From the leftist Spanishization to the PP-Vox reform of the Statute
That Balearic politics is increasingly being conducted in a national key is an undoubted fact. Which explains the election results. Not only those of the general ballot boxes, but also those of the regional ones. This trend—which the few nationalists who remain call “Spanishizing”—is going full speed, and in every period of Spanish government in the hands of the PSOE it increases very strongly. This has always been the case. But never as intensely as now. And it has all the appearance of being irreversible. Above all, because it is raining on a flood.
At first glance, it is clear from the de facto recentralization that the socialist and neo-communist executive practices without hesitation on major issues of national interest. Without complexes, as they used to say—which was a right-wing view, but one that today's leftist rulers have adopted. And behold, those who claimed that the defense of island self-government was the essence of their politics and ideology are now also applauding or, at least, not opposing the invasion of regional competencies, to the point of requesting correction or intervention in matters of Francoist dismemory, housing... A strange way to defend it. Deep down, it responds to the firm conviction that self-government is only desirable if it serves to approve what I like, but, if not, to hell with it.
The national-Spanishization of the left goes back quite a long time. The movement known as 15-M and the organic translation that was Podemos was an excellent example of this, in its case, from the conservative far-left. The PCE-IU-Sumar also was always in the same line, however, this formation previously had a certain will to at least appear to be different from the PSOE, but today it does not even hide it, it is a mere branch of Sánchez's party, and it is very proud of it, as it never ceases to demonstrate.
All this was well known. The novelty, for our regional purposes, is provided by the delegated branch of the PSOE in the Balearic Islands. Because the current leaders were forged in the opposite line. Historically, the local Socialist Party was divided between the 'officialists', who followed the instructions from the central headquarters to the letter —Fèlix Pons, Ramón Aguiló, etc.—, and the critics or 'autonomists' —Joan March, Josep Moll...— who were later called 'federalists'. Among the latter was —in the mid-1990s— Francesc Antich, who created the slogan 'We must be more PSIB than PSOE' on the occasion of the first internal elections to choose the head of the list for the 1999 regional elections. Everyone understood it: full support for self-government. No one until then had bet, within one of the two major parties, on such an autonomist option. Not even a memory of it remains.
Francina Armengol was a disciple of Antich. She agreed with him because he boasted a highly autonomist rhetoric, in her case, the fruit of an ideological evolution from the independence movement of her student years in Barcelona —she was a militant in the Bloc of Independentist Students— to the pragmatism for power. What no one imagined was that the diligent federalist student of that time would end up becoming —necessity dictates— a standard-bearer for the most centralist PSOE.
It is not only the island's PSOE that has changed. Neither has MÉS ever had —since the time they were the respective PSM— a practice —the discourse is another matter— so unfavorable to the island's self-government as it is now. It is striking that they, self-styled 'sovereigntists', should campaign with such uninhibited enthusiasm in the socialist ranks through the aforementioned PCE-IU-Sumar-Front delegation: anything goes, including centralism, if it is to defend the PSOE against the PP-Vox. In other words: self-government can be secondary, or, even, expendable.
These attitudes have been creating a local political environment in which the major topics of political debate are—more and more—the same as the national ones. This even manifests itself in a grotesque way, as in the case of the sit-in in the Madrid style at the Plaza de España, in Palma.
Of course, everyone does what they can, want, or are allowed to do. Especially to survive and eat. But it is still striking that the left—both the progressive and the conservative—has played so deeply in favor of the national-Spanishization of Balearic politics, especially because it has created a perfect scenario for the right. It is not known whether they realize it or not, but it matters little in terms of the result.
A potential example: imagine that in the midst of this environment, the PP and Vox win 40 seats in the Parliament in May—they are close to it now—in line with the national voting intention. Qualified majority. In other words: the one needed to change the electoral law at will or reform the Statute however they wanted—Catalan, to start with—which with a right-wing majority in Congress would be approved without issue and, not a chance, the left could dream of one day having enough strength to turn it back.
