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Renate asked about Barcelona (province, I suppose, as well ascity) in relation
to adjusting to current political trends (snip) “not onlyTrump per se but this
general shift right.” I’ll be very general here and I’drecommend checking
wikipedia for things like *2016 spanish general election*and other obvious
terms. As in the United States there are effortshere to do away with the
hegemony of the two party system. In the Spanish stateone might say that the
Partido Popular is analogous to the GOP and the PartidoSocialista Obrero
Espanyol to the Democratic party—at least in terms of the electoralsystem. A
difference is that smaller and less voted parties here can get seatsin the two
chamber congress due to a different system of proportionalrepresentation. As an
aside let me state the obvious that Empyre’s recent mentionof the USelectoral
college might be examined in such PR terms. But briefly the 2016 Spanishgeneral
election is of interest bc the two major parties were forced tonegotiate with
new new *smaller* parties before a govt could be formed.Wikipedia for
more.Barcelona, you’ll recall, is the capital city of theautonomous region of
Catalonia.There are 17 ARs, governed by autonomous statutes (Wikipedia). The
Catalanindependence movement is similar to that of Scotland. This is
perhapsinteresting for the Empyre discussion regarding moves to alter
two-partytradition. Very briefly the Popular Unity Candidacy (Wikipedia) a
small leftwing party favoring town hall style government *and* independence is
animportant coalition partner in the Catalan government—based in the capital
cityof Barcelona but of course with membership throughout the AR with
similarparties throughout the Spanish state. This is a small part of the
storyobviously but I think the relationships to your question and to PR
worldwide makeit of some interest. The link below is old but maybe useful. Best
wishes,William
<https://www.opendemocracy.net/pere-vilanova/catalonia-spain-deadlock>
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