Voting Rights?: Go to New Zealand

One of the dangers with “burning issues” for the expatriate community is that we end up repeating ourselves, myself included. If not winter flights and tourism or all-inclusives, then voting rights. In addition to repetition, we might also not get a wholly accurate or complete picture.

“Brussels thinks Spain’s stance on non-Spanish voters is undemocratic.” (“The Bulletin”, 15 October.) I’m not sure Brussels does think this. Brussels, or some bureaucrats or politicians lurking within its labyrinths may think, just possibly, that a new decree should be issued regarding voting rights for expatriates in national elections, but if they do, then they would have the whole of the EU in mind. The issue is not a Spanish one but a European one.

Just to remind you. Under terms of the Single Market, provision was made for expatriates (of whatever nationality within the EU) to be able to vote in European and local elections in the country in which they are resident. No provision was made for national elections. That was the agreement, and it still is.

The agreement doesn’t prevent countries from granting a vote in general elections, if they so wish. But only two EU countries – Ireland and Portugal – have come anywhere near to doing so. In Ireland, a proposal to permit voting for the Dáil and for the President has been around for three years, but it remains only a proposal.

There are anomalies with voting rights for foreign nationals, such as Irish citizens (and Commonwealth subjects) being permitted to vote in a British general election and, in parts of the UK, a Spanish or any other EU resident being able to vote for a devolved parliament or assembly, while a Brit in Spain cannot vote in a regional election.

Anomalies aside, the undemocratic aspect of voting rights in the EU lies not with the current restrictions on foreign residents but with disenfranchisement from any national election. The UK 15-year rule is not the only such rule. If you are Danish and have permanently lived outside of Denmark for two years, you lose your right to vote.

Such disenfranchisement, unbalanced by a right to vote in the country of residence (i.e. Spain, for our purposes), is undemocratic, or appears to be, as it goes against the principle of universal suffrage. But suffrage itself is wrapped up in concepts of citizenship and national sovereignty. Limited suffrage can be granted, as with the provisions of the Single Market, but in the most important manifestation of suffrage – that of voting for national parliaments – unless you are a citizen of a country, you cannot vote.

There are countries in which foreigners can vote in national elections. Permanent residents in New Zealand can. In Uruguay, there is a fifteen-year qualification rule. But these are very much the exception. The principle is, overwhelmingly, citizenship equals the right to vote for a national parliament; a national parliament is a supreme expression of sovereignty; and sovereignty is enshrined in national constitutions.

The limited rights to voting within the EU have required constitutional amendments. To extend rights to national elections would require further changes and thus a huge political debate. In Spain, any constitutional amendment does, strictly speaking, require a referendum. The EU might mandate voting rights for foreigners in national elections (though I would personally doubt that it would, certainly not in the current climate with the problems with the Euro), but this would still necessitate constitutional changes.

Just think about it for a moment. Would the British Government go along with such a directive from Europe? Well, would it? Apart from anything else, the right-wing press would be in uproar. The same in Spain. While British residents might press their claims to vote, has anyone asked the Spanish what they would think? Politically, it would be a step too far, and for the EU to mandate such a move would probably signal its own collapse. And were it to, then the whole burning issue of voting rights would cease to be an issue.

I have no disagreement with citizenship being paramount in determining who should be allowed to vote (and please, let’s not have any we’re all Europeans speciousness). Where a change might be made is with respect to the length of time one has been resident, as in Uruguay, but there should also be strings attached, as contemplated by the Irish, one being to pass a language test. After all, if you can’t command the language, how can you have true command of the issues, always assuming of course that you are interested? But that is a different matter entirely.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Saints And Sinners: The coup attempt of 1981

23-F. The Spanish love a number and a letter. Great events and not so great events become numerical and alphabetic abbreviations through which these events are afforded the cachet that is supposed to come from contraction. Some events, some dates are great, in that they are hugely significant. 23-F stands for 23 February (“febrero”). The year was 1981. The year of the last attempt at a coup d’état in western Europe.

Thirty years ago, a Guardia Civil lieutenant colonel by the name of Antonio Tejero stormed the Spanish parliament along with 200 or so Guardia officers. His aim, to overthrow the nascent democracy of post-Franco Spain. It was an inglorious failure. It collapsed the following day, 24-F, when King Juan Carlos went on television and, in a speech which cemented his place in the nation’s affections, effectively put an end to the coup attempt.

Tejero was something of a comedic figure. He looked like Manuel from “Fawlty Towers”. It’s alright, the parliament deputies were doubtlessly reassuring each other – “he’s from Barcelona”. He wasn’t from Barcelona, but one’s recollections of the coup attempt were that it was all a bit of a farce; this waiter dressed up in military garb, waving a gun around and waiting for Basil to come along and smack him round the head.

It was a bit more serious than this, guns being fired in the parliament and so on, but it had the air of a British comedy cliché. Bumbling revolutionaries, talking in Spanglish “foreign”, who put the coup on hold for a couple of hours while they took a siesta. All that was needed was Mr. Humphries declaring himself “free” and the staff of Grace Brothers cowering in the corner while Mrs. Slocombe bemused the revolutionaries with her pussy. Indeed, Captain Peacock and his department-store personnel had anticipated 23-F some four years previously, having found themselves in the midst of a revolution while on the Costa Plonka in the horror that was the “Are You Being Served” film, one that featured Andrew Sachs, typecast as a Spaniard.

Along with its letter and number, the 23 February coup attempt has been granted its own name – “el tejerazo”, after the unfortunate and absurd Manuel-Tejero. What made the tejerazo seem even more ridiculous, from the distance of seeing television pictures in the UK, was that it seemed so utterly pointless and that it had come out of the blue. But this wasn’t quite so.

The history of Spain’s first few years of democracy was anything but smooth. The armed forces were still heavily Francoist and at the time, in 1981, there was economic crisis. The coup attempt was, to some extent, an expression of a widely held view – one that pre-dated Franco – that Spain was not capable of democracy.

Similar economic circumstances prevail at present, but it is most unlikely that a current-day Tejero would turn up at the Cortes lower house with a revolver. The armed forces’ role has diminished, to the extent that when the general, José Mena, hinted in 2006 that the military would intervene were Catalonia to become more autonomous, he was promptly put under house arrest.

23-F, for all its laughable qualities, was hugely significant because the failure of the coup was confirmation of the supremacy of democratic principles and of the king as the standard-bearer for the new Spain. Nevertheless, great events tend also to attract the nutters who see conspiracy. So it is with 23-F. It was, so the conspiracy theorists would have it, a put-up job with the purpose of bolstering the king’s position. What is unquestionably true is that there was a plan for a later coup d’état. It has not been honoured, if one can say this, with a number and letter, but 27-O (27 October, 1982) was the date, the day before a general election which was easily won by the socialist PSOE. The plot was uncovered and pretty much covered up.

24-F, apart from being the day when the 1981 coup was crushed, is also the day of the miracle of Sant Crist, in Alcúdia at any rate (bewilderingly celebrated in July every three years). In 1507, so legend has it, this was the day when the sweating of blood brought deliverance from drought and famine to the people of Alcúdia and the island. The modern 24-F was not a miracle and nor was it a fable, but it was a day of deliverance. From the past. It was the day when Spain stopped being a farce and started to grow up.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Here Come Da Judge: The Garzón affair

In a café – Spanish – the other afternoon, the television was on. Nothing unusual in this. What was, was what was on. There was a platform of serious-looking speakers. Sounds dull? A party conference maybe? No. It transfixed me. This was an event in support of a judge. It is difficult to imagine a conference either taking place, let alone being televised, in support of “m’lud” in England. But this is Spain.

The event was organised by two of the main unions. Those from the world of the arts and culture were on hand as well to show support for Baltasar Garzón, the most celebrated of Spain’s investigating judges.

Back in October 2008, Garzón announced that he was ordering an investigation into crimes committed by the Franco regime. As part of this investigation, graves were due to be dug up. The Spanish attorney-general opposed the investigation, and ultimately Garzón was ordered to call it off. But it didn’t stop there. He is now being investigated by the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (supreme court) in Madrid, accused of “prevaricación” (that word again), manipulating the course of justice and even of some financial wrongdoing. Under the terms of the amnesty of 1977, it is argued (with justification), that Garzón had no right to go around digging up the past.

That he may have exceeded his powers, for which a formal slap on the wrist might have been thought sufficient, has not stopped a process of bringing him to book, one inspired mainly by the far-right in Spain, including the Falange. Didn’t know that the Falange still existed? Well they do. The leader of the centre-right Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, called the conference in support of Garzón “anti-democratic”. The actions of the supreme court have been described, by the left, as “fascist”. Forces across the political spectrum are adopting their positions in respect of a judge who, in theory at any rate, acts independently of politics.

For some, Garzón is getting his rightful comeuppance. Others will be revelling in the schadenfreude of a judge with such international celebrity being investigated. Yet more will see the case as an attack on judges’ independence. Garzón has not exactly been reticent in courting his celebrity, which, in itself, may be a problem with the system of investigating judges. His attempt to extradite Pinochet was, and remains, his best-known moment in the international spotlight, and international is apt as he seems wedded to the notion of international jurisdiction, something that the Spanish Government has acted to limit.

There is a line of argument that Garzón, in seeking to investigate Franco’s crimes, was acting in accordance with law on human rights. The amnesty of 1977 not only heralded a period of collective national amnesia it also undermined any attempt at indicting those who had committed atrocities. This may have suited the immediate post-Franco Spain, but it can also be argued that it left a festering sore, one that has been opened – politically – by the current administration’s law on historic memory. An amnesty, so one view has it, cannot rule out a requirement to investigate when the issue of human rights is at stake.

But more than anything, and notwithstanding the accusations against Garzón that he exceeds his powers and is over-zealous, the current case against him highlights the hold that the Franco period still has over Spain. Additionally, one can set the Garzón affair within the context of the spate of corruption allegations. Despite claims that these have been politically motivated, independent investigators are crucial to the exercise of Spanish democracy. If politicians, by their indiscretions, cannot adequately support that democracy, then the judges have to do it for them. A curb on their powers, and this is how one can assess the Garzón affair, might be welcomed in certain quarters, but those powers have never been more important than at present in rooting out the malaise that weakens democratic institutions.

Garzón did go too far. That is the problem. Perhaps he felt emboldened by a political atmosphere, one created by the law on historic memory and not averse to rummaging through the Francoist past. This would have been his first mistake, as it would have politicised, albeit indirectly, his investigation. It may sound unpalatable to those who seek to right the wrongs of the Franco period, but his second mistake was in choosing the wrong investigation and in lining himself up against some still powerful, one might even say dark, forces. And for this, he may end up stripped of his powers. A question will be, will others?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.