Election frenzy

Local elections

The first round of the political rollercoaster begins with the local elections on May 24. Catalonia's 947 local councils are up for grabs in an election that sovereigntists portray as the first chance to strike a real blow towards a new state. The campaigning period runs for a fortnight between May 8 and May 22. After the elections two days later, a 10-day period opens in which the results can be appealed. Then, on June 5, the make-up of the new councils and the mayors to lead them will be announced and formally constituted on June 13. Any appeal against the composition of the council has until July 3 to make its case. The entire local process, however, is not complete until the middle of July when the county councils and the four regional Diputacions are sworn in.

Civil associations

After filling the Sant Jordi indoor stadium with thousands of sovereignty supporters on April 24, as part of an attempt to re-energise the public with enthusiasm for the process towards independence, civil associations like the ANC (Assemblea Nacional de Catalunya) have a busy spring ahead. Apart from the ANC organising events for the 27 of each month until 27-S, from June 25 to 28 Òmnium Cultural has its Catalan Weekend, in which foreign guests will have a chance to learn about the process first-hand. The mass invite of foreign guests, who will stay in volunteers homes, will reach its high point on Saturday June 27 with a party for all participating in the initiative in Barcelona's Port Vell.

One of the most important dates over the next weeks will be teh ANC's internal elections to choose a new leadership. According to the organisation's statutes, the term of the current leadership expires and replacements will have to be found, especially a new president to substitute the current head, Carme Forcadell. The end of this internal process will take place at the end of May (either 23 or 30) , when the new ANC leadership is confirmed.

Political parties

All of Catalonia's political parties need to be in good shape going into the September elections. However, there are some key hurdles for them to overcome before they can make the final push for parliamentary seats. On May 30, for example, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) will choose its new leadership.

Meanwhile, on June 14, Unió's membership will gather to finalise the party's strategy towards the sovereignty process. With Unió's coalition partner Convergència (CDC, the party of president Artur Mas) coming out so clearly in favour of the sovereignty process, relations have been strained between the two. Unió's membership is more reluctant to throw in its lot with the other sovereignty parties (such as ERC and CUP) meaning that the result of this meeting could make for a variety of interesting scenarios.

All of this political positioning will go on at the same time as appearances in parliament by a number of figures involved in ongoing corruption cases, such as Macià Alavedra on June 2, Manuel Bustos on June 8 and Luis Bárcenas on June 15. A surge of news about the abuse of power could be tricky for the parties with voter apathy and cynicism potentially working against enthusiasm for the process.

Road map

A feature of the lead-up to the September elections from the beginning has been agreement over a joint road map. As the aim of the sovereigntists is to turn 27-S into a plebiscite, a joint strategy for gathering support for the process is essential. After much wrangling, parties and the main civil organisations managed to come to a pre-agreement on a joint sovereignty road map on at the end of March. August 3 is the date set for making the pre-agreement definitive. But before that happens, we wait to see if parties such as Unió or EUiA decide to sign. For a declaration of independence to be viable, the winners of 27-S need an absolute majority, making progress on how to go about creating a new Catalan state is essential.