Catalonia’s quest for independence takes another surreal turn

In Spain, the fight over Catalonian independence has just taken a surreal new turn. Catalonian president Carles Puigdemont – a passionate secessionist who has said he is prepared to go to prison for his cause – recently announced that there will be an independence referendum in his region on October 1^st. His pledge prompted the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, to declare, in full crusader-for-democracy mode, that “the government of Spain is going to defend the law” and prevent the vote from happening.   

Would that be the same government currently implicated in one of the biggest corruption cases in recent Spanish history? Yes, it would. The so-called Gürtel case centres on allegations of cash-for-contracts kickbacks among senior Popular Party (PP) politicians during Spain’s property boom in the early 2000s. It involves 37 defendants (not all of whom are PP members, however) and over 300 witnesses, and is so vast that’s it’s been split up into smaller sub-cases.