Why "half" is often said:
- 2015 elections were considered "plebiscitary", i.e. in absence of a referendum, pro-independence parties ran together as one "yes to independence" vote. They obtained 39.6% of the vote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_regional_election,_201...
- Added together to radical left (anti-capitalist, pro-independence) parties, it adds up to 47.8% of the vote. With ~75% turnout. ~35% of census
- The "illegal referendum" this month resulted in 90.18% pro-yes with 43.03% turnout. ~38% of census. However, because of how it took place (not your normal election), the correctness of these results is often questioned, in one way or the other. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refer%C3%A9ndum_de_independenc...
Well, the "half" is a way of simplifying. Next elections will show an updated numbers. The reason I say half is that it's nonsense to pretend that approximately half of a population should be enough to bully the other half into a revolution that could cause a blood bath and creating millions of extrangers in their own country.
In Catalonia, secessionists feel free to talk about their political stance, and secessionists do not. This is probably caused by the sheer amount of demonstrations (rather aggressive in tone as well) by a demographic that cannot exceed 50% in any election.
You could argue that "half of Catalonia" is bullying the other "half" of it. One with massive demonstrations and government-sponsored strikes, the other one, with law and courts?
I don't understand how people can keep repeating this? With out citing specific data? Based on wikipeida's article on election data in the 2008 the average voter turnout was 73.9% of the population. During the Catalan referendum some were between 38.5% and 42.5% percent turnout. For simplicity lets say 100 people voted in the referendum which resulted in a 90/10 split in favor of independence. The turnout numbers suggest that in an a normal election maybe as much as 192 people might have voted or 92 more then did. Even if you assume %90 of the "likely" voters that did not vote would have voted against independence it seems to me that the independence side would have still won.
1. One would think there is a big correlation between people that think that the referendum was not valid, and people who did not vote.
2. Ballots were only overseen by proindependence people, and questions regarding tampering have been raised. A small number of radicals* should suffice to widen the gap with a normal voting process.
* I define "radical" here as someone that seems justifiable to create fake vote or vote multiple times, gaming the election process, for the "greater good"
The catalan parliament has approved the "independence" resolution (despite the parliament lawyers warning about the illegality of the voting) with 70 "yes" (out of 135 seats).
Which is, essentially, a repeat of the same pattern as the election. To me, it's starting to smell like trying to manufacture a "mandate" when you really don't have one.
