Spain's electoral commission late on Thursday declared that protests planned for Saturday and for Sunday are illegal as they "go beyond the constitutionally guaranteed right to demonstrate."
Saturday is by law "a day of reflection" ahead of the local elections, meaning political activity is barred. But organisers of the spearhead protest in Madrid vowed to defy the ban.
Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Friday that police "will enforce the law" against the protesters but "in a proportional manner." But Spain's leading daily El Pais quoted government sources as saying police will only intervene if there is violence. "The fact that the gatherings are banned in not enough reason for the police to act" against the demonstrators, the centre-left paper said on its website.
Calling for "Real Democracy Now," the protests, popularly known as M-15, were called to condemn Spain's soaring unemployment, economic crisis, politicians in general, and corruption.
Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose Socialist Party is facing a crushing defeat in Sunday's polls, on Friday voiced sympathy for the protesters, saying they were reacting to unemployment and the economic crisis "in a peaceful manner."
/...
http://www.france24.com/en/20110521-spanish-anti-crisis-protesters-cheer-ban-takes-effectThe media seems puzzled, too. Abroad it is portrayed – mistakenly – as a protest against the government's austerity measures, approved a year ago. In Spain, newspapers are also awash with analysis trying to understand the supposedly complex nature of a political movement that is seen as something radically new. At times it's characterised as "post-democratic" or "trans-ideological", a "new way of understanding politics" or even a "rejection of politics". The unsurprising fact that many of those taking part possess mobile phones and computers also allows for the now mandatory amazement at the power of the internet. So is it ideology or technology?
...
The makeup of the protestors is not that mysterious if you take a walk in the square. Those who camp there are unmistakeably part of the anti-globalisation camp, focused in social causes (immigrants' rights, world hunger), idealistic, often naive, and with a strong anti-capitalist bent. They're actually very few.
What is new here is that at times they're reinforced by a much wider and down-to-earth crowd. It's comprised of pensioners, passersby and angry parents, but still mostly of university students. The People's party knows these are not their potential voters. If they're angry at the Socialists it is because they feel it has shifted to the right in the economy, which is true. The hardcore may be "post-democratic", but the ensemble is certainly not "trans-ideological".
I believe this is the key to understanding this protest. For all its far-reaching rhetoric, it addresses solely the left. It ultimately represents the frustration of those who see that it doesn't matter which way you vote, the economic policies are dictated by the markets; hence the critique of "the system" and the demands of accountability and transparency. Most of the protesters seem to be the people who voted Socialist in 2008 only to prevent a win for the People's party. They don't want their vote to be taken for granted yet again.
/...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/20/spain-protesting-angry-ones?intcmp=239Although they complain about Spain's two-party system, Gándara and Aguirre underscore the fact that they are not trying to delegitimize the act of voting, and actually encourage people to do so in good faith in Sunday's regional and municipal elections. "We are neither anarchists nor working against the system; we're just ordinary people," says Gándara. "The real anti-system people are the sharks who ripped the financial system to shreds," says Aguirre.
Regarding the May 15 demonstration that sparked the Madrid camp-out, Aguirre and Gándara feel that all they did was light the fuse of a feeling of dissatisfaction that was there all the time. Their message? That civil society must have a greater presence in politics, and for politicians to no longer be able to work "with a blank check."
"We're talking about participatory democracy at the local level, about participatory budgets and referendums," says Gándara. "We want politicians to be managers of citizen demands," adds Aguirre. "We don't want to remove the politicians ? we want them to come down to street level."
/...
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/english/We/don/t/want/to/remove/the/politicians/-/we/want/them/elpepueng/20110519elpeng_4/Ten
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
