BULGARIAN DEMOCRACY: IN A VERY DELICATE STATE

 

In April and May I wrote several articles for the London Progressive Journal on the political situation in Bulgaria. These were before and just after that country’s general election. The first articles were largely based on reports by Transparency International: the latter about my experiences as an observer at the elections. This article comes after I have re-visited Bulgaria to find its democracy in a very delicate state indeed.

Just before I left I wrote an article for the Gibraltar newspaper ‘Panorama’ in which I stated how much I was looking forward to this visit. The last had been tense to say the least: now with the BSP, Bulgaria’s socialists, the largest party in the new government I was looking forward to attending the Party of European Socialists Council which was held last weekend. I had also allowed time to see more of the country and to visit friends made during the elections.

However my image of a Bulgaria now at peace with itself was far from accurate. There seemed to more police around than usual when we arrived on the Tuesday night. On the Thursday our friends in Kyustendil where we were staying told us of protests in Sofia and in local towns. By the time we came back to Sofia for the PES Council on Friday we had been summoned to a security meeting and the event was held amidst tight security.

To wind back in time the populist GERB government had been brought down in February by angry, violent street demonstrations. The centre right party was accused of abuses of democracy, links to organised crime, election rigging, creating an economic crisis whilst allowing electricity prices to rise, which a country with 50 per cent of its population in extreme poverty, could ill afford.

After the May 12 election GERB was still the largest party but its number of MPs had collapsed and no other elected party would pact with it. Hence the second placed BSP, which was the only party to increase its vote and number of MPs, formed a coalition with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, a member of Liberal International. Together they have 120 of the 240 seats in Parliament and hence rely on the support of the nationalist party ATAKA to rule. However ATAKA is anti Turkish and anti Roma whilst the MRF speaks for both. It was a pact to restore a functioning democracy amongst parties who largely had nothing in common. Whether it is a marriage made in heaven or hell remains to be seen currently it is in purgatory.

On May 29 former finance minister Plamen Oresharski, an up to now respected figure, was appointed Prime Minister. He had the support of the BSP and the other two parties. GERB has largely boycotted parliament since they were ousted from power making a mockery of the elected chamber. ATAKA, who previously supported GERB in government, have also been absent on occasions.

At a time when Bulgaria needed peace and stability Oresharski made a number of major political blunders. There are now street protests in Sofia and wider Bulgaria over the inclusion of the MRF in the new coalition and the decision of Oresharski to appoint MRF MP Delyan Peevski, a controversial media mogul who is linked to a corruption scandal, as head of the State intelligence agency, DANS. This latter decision was quickly revoked and acknowledged as a mistake but the damage was done.

A regional governor from the MRF, Ventsislav Kaymakanov, has been appointed in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second city, which has caused more street protests. Dozens of people have also gathered in front of the building of the district administration in the city of Blagoevgrad to protest against the appointment of Musa Palev as district governor. These Turkish appointments have been made in areas where virtually no Turks live.

The MRF is a party whose main goals are the interests of the Muslims and its principal electorate are the minority groups Turks, Roma, Muslim Bulgarians and Bulgarian Turks in Turkey. The MRF is widely distrusted, has been accused of major election abuses alongside those of GERB and its ethnic and religious orientation breaks article 11 of the Constitution of Bulgaria.

Many of those Bulgarians who wanted a new dawn after the May 12 elections are in despair that the MRF are in government and suspect them of pulling many strings in their interests to keep the coalition in power.

If you read one English on-line Bulgarian newspaper, which obviously supports GERB, you would be led to believe that Sofia and wider Bulgaria is witnessing street riots of the same intensity as those that drove GERB from power. There are no such protests. However GERB wants people to believe the country is in ferment and they are being called back to save the nation.

In contrast if you scan the BBC or other reputable websites for news you will find little or nothing of the unrest – but protests there are.

I watched a lengthy one pass last Friday evening which went on for some 40 minutes through the main streets of Sofia. It was noisy but so peaceful that police only escorted it to show the way. These were not GERB supporters but largely young people who want a new start for their country.

These people feel let down by the new government that includes the MRF and which has made serious errors from day one. It is hard for them to accept that the BSP, to be pragmatic and to bring stability to Bulgaria, have to pact with this party as well as ATAKA that are an anathema to the majority of ordinary people. The BSP itself is in turmoil especially over the original appointment of Delyan Peevski with resignations and a vote of confidence which BSP Leader and PES President Sergei Stanishev won. It has to be said many PES leaders from around Europe, whilst fully supportive of the BSP and Stanishev, share many of the protestors’ legitimate concerns. Rarely in recent years have socialist principals been so keen tested.

The unpalatable alternative is fresh elections with the likelihood that GERB would again seize power with the inevitable decline of Bulgaria into an authoritarian, corrupt State. It is an unholy mess and that is why I say democracy in Bulgaria is in a very delicate state indeed.

By the by Transparency International in Bulgaria is producing a report on the May elections with recommendations for improving the electoral process for the future. Once that document is produced I will bring you its findings – in English.

(The above article was published in the London Progressive Journal on June 28 2013)

BULGARIA ELECTIONS: WIDESPREAD ABUSE BUT HOPE

I set off to Bulgaria after being selected by the Party of European Socialists to be part of the 100 plus team from all across the EU to monitor the General Election on Sunday. The president of PES, Sergei Stanishev, who is a former prime minister of Bulgaria and leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, had appealed for observers because of the very real fears of vote manipulation and vote buying by the GERB party that resigned from government after violent mass street protests against austerity measures, rising electricity prices and corruption in February.

The OSCE (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) also sent around 200 observers. Other groups such as Transparency International had sent up an election abuse monitoring unit and had observers at polling stations. The presence of these observers made major news headlines in Bulgaria. We were all officially registered with the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry and had stamped passes that granted us major powers within the polling stations.

I finally arrived in Sofia late Friday afternoon and meet up with other arrivals from France, Brussels, Greece and Holland for the coach trip to our hotel. We were greeted by Nikola Mitov who is the BSP’s director of international affairs.

On Saturday the work began. There was a briefing session for English speaking observers with a detailed talk on the voting law, polling station procedures with numerous forms to be filled in. If anybody enters the polling station with a gun we have to note it on the form!

Around 13.00 I headed off to Kyunstendil, about 90 kms from Sofia with a snow covered mountain backdrop. My driver – interpreter Georgi stopped at the BSP party headquarters at Dupritsa which was in the same 100km wide constituency. We had lunch with the number two candidate, Ivan Ibrishimov who on Sunday was elected as the BSP’s second MP, the local party chairman Stanislav Pavlov, who is also number four on the list plus some activists.

As we had lunch news came in that 350,000 fake ballot papers had been discovered by police after a raid on a printing works owned by a GERB councillor. The councillor told the media it was not anything to worry about! On to Kyunstendil where we met the district chairman and former mayor Valentine Volvo and were briefed on polling day strategy.

The Roma gypsies are the most likely to sell their votes for cash or beer and food. One scam is a gypsy gang leader sits in a car near the polling station. He already has a ballot paper stamped with the first of the two stamps a legal vote requires. A Roma comes by takes the ballot paper from him which is already marked. He then presents his identity card, receives another stamped ballot paper which when in the polling booth he puts in his pocket and deposits the voting paper he was given into the box after it has received the second stamp. He then takes his ballot paper out to the gang leader, who takes it from him, fills it in and gives it to the next bought voter. Georgi says this is called the Indian Scam but nobody could tell me why. It is possible these illegal blank votes were for the vote buying operation.

So to polling day and back to Dupritsa. The day didn’t get off well with the local election commission advising it had changed the supervising teams and hence many wouldn’t have documentation. Sent an urgent email to Transparency International who started an investigation. News came in that two polling station in a complex of nine had refused to give the second stamp on the ballot papers which made them invalid. We went to investigate but of course once we arrived and showed our official papers the voting procedures were fully adhered to.

However there were three Roma polling stations at the same school complex and there the atmosphere was very different. There were groups of Roma supporting the former ruling party GERB openly intimidating those coming to vote in the corridor. They bragged to Georgi they could vote when and how they wanted acting in an aggressive manner when we monitored what was going on. There was no obvious sign of vote buying and nothing you could point out to officials so we went back several times to make the point we were hadn’t been scared off and we were watching.

Then a curious case. A report that 60 ballots had been accepted but not recorded at a school polling station. By the time we arrived so too had officials from the commission. The number was in fact 47 and the chairwoman said she had put a youth in charge of the polling who apparently did not realize you had to cross off voters names and get them to sign. The chairwoman argued it was an unfortunate mistake. The ballots couldn’t be taken out of the box as nobody knew which they were so when the final tally was completed after the polls closed there would be 47 votes too many. I shall return to this is a moment

Whilst we were there a man on crutches complained to us that none of the three polling stations at this complex would give him a ballot paper. He was told to enter the polling room with us at which point he was promptly given a ballot paper; they didn’t even make a show of searching for his name: then all the procedures were correctly followed. Later the Election Commission ruled the chairwoman had deliberately added the 47 votes for GERB and she was sanctioned.

There were no signs of vote buying at the Roma centres but by mid-afternoon the news reports told of three men having been arrested for committing the crime that day. Also by late afternoon when Roma usually crowded their polling stations they were empty with reports they simply had not turned out. TV stated that Turkish Bulgarians who normally flood across the border from Turkey to support Ataka (the Islam Party whose name translates as Attack and according to electoral law should be illegal) had seemingly not travelled either. Something was clearly in play here. Feedback from the local Roma said they’d be threatened by GERB so they stayed at home.

In the Kyunstendil constituency there were around 100 cases of voting abuse by GERB.  In one polling station the GERB observer smashed the photocopying machine preventing the copying of the end of poll protocol showing the result. He only delayed but couldn’t prevent the inevitable. As voters swung to the BSP and they took two of the four seats, up one, these abuses will not be contested. We didn’t meet sitting BSP MP Maya Manolova as after the polls closed rioting broke out in Sofia and she was ordered to the capital.

Obviously my experiences were just a snap shot of the election process across Bulgaria. Was the polling process carried out in a manner that we would find acceptable: no it wasn´t. However it was clear the chairpersons of the polling station committees were very concerned at our presence: one even protesting that everything she did was in order. Indeed when we were present everything was in order but it is clear in some cases there had been irregularities before we arrived and they may have started again as soon as we left. It is important though to state that probably because of the international observers these elections were far more free and fair than in the past. There is hope now that as GERB is unlikely to continue in government further advances can be made in establishing free and fair elections. At the next election it is vital the observers are allowed to return and in even greater numbers because it is quite clear the fact the world was watching did have a beneficial impact on this troubled democracy.

Photo: l to r: Georgi, Dr Ivan Ibrishimov (now BSP MP), David Eade, Stanislav Pavlov and activist.

(The above article appeared in the London Progressive Journal on May 14 2013 with a version in the New People on May 17 2013)

SPANIARDS FALLS OUT OF LOVE THEIR ROYALS

Since the transition from the Franco dictatorship to full democracy the Spanish Royal Family have been held in general high regard by the people of Spain. Indeed many would argue that the transition would not have taken place but for King Juan Carlos. Republicans of course take a very different view of things but, for now, that is by the by.

However since the financial crisis started there has been a fall in the support for the Royal Household. This is partly explained with the major loss of confidence in Spain’s institutions but also by the King seemingly being totally of out touch with the problems faced by the average Spaniard. Add to that the corruption scandal surrounding Iñaki Urdangarin, the King’s son-in-law which implicates his wife, the Infanta Cristina, and the Royal Family is in major trouble.

This is reflected in the latest CIS opinion poll that shows the monarchy has an approval rating of just 3.68 on a scale of ten. The last time the Spanish people were asked for their valuation of the Royal Family was in October 2011 when they notched up 4.89, so they have lost 1.2 points since the various scandals hit. Out on the streets there have been major demonstrations demanding an elected head of State instead of a monarch.

Politicians have rallied to the Royals support claiming they have only lost favour only because of the collapse in the Spanish people’s trust in their institutions. When that comes back, they argue, so will their love of the King and his family. They fear that if the Royal family falls then so will Spain as we know it. They are right but this is also a case of the blind leading the blind because the politicians also seem not to be able to comprehend just how low they have sunk in the public’s estimation. Indeed if the Spanish are giving a major thumbs down to the Royals they are raising the middle finger to the politicos.

This is shown in the same CIS opinion poll which brings good news and bad news for the centre right Partido Popular. If an election was held now the PP would win with 34 per cent of the vote whilst socialist PSOE has just 28.2 per cent. Far left Izquierda Unida would come third with the UPyD fourth on 9.4 and 7.4 respectively.

However the real story is the collapse of support for the two main parties since the November 2011 elections. The PP governing amidst a worsening economic crisis and with the Bárcenas corruption scandal ringing in its ears has lost 10.4 support. PSOE has not been able to capitalise on Rajoy’s woes and has seen its support fall by a further six per cent. Only the minor parties such as the IU and UPyD have seen their popularity amongst voters gradually grow.

PSOE’s leader Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba is more popular than Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy but that is not saying a lot. Rubalcaba has an approval rating of 3 out of 10 down from 3.4 whilst Rajoy has fallen from 2.81 to 2.44.

The worrying factor is Spaniards do not trust the monarchy, the government, the banks and the politicians along with the institutions that surround them so who will they put their trust in? The answer, as I have stated here before from previous surveys, is the military and the security services and that is even more worrying still.

(The above article appeared in the London Progressive Journal on May 8 2013).

URGENT CALLS FOR TRANSPARENCY IN BULGARIA’S GENERAL ELECTION

On Sunday May 12 Bulgaria will hold its general election. The outcome will not only be closely awaited by the people of that country but by fellow EU States and organisations such as Transparency International, which has been monitoring corruption in Bulgaria for over a decade.

The President of the Party of European Socialists, Sergei Stanishev, is also the leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and a former Bulgarian Prime Minister. After the election was called he stated: “During the last presidential and local elections in 2011 the ruling right wing party GERB committed a huge number of violations and fraud. Now they have introduced changes in the Electoral code in a way that hinders the transparency of the election process and creates prerequisites for distortion and frankly substitution of results, while refusing to incorporate a number of OSCE (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) recommendations.” He added that other socialist party leaders he spoke to were incredulous when he said vote rigging was possible in an EU member State.

This wasn’t the case of a socialist leader calling “foul” before the event. Transparency International has a special team dedicated to monitoring the General Election. TI says: “The most significant challenges that we have identified to persist in the electoral process in Bulgaria are vote-buying and controlled vote, which are clearly a product of the socio-economic conditions in country being taken advantage by both political and criminal actors.” Indeed in the 2011 presidential and local elections 12 per cent of Bulgarians told Transparency International they would sell their votes with nearly 60 per cent of those saying they would do so because of their poverty.

Yet the problems for Bulgaria go much deeper than that. It is not just the GERB ruling party bringing in corrupt practices although there is clear evidence of that. For instance there have been allegations of illegal phone tapping which are linked to Tzvetan Tzvetanov, the former Minister of the Interior who is now the Director of Elections for the GERB party. However Bulgaria has been behind the game all along in making the transition from Communist single party to democratic state.

One of the many Transparency International reports on Bulgaria states: “The problem of corruption became a central political and social concern in Bulgaria towards the end of the 1990s, and since then has topped the governmental agenda. Despite the prioritization of the issue, Bulgaria has systematically demonstrated very high levels of perception of corruption: according to the TI Corruption Perception Index (2011) it is the lowest scoring country in the EU. If there is a trend in this regard, it is rather negative.”

Now Bulgaria became a member of the EU in 2007 when the concerns of the corruption and lack of transparency in political and institutional bodies was well known. I have no problem with Bulgaria becoming a member of the EU: I would however argue that this should have happened after the country had clearly demonstrated that its political parties and institutions were fully transparent. Until that status had been achieved, and we are still far from that situation, then Bulgaria should have been helped along the path to membership by the EU and then admitted. 

On April, 4 an Integrity Pact for Free, Fair and Democratic Election in Bulgaria was signed. The document is elaborated by 8 non-governmental organizations, including Transparency International, all of which will conduct independent civil monitoring of the forthcoming general election.

Transparency International states: “The main objective of the Pact is to commit the political parties to the conduct of election campaigns in accordance to the standards for transparency and accountability, and to the implementation of measures preventing violations of the citizens’ voting rights.”

This is a positive step but the question still remains: why should such steps be even necessary in an EU Member State?

Under the pact the Bulgarian political parties are committing themselves to:

To nominate for members of the Precinct Electoral Commissions candidates with experience in the organization of the electoral process, professional preparation, high personal moral and reputation;

To increase the competence of its representatives to the electoral commissions by conducting additional training with regard to the rules of the electoral process;

To carry out information campaigns against vote-buying, controlled vote and the negative effects on the voters’ rights, and the democratic process in the country;

To ensure public access to information about the number of proxy representatives, by making it available on their websites;

To ensure greater transparency of their elections campaign financing by providing timely information to the National Audit Office, with regard to received donations throughout the campaign;

To assist the independent observers - representatives of the Civil Coalition for Monitoring of the Electoral Process in their efforts to monitor the campaign financing and Election Day developments.

  But it is not just the political parties that are involved but the non-governmental organizations too. They have committed themselves to:

To conduct independent civil monitoring of the electoral process in accordance to the internationally established standards;

To observe the principles of political impartiality, transparency and integrity in the monitoring process;

To carry out information campaign among the Bulgarian citizens with regard to their participation of the electoral process, institutional responsibilities, and negative effects of vote-buying and controlled-vote;

To inform the Bulgarian public and European institutions about the results of the conducted monitoring

To formulate proposal for amendments in the legislation and the practice of the Bulgarian institutions, aiming to enhance transparency and integrity in the Elections to the European Parliament, as well as to offer its expertise to the responsible institutions.

   
It is quite clear from the Integrity Pact for Free, Fair and Democratic Election that democracy has been seriously abused in Bulgaria and political corruption is rife. However I would firmly argue the blame for this appalling situation rests not only with the government in Sofia, which it surely does, but equally with the EU in Brussels too because it has failed to insist on free and fair elections in Member States.

 

(The above article was published in the London Progressive Journal on May 1 2013)

VOTING VIOLATIONS IN AN EU MEMBER STATE

 

Voting violations such as ballot rigging, vote buying and control are acts we associate with the shadier, non democratic nations of the world. However such practices are alive and well right here in the EU.

Let us start in Budapest in Hungary. In March it was the venue for the Party of European Socialists (PES) Activists meeting specifically to give support to the Hungarian Socialist Party, MSzP. There has been concern in the EU at the actions of the ruling populist Fidesz party, which has been clamping down on the freedom of the media and has amended the Constitution to make unconstitutional laws constitutional. These measures and the rise of far right neo-Nazi groups such as Jobbik have caused widespread alarm.

Present in Budapest was the PES President and leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), Sergei Stanishev, who is a former Bulgarian Prime Minister. Stanishev stunned PES activists by calling for international observers to help oversee the polling in Bulgaria’s general election on May 12. He stated: “During the last presidential and local elections in 2011 the ruling right wing party GERB committed a huge number of violations and fraud. Now they have introduced changes in the Electoral code in a way that hinders the transparency of the election process and creates prerequisites for distortion and frankly substitution of results, while refusing to incorporate a number of OSCE (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) recommendations.” He added that other socialist party leaders he spoke to were incredulous when he said vote rigging was possible in an EU member State.

Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boiko Borisov and his GERB government resigned following nationwide street protests against high electricity prices and austerity measures in February. Clashes between protesters and police left numerous people injured. The President Rosen Plevneliev appointed with some difficulty an interim prime minister to take the country through to early elections on May 12.

As elsewhere around the world the protests were taking place largely independently of traditional political parties and trade unions. The protestors, mainly young people, were using the social media including Facebook to organize. The street protests across Bulgaria, which is the EU’s poorest country, were initially over high electricity prices but then took an anti-government turn resulting in Borisov- a former bodyguard to Bulgaria’s Soviet-era dictator Todor Zhivkov - abandoning power, for now.

Before the unrest GERB were trailing in polls to the opposition BSP: currently the former ruling party has a six point lead. Although Stanishev leads his BSP in to the elections he says he will not be prime minister again rather former finance minister, Plamen Oresharski, would take on the role.

The key question is: is there any validity in BSP leader Sergei Stanishev’s fears of vote rigging? The answer sadly is “Yes!” Transparency International has an office in Sofia and a special team dedicated to monitoring the General Election. A spokesperson told me: “Fortunately, the protest related tension has settled down in the past month and we hope to have a peaceful election day on May 12. The most significant challenges that we have identified to persist in the electoral process in Bulgaria are vote-buying and controlled vote, which are clearly a product of the socio-economic conditions in country being taken advantage by both political and criminal actors.”

However this isn’t a new phenomenon in Bulgaria, indeed Sergei Stanishev openly admits his administration ignored the problem when he was in power. Transparency International has been monitoring corruption in Bulgaria for many years and its on-going reports are too detailed to relate here but can be found on their website.

The Transparency International spokesperson added: “Another type of persisting deficiency that we have identified from previous observations is the so called “organizational violations” related to the inadequate capacity and actions of the institutions responsible to organize and prepare the elections. We will systematically monitor these institutions via an instrument called Roadmap to the 2013 Elections and provide timely recommendations to the institutions on the basis of identified issues by Transparency International – Bulgaria and the options to be corrected.”

There will be international PES observers in Bulgaria for the elections and indeed Transparency International and other organisations will also be monitoring the polling with their own teams. The burning questions are how is it an EU Member State can not guarantee free and fair elections and if it can’t, as is clearly the situation in Bulgaria, why was it admitted to the EU in the first place?

Surely one of the prerequisites to being a member of the EU is an adherence to the norms of democracy. Either a country complies or it shouldn’t be in the EU.

Hungary is very much under notice from other EU member States who are alarmed at developments there under Fidesz. The general election is due there next year: will it be fair and free?

It is not only democracy that will be on trial in Bulgaria on May 12 but the credibility of the EU itself. If one Member State is undemocratic then it shatters the democratic credibility of the others. And the EU’s credibility as a democratic institution is very much on the line.

This is especially so as a new scandal has now hit Bulgaria. There have been allegations of illegal phone tapping which are linked to Tzvetan Tzvetanov, the former Minister of the Interior. And what is Tzvetan Tzvetanov’s current role? He is Director of Elections for the GERB party. The latest dramatic development is the former GERB Minister of Agriculture, Miroslav Naydenov, has announced that he too had been subject to illegal phone tapping. Stanishev says previously GERB Prime Minister, Boiko Borisov, had boasted in the media that he has 100 eyes and 100 ears. The BSL leader adds this latest “revelation puts that comment in the harshest light”.

In the European Parliament, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, will discuss whether they should formally debate the issue. The inclination at the EU is to dismiss such scandals as a matter for “internal political debate”. EU leaders bury their heads in the sand as democracy flounders around them. Bulgaria today. Hungary tomorrow? Then where next?

(You can visit Transparency Internationals website for their campaign for monitoring of the elections at: www.samizbiram.bg)

(The above article was published in the London Progressive Journal on April 27 2013)

 

LYING AROUND LIKE DOGS IN DITCHES

Just two weeks ago in the London Progressive Journal I wrote of the hundreds of Republican supporters seeking refuge at La Sauceda who were rounded up by Franco’s forces and slain at El Marrufo in Andalucía in the Spanish Civil War. That Saturday the first 28 who were tortured and executed at the cortijo were buried with dignity 76 years after they were shot and dumped in mass graves.

Theirs were the first bodies to be found in the seven mass graves that are known to be at the estate in the Valle de la Sauceda. In 1936 the estate was converted in to a torture camp for the hundreds of families who had sought refuge at Sauceda from the advancing Franco troops. Up to 800 could have been slaughtered.

Today I report on another burial that took place on Sunday. This was of the “17 Rosas” of Guillena in the province of Sevilla: women who were shot in the Spanish Civil War for being family members of Republican militants. Their bodies now lie in a pantheon in the town, 75 years after they were slain and ten months after their remains were exhumed from a common grave in Gerena also in Sevilla.

The words “Truth, Justice, Reparation” are engraved on the pantheon along with the names of the “17 Rosas”. Their remains arrived at the cemetery in 17 boxes escorted by two enormous Republican flags to much applause and the singing of the “Himno de Riego”.

In the cemetery awaited the family and neighbours of Manuela Méndez, the sisters Rosario and Natividad León; Granada Garzón and her daughter Granada Hidalgo, the sisters Tomasa and Josefa Peinado; Manuela Sánchez Gandillo; Ramona Navarro; Trinidad López Cabeza; Ramona Manchón; Ana Fernandéz Ventura; Manuela Lianez; Dolores Palacios; Ramona Puntas; Antonia Ferrer and Eulogia Alanís – the “17 Rosas”.

The burials took place ten months after the exhumation of the remains from a common grave at nearby Gerena had been completed. The process of identifying each of the remains was undertaken using the DNA of family members and an anthropology report was also produced.

The Asociación Memoria Histórica “19 Mujeres”, a reference to the 19 women who were first taken prisoner but two of whom were later pardoned, has worked for over ten years to find where the women had been buried. Aged between 20 and 70 they all had been physically abused before being shot in the cemetery at Gerena.

During the exhumation the archaeologists made some grim discoveries. One of the women had received two mercy shots in the neck and was found face down. Amongst the bones was found various coins. One of these was a silver duro, worth a lot of money, which may have been used by a woman in an attempt to save her life. Other items found included a shoe, a bullet, a comb and even a finger around which was a ring.

It has also been established that one of the “17 Rosas” was over seven months pregnant when she was shot. Beside her bones were the skeletal remains of her foetus.

The “17 Rosas” were taken prisoner and abused when their families fled Guillena after the military uprising of July 1936. The testimony of an eight year old boy who saw them being shot from an olive grove nearby was key to the experts being able to locate their common grave.

That child, now over 80 years old, is José Domínguez Núñez who attended the interment. He expressed his happiness that the women had now been laid to rest in Guillena but lamented he had not been able to find his own brother who was shot at the age of 22. At his now advanced age - "Ya no puedo buscar más" – “now I can look no more.”

María José Domínguez, a niece of one of the shot women and president of the Asociación “19 Mujeres”, was angry that since the “Transition” after Franco’s death that no government had been capable of complying with the UN resolution to bring to justice those guilty of these crimes against humanity. She added that it should be the responsibility of the State to retrieve the remains of these victims who “are still lying around like dogs in ditches.”

Between cries of ¡Viva la República! the president of the Asociación “19 Rosas” recalled that the children of the assassinated women, the “hijos de los Rojos”, were marked out for ever and were barred from the social canteens set up to feed the starving even though they had not committed any crime.

Attending the ceremony was the president of the Andalucía Parliament, the socialist Manuel Gracia. At the end of the ceremony whilst speaking to journalists he praised the work of these associations adding that from the parliament and other public institutions there is an impulse to find these lost remains because “it is the task of all”.

Indeed it is but it largely falls to the families of those who were tortured and shot along with the various Memoria Histórica associations who are dedicated to recovering Spain’s historic memory of those times. The far right and even the centre right Partido Popular would prefer these bloody matters were put to rest and forgotten. However whilst those who perished “are still lying around like dogs in ditches” the work will go on to give them a dignified burial and to remind the world of the ideals for which they were tortured and died.

EL MARRUFO STARTS TO GIVE UP ITS SPANISH CIVIL WAR DEAD

The Spanish Civil War. It will always hold a special place in the hearts of those on the left of politics. Those on the far right would prefer you forgot it ever happened.

Internationally it is fast becoming another date in history: an event that happened before World War II and which for Germany was a practice run. Yet in Spain the memories are still raw nowhere more so than amongst the thousands of families who lost grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunt, nieces and nephews, assassinated by Franco’s forces and who to this day lay in massed or unmarked graves.

It was over a weekend at the end of March in 2009 that I found myself pitched in to tragedy of that conflict. In the Cádiz village of Jimena de la Frontera, my home for the past 15 years, they held a conference on the Spanish Civil War and how it affected the local community. It reached its climax on the Sunday with a visit to La Sauceda about 25 kilometres from Jimena.

I wrote at the time: “In November 1936 Lieutenant José Robles of the Instituto Armado led his troops from Ubrique to La Sauceda were they rendezvoused with other forces. La Sauceda was a small mountain top hamlet that for generations had been a refuge for bandits. Now apart from the local population it was a place of hiding for the many Republican and communist supporters that had fled the advance of Franco’s forces.

“Several hundred people were sheltering there and the Nationalist force made up of the army, Falange, Guardia Civil and Militias crept up on La Sauceda through the woods. After an aerial attack in which many men were killed or fled the troops moved in and took the inhabitants prisoners.

“The women and children were taken to the nearby cortijo of El Marrufo in lorries where they were held in the chapel. The men were taken on foot. Many of the women were raped before both they and the children were shot and dumped in a mass grave. The grave beneath one of the buildings is as of yet unexcavated but along with the men's graves nearer Puerto de Galis they are believed to be amongst the largest in the province with hundreds of victims.”

Well time has move on and at last excavations have started to recover the remains from the graves on what is a private estate. It is a daunting task. However on Saturday the first 28 of the hundreds of people who were tortured and executed by Franco’s troops at the cortijo were buried with dignity 76 years after they were shot and dumped in mass graves.

Theirs are the first bodies to be found in the seven mass graves that are known to be at the estate in the Valle de la Sauceda. In 1936 the estate was converted in to a torture camp for the hundreds of families who had sought refuge at Sauceda from the advancing Franco troops.

The Foro por la Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar and the Asociación de Familiares de Represaliados por el Franquismo de La Sauceda y El Marrufo began the work last July to archaeologically excavate the cortijo. The 28 discovered were all shot. It is clear they had their hands bound with wire and were then shot in the head: all also have different impacts on their bodies. This all goes to confirm the horrors that had occurred at El Marrufo between November 1936 and February 1937.

The 28 bodies found in the first phase of the excavation were buried in the cemetery at La Sauceda. The village is now abandoned and the cemetery was in a semi-ruined state but has now been restored for these victims so they could be buried in dignity.

Andrés del Río of the Foro por la Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar said it was important not only to recover their bodies but also to establish the Republican values and the ideas for which they died. The ceremony was attended by the director general of Memoria Democrática, Luis Naranjo Cordobés, who read a manifesto setting out the ideals for which these people were executed at the cortijo.

The studies have not concluded as the DNA of the victims has been collected so that their families can be traced. It will be difficult because between 200 and 800 people disappeared in La Sauceda and the historians have only located twenty families so far.

Back in 2009 I wrote these words about the ceremony I attended at La Sauceda. The same words ring just as true today after Saturday’s interments: “It is at these moments that the politics, the facts and the figures are stripped away. It is then you are faced with the raw emotion felt by those who suffered these deeds all these years ago. It was not statistics that perished but fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. It would take a stronger man (or woman) than me not to have been affected by their openly displayed grief and I have no shame in saying my tears mingled with theirs on this hallowed ground”.

(The above article appeared in the London Progressive Journal on December 6 2012 and in other publications).

MAS MEANS LESS

As expected the centre right Convergencia i Uniò (CiU) led by Artur Mas won the Catalan elections. However Mas has not lived up to his name which means more in Spanish as the CiU lost 12 seats in the process. That was not the outcome that the opinion polls had foretold.

Mas had stated that he intends to stage a referendum in this parliament on the issue of Catalan independence so does his loss of support make this more or less likely?

The answer is complicated because whilst the CiU is by far the strongest party in Cataluña it does not enjoy an overall majority. The other big winners were the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), a left grouping, which has seen its seats rise from 10 to 21.

Even with the final adjustment of seats under Spain’s proportional representation system this means 71 MPs in the Catalan Parliament support independence. The problem is the CiU and ERC are poles apart politically so it is difficult to see them forming a coalition. However politics is the art of the impossible so we will have to wait and see.

Mas has explained his party’s drop in support on the hard austerity measures it has had to introduce in the past legislature. As has been seen elsewhere in Europe the governments that have had to introduce such harsh policies have been ousted at the polls.

Cataluña is one of the richest regions in Spain but is at present also one of the most indebted. Hence the tough policies will have to continue. The CiU needs a party to help it govern: Mas as leader of the largest party has the right to choose who that will be. He can choose the ERC or the Catalan arms of PSOE (PSC) or the Partido Popular. With the ERC he knows they share his independence ideals whilst the PSC and PP are strongly opposed.

Mas called the elections two years early in September after Spain’s Partido Popular Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy had rejected demands from the Catalan leader for the region to control its own taxes. Not only did he call a general election but also stated his intention of holding a referendum on independence. This fed in to the Catalans demand for full independence after 30 years of autonomy.

The view on the streets on election night was that the CiU and ERC already have a deal on independence and the referendum. In addition Catalans believe they contribute an unfair percentage of the nation’s finances in tax and even pay more still on their toll motorways.

The PSC is traditionally the second force in Catalan politics and was one of the parties of government in the legislature prior to the CiU taking power. The socialists now slip to third with just 20 seats losing eight seats. The Partido Popular gained one seat to 19 but the performance of both is viewed as poor. The overall turn out was 68.63 per cent: 10 points up on two years ago.

Read the results as you will: one thing is certain is that the Catalans thirst for independence has not been quenched. The future may seem more complicated than previously suggested but an independent Cataluña, or at least attempts for form a Catalan State, now moves to the top of the region’s and Spain’s political agenda.

(Photo: CiU)

(The above article was published in the London Progressive Journal on November 27 2012)

“IT WAS SO BAD YOU JUST WANTED TO LAUGH”

At the weekend the Sunday Times gave a whole broadsheet page to French politics. Six columns were dedicated to a sneering report on Francois Hollande, to the effect that the socialist president’s popularity was in freefall and the nation could be soon seeking bailouts. The other column went to French tycoon Arnaud Lagardère who apparently has a fiancée much taller than him. It comes as no surprise then that the once most respected of British newspapers is today part of the Murdoch stable.

However the real story of political interest on Sunday wasn’t at the Elysée Palace or indeed at Chez Lagardère but at the election count for the next leader of France’s Conservative opposition party the UMP – Union pour un Mouvement Populaire. The BBC correspondent in Paris, Hugh Schofield, in his report described events thus: “Watching the results come in was like seeing a really crummy disaster movie. The events were terrible, but it was so bad you just wanted to laugh.” It is his turn of phrase that makes up this article’s headline.

First a bit of history. In Britain all our main three political parties are to say the least well established. The Conservative Party was formed in 1834 but traces its roots to the Tory Party which started in 1678. The Liberals grew out of the Whigs in 1859. Even the new kids on the block, the Labour Party, was formed in 1900.

In contrast in France whilst it has long established socialist and communist parties the groupings on the right change with the wind. I am old enough to remember De Gaulle’s splendidly named Rassemblement du peuple francais. He formed that party in 1947 but by the time he left politics in 1970 he had lead three different parties of the right: all anti socialist and communist. So when we talk of the fight to lead the UMP, the party of Chirac and then Sarkozy, we are speaking of one that is just a decade old.

The reason this election to choose the new leader of the UMP created such headlines is both candidates claimed victory a day before the final result was declared and then accused their rival of fraud and ballot-stuffing. The right-wing candidate Jean-Francois Cope finally came in ahead of former Prime Minister Francois Fillon by just 98 votes and the UMP has been badly damaged by the fiasco.

I asked Pierre Kanuty who is in charge of European and international relations at the Parti Socialiste in Paris for the left’s take on these events. Pierre also started with the historical context. He told me: “One needs to understand that as a matter of fact, there has never been a true conservative party in France though we have a strong right wing party. All of them have been presidential organisations dedicated to ensure networks aimed at one man’s victory.

“In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Gaullist MP’s needed a political frame for campaigning so they created the UNR (Union for a New Republic), followed by the Union of democrats for the Republic.

“In 1976, Jacques Chirac organised his party, the RPR (Gathering for the Republic). His first success was to be elected as mayor of Paris. The rest of the history is well know, the RPR used municipal jobs to have manpower for the party and got money from many companies to fund the party and its campaign. They also cheated many times on local votes in Paris.

“The following year Valery Giscard d’Estaing, President of the Republic at the time formed his own party, UDF (Union of the French democracy).

“Chirac’s RPR was depicted by its founder as the “French social democracy” supposed to be more leftist than the UDF. The truth there was always a conservative – neo liberal wing and a centrist, pro-welfare state fighting each other within the RPR and the UDF.

“The rise of a successful conservative revolution in the UK with Thatcher and in the US with Reagan gave them hope, but the electoral cost was very high as the French conservative voters still wanted a strong state even if they were in favour of strong tax cuts.

“The crisis of the conservative leadership is a very long story, but as long as the parties were dominated by high figures like Chirac, or Sarkozy, it was easy to reduce it to childish games.

“In 2001, the RPR decided to merge with centre right UDF to form the UMP. Some of people from UDF refused to join, claiming there was room for a true centre party that eventually became the MoDem led by François Bayrou.

“Nicolas Sarkozy took over the party and he organised it as a war machine entirely aimed at the 2007 victory. Renewal of ideas, networks, activists, communication and media strategy, nothing was left behind. But the main thing was to assume a true neo liberal and neo conservative ideology.”

With the defeat of Sarkozy in May by Hollande and the defeated president’s subsequent resignation from the party leadership obviously the UMP had to seek a new leader. All parties after defeat lick their wounds, rally round a new leader and move on. What went so disastrously wrong for the UMP?

Pierre explained: “As long as Sarkozy was President, he was also the true leader of the Conservative Party, and obviously when he left, his succession had to be secured. But it is a tradition in the right, no heir, no successor. Conservative leaders like Jean-François Copé were too busy thinking about their own career, focusing on 2017 the year of the next presidential elections.

“François Fillon, former prime minister comes from a social conservative background, but as Sarkozy’s Prime minister, for five years, he implemented a neo liberal policy and, even if he ended his term with a better popularity rate that Sarkozy, he was symbolically defeated since his old constituency was won by a socialist candidate, Stéphane Le Foll who became minister of agriculture. Fillon decided to target an easier place to be elected in the “bourgeois” Paris’s 7th district and Quartier Latin as a first step for a further fight : being mayor of Paris in 2014.

“Jean-François Copé never left his home town, in a Paris suburb. With his “uninhibited right” he’s ready to do whatever it takes to grab the extreme right National Front’s voters.

“The vote of 18th November was a opportunity for UMP members to choose for the first time their leader without any electoral pressure as we are only six months after the presidential and legislative elections. The rules of procedures were very hard. Each candidate had to be endorsed by almost 8,000 party members representing 10 local branches at department level. The 265,000 party members could vote in 650 polling stations. Only 176,000 persons voted.

“The socialists with less party members (around 150,000) had more than 3,000 polling stations in their vote on the leadership one month earlier. This is one of the reasons of the mess.

“The means never matched the needs. Copé finally won with only 50,03 %, just 98 votes ahead.

“Such a small margin requires a huge effort to bring legitimacy to the new leader. If there is no surprise in Copé’s victory, it shows that the leadership crisis is not over yet since somebody can argue that the “minority” represents 49.97 % of the party.”

I leave the final word on this debacle to Pierre:

“In the 1980’s, there was a slogan saying “the French right is the dumbest in the world”. Seems it is still accurate.”

(The above article was published in the London Progressive Journal on November 20 2012).