Maragall's shaken up his cabinet, with six jobs changing hands, but the carve-up of the cabinet counselorships among the parties remains the same. Maragall's coalition of his Socialists, the Communists, and ERC, originally the Tripartite running the Barcelona city government, is now also the tripartite running the Generalitat, after nearly 25 years under Convergence and Union, and in effect the tripartite running Spain, as Zapatero is dependent on the Maragall coalition.

(We won't comment on allegations that Maragall is an alcoholic, as there is little evidence, saving the fact that he sure looks like some of the drunks who hang around the bar where I watch the soccer games. We will comment on the reports that the real power behind the throne is Pasqual's brother Ernest. They're true, from what I read in the papers.)

What's pissed some people off is that Maragall nominated ERC's organizational secretary, Xavier Vendrell, to be the counselor for governance and public administration--that is, the boss of the bureaucracy. In a Spanish political party, the organizational secretary is second only in power to the party president, who is usually the top candidate. For example, Zapatero is the Socialist party president, and Jose Blanco is the organizational secretary. Blanco is the party disciplinarian, the guy who does the day-to-day work running the party apparatus. It is an extremely good idea to have Mr. Blanco on your side if you wish to rise within the PSOE.

So Vendrell is ERC's enforcer, the guy who was unashamedly demanding kickbacks from employees of counselorships run by ERC. He also used to be in the MDT and Catalunya Lliure, both of which were fronts for the Catalan terrorist gang Terra Lliure, that is, their Batasuna. Even La Vanguardia says this guy is not appropriate to hold any public post.

I would guess that ERC's floor percentage of the vote in Catalonia is about 10%. Many people consider it an extremist party, and even more scorn it as a one-issue party; that is, ERC's only issue is Catalan independence, and they don't really have a coherent platform on anything else. I think ERC is much more nationalist than leftist, since many party members are rather conservative on some issues. They're all Third Worldists, though, and generally anti-American. Many of them are virulently anti-Spanish, and I'd call a few of them racist--I once had a student who informed the whole class that he had no problem with Andalusians, he just didn't like them here in Catalonia. They're not particularly strong in Barcelona; they pick up their highest percentages of the vote in medium-sized towns in central and northern Catalonia, such as Vic, Berga, Gerona, Igualada, Ripoll, and the like.. They've reached 20% of the vote in some of these places. Where they have no support at all is the Barcelona working-class suburbs, which house a third of the Catalan people; 98% of these are from somewhere else.

ERC voters are the only ones I find difficult to get along with personally. I avoid political arguments whenever possible, since I figure there's no reason to let politics interfere with personal relationships. Frankly, I'm also very closed-minded; I figure I'm not going to learn anything new from another political argument, since I'm pretty sure I've heard them all before. Just about everyone here in Barcelona is perfectly happy to do the same and avoid politics, with the exception of certain ERC people. And, of course, the squatters.

Oh, yeah, here's one. Oleguer Presas, the FC Barcelona defender, has "written" a book full of all his lefty nationalist ideas. I haven't bothered to actually read it, because I have a feeling I'm not going to like it, since Oleguer is notorious for showing up at support marches for squatters and that kind of crap. I read somewhere that his teammates have a chant for him: "Oleguer, solidario, reparte tu salario." That is, "Oleguer, Mr. Solidarity, give away your salary." Maybe he does. If he does, I'll cheerfully tip my hat to him as someone who puts his money where his mouth is. If not, not. He is a very good player, though, I must admit, always gives his best, and you never hear about him going out and getting drunk and fighting with the cops and beating up his girlfriend and snorting up cocaine and missing training. Busquets once went out and got drunk down at a bar at the Puerto Olimpico and lost a fight with an Italian reporter, who gave him a tremendous black eye, which probably wasn't as bad as the time he wrecked a motorcycle, tore up the palms of his hands, and couldn't play for like a month.