Estat Català
Estat Català is a pro-independence nationalist historical political party of Catalonia.
History
Estat Català was founded by Francesc Macià in 1922 on its origins as a political and paramilitary organisation whose purpose was to bring about the independence of Catalonia from Spain. During the 1920s, the party was active in the fight against General Primo de Rivera's regime and the monarchy. Their actions included a failed assassination attempt against the King of Spain Alfonso XIII in an operation of its secret paramilitary unit named Santa Germandat Catalana de la Bandera Negra that was known as the Complot de Garraf. Estat Català also raised a small army named Exèrcit Català led by Francesc Macià to take control over the Principality from Prats-de-Mollo-la-Preste, in French Northern Catalonia.in Plaça Catalunya.
When the government of Primo de Rivera banned separatist movements, the party became clandestine and Francesc Macià went into exile. Nonetheless, Estat Català was one of the parties promoting the "San Sebastian pact" with Basque nationalism, Galician nationalists and Spanish republicans they agreed to push for a democratic process in the Spanish monarchy.
During a conference held on the 17 and 19 of March 1931 at Cros street in the Sants district of Barcelona, Estat Català joined the Partit Republicà Català and the political group L'Opinió to form Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya. Nevertheless, inside Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, the organizational autonomy of Estat Català was preserved and it controlled the influential youth section of the party Estat Català tried to retain control of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, competing with the successor of Macià, the regionalist Lluís Companys. The leadership of Estat Català fell to Josep Dencàs i Puigdollers and Estat Català took control of the Council of Interior and the policial forces of Catalonia. After the failure of the armed insurrection of October 1934, that pitted the autonomous government of Catalunya and its police with the Spanish government and the Spanish Army, Estat Català, after accusing Lluís Companys of perfidity, left Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and once again became an independent party. The youth section of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, traditionally strongly paramilitary, also left the party and adhered to Estat Català. In 1936 the Spanish Civil War began.
In November 1936 Estat Català planned a violent coup, intended to topple the Companys-led Generalitat. The plan was to declare total independence of Catalonia as a state neutral in the Spanish Civil War, but security services mounted a pre-emptive strike; some EC leaders were detained and some fled to France. Under new leadership the Estat Català members then fought actively on the war fronts, creating its own corps of volunteers, the most important military units of Estat Català being the Pyrenaic mountain militias named Regiment Pirinenc de Catalunya, the Columna Macià-Companys and the expeditionary corp that fought in Majorca named Columna Volant Catalana, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, the coterminous area of Catalonia with Aragón and the ancient Catalan town of Alghero in Sardinia.
In 1975, after the death of Franco, Spain started a process of democratisation. In 1976, after decades of secrecy, Estat Català claimed again its legalization under the direction of historical members of the party such as Josep Planchart i Martori, Ramon Rius, Xavier Balagueró i Ràfols, Jaume Ros i Serra, Martí Torrent i Blanchart, etc. Supporter of the independence movement of the Catalan Countries were declared, and interclass-conscious and they received the adhesion of historical militants of the years of the foundation of the party like Ventura Gassol i Rovira. By the time the Spanish general elections of 1977 were held Estat Català yet had not been legalized and had to form a coalition with other parties in the same situation. Estat Català achieved legalization that same year and, on 16 September 1977 was finally registered in the Registry of Political Parties of the Ministerio del Interior. Later it spoke against the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and the regional political autonomy, since it considered them tools contrary to the full freedoms of the Catalans, like this like continuation of the Spanish State of the Caudillo Franco. According to the positioning of Estat Català, sustained already during the Spanish State on considering the possibility of a claim future of Statute, a Statute like that of 1979 remained subordinated to a Constitution on denying the inalienable national rights and imposing a Borbonic monarchy which was the heir of that of 1714 and of Francoist Spain.
Estat Català has contested Spanish general elections, but it did not initially stand in the Catalan regional elections, in order to not reduce the vote of the other nationalist parties. In the Spanish general elections of 1979 it obtained 6,328 votes, which was 0.29% of the total. At the municipal level Estat Català use the name Acció Municipal Democràtica has been presented repeatedly in the elections or in proper noun or lamb through its coalition.
Recent history
Estat Català has contested several elections but has never attained a result better than 0.6% of the vote in Catalonia. At municipal level, through its municipal coalition Acció Municipal Democràtica it has achieved a variable number of town councilors depending on the electoral contest and also the government of some townsRegarding the recent results Estat Català contested the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia in 1999, obtaining 1,174 votes. In the Spanish general elections of 2000, it obtained 2,321 votes to the Congress of Deputies and 17,825 in the Senate, to the elections in the Parliament of Catalonia it obtained 1,890 votes and to the Elections in the European Parliament of 2004 it obtained 1,540 votes. From 2004 the party has not stood in elections except for local elections through its municipal coalition Acció Municipal Democràtica with which obtained, in 2007, 9 town councilors who allowed it to sustain the government of two town councils.
In recent years different groups have been fighting over who are the heirs of the historical party at a moment when support for independence is a cross-party policy widely supported and Estat Català have supported different options in different elections, Esquerra Republicana, Solidaritat Catalana per la Independència, etc.