The Spanish government was unable to hold back any longer and, at the risk of contaminating the Catalan elections on 14th February, airlifted its Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) into the election campaign this Thursday. For the first time in the history of this Spanish survey research institute - and it has been going for several decades - a survey on Catalonia has been presented in the middle of the election campaign. Something that has been called a "flash poll" and that has four objectives: to interfere in the Catalan elections at the midpoint of the campaign, with all the hoopla that usually accompanies the CIS polls; pump up the PSC candidate, former minister Salvador Illa; generate an unrealistic expectation of political change in Catalonia in which unionism could wrest an absolute majority of seats in Parliament from the pro-independence parties; and attract voters from other Spanish parties to the Socialist candidacies, based on the magnetism of the tactical or "useful" vote.
Many of these techniques are already in use by the Spanish government every time there have been elections in Catalonia. But with a little more tact and not like a bull in a china shop. Maintaining decorum, at least in public. It seems that with the presidency of José Félix Tezanos in the CIS, everything is allowed, even if the prestige of the institute is being destroyed. Tezanos and Iván Redondo, the almighty Spanish government guru, have no respect for anything when it comes to intervening in the opinion formation processes of Spanish citizens and, if interference in the campaign through a survey is required, in order to give Illa a push, it is done. And if for that you have to present ranges of voting intentions which vary by 3, 4 or even 5 per cent, something difficult to justify scientifically, they are presented. It is clear, then, that the state has decided to go all out in the Catalan elections, which should be the perfect stimulus to get hundreds of thousands of undecided or pro-independence voters out of their homes - people who still have doubts on whether it is worth going to vote in this election, as the vast majority of surveys are taking the result as decided before the polls even open.
It has not only been the CIS which this Thursday has chosen to intervene in the campaign. The Central Electoral Commission (JEC), from whom we have not heard anything for days, has considered that a tweet by the Spanish interior ministry, campaigning for Illa, is a conscious and voluntary act, but it will not be punished. Of course, it asks the minister not to use the official accounts again in a similar situation and, well, just to let bygones be bygones. The benevolence with which the JEC acts with its own people contrasts with its attitude when there is a case on its table that affects the independence movement. It is not new, as things that are much more scandalous have been seen in recent times - the sort of things that put people's hair on end, when they reach one of the European courts.
It seems to be not the same for the JEC to look into an issue that affects the minister Marlaska as for any other case, for example, that of former president Torra. The campaign crosses the Rubicon this Friday, heads into its final week and there is still a lot of fish to sell. So much so that it is not surprising that the parties' election headquarters are full of nerves.