entering politics, in spite of the fact that the man is retired from active duty.
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« Reply #398 on: November 11, 2015, 12:58:22 PM »
« Edited: November 11, 2015, 01:00:20 PM by Nanwe »

What are these Castillians you speak of?
Castilla is the center-north portion of Spain, it's  sometime used as a term for the regions not looking for further  autonomy  or independence

Nanwe is from Valladolid, so I'm sure that he knows where is located Castile in the Spanish portion of the Iberian Peninsula. By the way, the 'Old Castile' (currently Castilla y León) is in the center-north, while the 'New Castile' (Castilla-La Mancha) lies in the center-south and Madrid is in the center-center of the Peninsula. The point is that saying that the rest of Spaniards are "Castilian" is fully incorrect. Another question is that Spanish language is called "Castilian" in Latin America and parts of Spain like Catalonia. I'm "Castilian speaking", but certainly not "Castilian" because I was born and live in another region and don't have family roots in that part of Spain.

Yes, indeed. Sorry about being cheeky, but I was at work and at a loss of words. 'Castilla' or 'castellano' is not a real ethnic or even identity criterion, if you want to distinguish between the people from the historic regions (Galicia, Cat., Basque C.), just mention, 'the rest of Spain' or 'Spaniards'. There is, beyond some groups like the Partido Comunero or the PCPE, so small that could practically be statistical errors, no Castillian identity. Most people in Castilla (which is indeed a geographical term, comprising CyL, CAM and C-LM) identify as from their city (or province at best) and then as Spaniards. This is similar to how English people don't really identify as English much, but even to a higher degree.

As Velasco puts it, not everyone who is a monolingual Spanish-speaker is 'culturally Castillian' (assuming that's a thing), but rather the opposite! As someone from Valladolid, I would probably feel closer in cultural terms to a Basque person than to say, someone from Seville or Tenerife.

EDIT: Actually, I'll correct myself, I do identify myself as Castillian but only when I'm taking part of that great Valladolid tradition of pretending like people from León are untermenschen.
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« Reply #399 on: November 12, 2015, 03:42:04 AM »
« Edited: November 12, 2015, 03:45:22 AM by Velasco »

Constitutional Court accepted a Government's appeal yesterday, triggering the suspension of the motion approved by the Catalan Parliament on Monday in order to begin the "breaking away process". The Court warns 21 high ranking Catalan officials -including acting premier Artur Mas and parliamentary speaker Carme Forcadell- that they must fulfill this decision and prevent any inititative ignoring it, but didn't accept the government's request on warning said officials that they face suspension.

Today acting premier Artur Mas faces the second investiture vote in the Parliament of Catalonia. In order to obtain parliamentary support from the CUP, Artur Mas offered to delegate powers creating three vice-presidencies that would be held by Neus Munté (CDC), Oriol Junqueras (ERC) and Raül Romeva (the JxSí top candidate in past elections). Officially the CUP persists in saying "no" to Mas, but apparently a 'moderate' faction is prone to accept some formula that permits incumbent premier to hold on office arguing that "many people wouldn't understand that Mas falls precisely now". Resolution in a few hours.
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