The risk of questioning democratic legitimacy
I don't like the prospective electoral results suggested by opinion polls. More specifically, I dislike all results: not just those awarded to far-right parties. I mean that from a sovereignist point of view, which is mine, I believe they are not the results that would best suit the country. Neither the results of those who will supposedly be prime ministers again, nor those of whom strong rises are predicted, nor those who hold on, nor those of whom strong declines are foreseen.
The parliamentary map drawn by the polls, in short, is not at all hopeful for those of us who desire a country emancipated from Spanish dependence. It is a time for purging, agreed. It is also true that the final results may still show notable differences. Firstly, because we depend on a Spanish framework that could explode at any moment and overturn the balances here. Secondly, because we don't know who will refrain from voting at the last minute. And furthermore, we must count those who will vote but still don't know for whom. Increasingly, the voter is less loyal to labels that do not guarantee programmatic coherence, or to outdated leaderships that resist being replaced. The final decision of the vote in the coming elections, I believe, will end up being tied to very circumstantial, very short-term, and very reactive reasons.
But having said that, the serious thing is that when the predicted or obtained results are not liked, the democratic legitimacy of the adversary ends up being questioned. I'm thinking both of that criticism that focuses on the legitimacy of a government and not on the policies it pursues — what is happening now to our Spanish neighbors — and of the preemptive and purely ideological criticisms, rather than on the proposals made by far-right parties here, such as Aliança Catalana. And this applies as much to parliamentary debates as to diatribes in the media. I mean that there is a risk that what ends up being weakened is not the governments or the parties that are the target, but rather democracy itself is delegitimized.
To put it clearly: are votes that make possible a government we don't like valid or not, or do they go to a party we consider abominable? If after the next Spanish elections PP and Vox manage to obtain a majority that allows them to govern, will their policies be questioned or will their democratic legitimacy be discussed? And if Catalan Alliance obtains a prominent position in the next legislature in the Parliament of Catalonia, will attention be paid to the content of their proposals or will the democratic value of their votes be questioned?
It is true that in the Spanish case, the arguments of those who want to oust the current government precisely aim to discredit the democratic basis of Pedro Sánchez's executive, with the risk that what is weakened is general trust in politics. The shouts that could be heard in Sabadell in the face of the political provocation by the goalkeeper of the team celebrating their promotion to the Second Division are very indicative of the state of opinion I denounce. They were not against the Spanish president, they were profoundly anti-democratic shouts. But we must also apply this to the case of the far-right. If in a democratically clean process, in which it starts from a clear economic and media disadvantage, the far-right achieves notable electoral support, criticisms will have to focus on the political content rather than belittling the votes obtained. After all, if they have managed to capture a state of malaise or indignation beyond their strict ideological profile, it is because others have neglected it.
What I am asking is that when throwing out the dirty water, we don't also throw the baby —democracy— out the window. In other words: political criticism must have a limit: not to discuss the democratic legitimacy of those who have achieved it by due process. Racist and xenophobic content and the serious consequences that hate speech can have for the country must be denounced, but it is advisable not to do so in a way that calls into question democracy itself and the value of the popular will.
I have already said at the beginning that the Catalan political map announced by the demographic surveys is not what I would wish for. But I am even more concerned that in advance, whatever it may be, its future legitimacy is called into question. And I already know everything that Hitler started by winning democratic elections. But the situation is not comparable, nor is it advisable to magnify what could last from Christmas to Saint Stephen's Day. And above all, I believe that the fight of any policy should not be waged from exorcism but from reason. From a radically democratic reason, honestly assuming that it has its risks.
