The PSC (Socialists' Party of Catalonia) has announced that it will leave the chamber of the Catalan Parliament on Wednesday, as a signal of protest, when the so-called laws of disconnection, the Law of the Referendum and the Law of Transitional Jurisprudence and Foundation of the Republic, are to be put to the vote, because it does not want to participate in a vote that liquidates the Statute of Autonomy and the Constitution. Beforehand, the same had also been announced in an official way by the PP (Popular Party) of Xavier García Albiol, and in a not such a specific way, by the leader of Ciutadans (Citizens), Inés Arrimadas. In total, at least 52 members of parliament will not make use of their right to vote as a protest (legitimate) or out of vengeance (debatable) in the most fundamental issue of the legislature. The truth is that in the minutes of the session their absence will not count as votes cast, and the voting will show an image of part of an empty chamber, an image that, on the other hand, is not exceptional in the Catalan Parliament. It will not fail to strike a chord that after all the fuss during these years, the votes against in Parliament will in counted in units and not tens.
Parliamentarism has these things: it is full of tricks of the trade so that the deputies can do short turns. Those with the majority to get the regulation closer to a more comfortable position, and the opposition, who can rarely pull it off, reserve the right to strongly mark their differences, including making a spectacle. I recall at least one important vote in which the PP and Ciudadanos (Citizens) already doing the same: it was in October 2013, when they abandoned the chamber in a vote about Francoism after a brawl with the then president of the chamber, Núria de Gispert. The motion of ICV (Initiative for Catalonia Greens) condemned "in a solemn way every declaration or activity that entails any class of praise, trivialization, exoneration or negation of the Nazism, Francoism and other fascist regimes". PP and Ciudadanos also left and only one PP deputy, a member of the Board, remained as a gesture to vote against.
More recently, the three political groups have absented themselves during the commission of the Operation Catalonia and its conclusions. A parliamentary commission, to be precise, that has left crystal clear the participation of the sewers of the State [in reference to Las cloacas de Interior TV documentary - 'Spain's Secret Cesspit'] in an attempt to politically destabilize Catalonia and of the Spanish government's pursuit of pro-independence groups. A good search of any newspaper library would reveal many more examples, but maybe these are enough to highlight the obstruction of the opposition in many of the debates that have marked the political agenda in Catalonia (those that the Catalan government has pushed for, certainly) and the permanent blockade strategy of the initiatives of Junts pel Sí (Together for Yes) and the CUP (Popular Unity Candidacy).
They say that on Wednesday they will leave the Catalan Parliament during the vote. In the end, it will be a footnote at the bottom of the page. Because what is really important is not this timely absence, but because they have gone during the preferred solution of the Catalans that is nothing other than to agree on a referendum. Because the socialists have gone from their history of commitment with Catalanist positions, and even provoke great unease among many mayors and public officials who do not comply with the orders of the direction. Maybe the easiest thing to do is to go away.