It looks like the governing Catalan Tripartite is going to break up over the new Catalan statute, more or less the equivalent of a state constitution in the US. Pasqual Maragall, the Socialist premier, has lost the support of ERC, the Cataloony separatists, who don't think that the statute goes far enough and are calling for their supporters to vote No in the referendum on the statute coming up this fall. Maragall, who is widely seen as incompetent and is believed by many to be an alcoholic, is out as premier right after the referendum, and new elections will be held. Rumor has it that Jose Montilla will replace him as Socialist candidate for premier.

In Spain, an administration is considered to have failed if early elections have to be called. Maragall's administration is a complete failure.

Montilla would be a groundbreaking candidate, as he is what some people around here derogatorily call a charnego--that is, someone who lives in Catalonia but is descended from people from other parts of Spain. He would be the first charnego major party candidate for premier, and if he wins it will have some social impact.

I am just guessing that, first, the statute will pass in the referendum with at least a 65% majority, and second, that the government formed after the election will be a PSC-CiU coalition of some sort, and Montilla will be premier since the trends show the PSC generally receives more votes than CiU.  

The fun thing about the referendum on the statute is that the Socialists, moderate Catalanists CiU, and the Communists are in favor, while ERC and the pro-Spain conservative party PP are against. Talk about unlikely alliances.

I actually don't think the statute is that bad, and I'd probably vote in favor of it with the stipulation that this is going to be the last change for, say, the next thirty years. What people are worried about is a slippery slope; this statute is just the first step toward greater Catalan autonomy and eventual independence, they believe. That's why you have to state explicitly that after this one, there aren't going to be any more changes.

Enough Catalan regional politics. Time for some football. Tonight Sevilla plays Middlesbrough in the final of the UEFA Cup, the less important of the two European club championships. (The other, of course, is the Champions' League; Barcelona and Arsenal will meet in the final. Someone somewhere said that a good comparison with American college basketball would be: Champions' League=NCAA, UEFA Cup=NIT.) Sevilla's had a good season; they'll qualify for the UEFA Cup again next year.  Don't miss the game on ESPN 8 or wherever they're televising it.

Racing de Santander has a couple of tough defensive players with great surnames: Moraton (Bruise) and Matabuena (Killgood). Moraton is very high on the list for most yellow cards this season.

Question: Why does everybody in Brazil have a name that ends in -son? I mean, among sports figures you've got Anderson, Edmilson, Robinho (Robson), Nelson Piquet, Edson (Pele), and so on.

Hugo Chavez is becoming a massive pain in the ass, which is of course just what he wants to do. I figure if the Venezuelans were dumb enough to elect him and aren't pissed off enough to overthrow him, then he's just what they deserve. But when he starts interfering in other countries' elections like Peru and Mexico, he's gone too far. Fortunately, he and Morales now have Argentina, Brazil, and Chile pissed off at them, not to mention Mexico and Peru, and Uruguay and Argentina are arguing about Argentina wanting to build paper mills along the Uruguay river, the boundary between the two. There's no unity on the LatAm left.

Castro, Chavez, and Morales are "The Axis of Evel Knievel," as all three are about to crash their countries into the Snake River Canyon.

Peru's a mess. You've got a choice, as a voter, between Ollanta Humala and Alan Garcia. This is like having to choose between Lyndon LaRouche and Jimmy Carter. Or Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jacques Chirac. Or David Duke and Edwin Edwards. ("Vote for the Crook: It's Important"). I suppose the responsible thing is to vote for the least bad. You know Garcia's going to be terrible, but Humala would be so much worse it's unimaginable.

One thing I like about the Spain Herald is that we do a lot of stories on the Cuban dissidents and political prisoners, helping to keep their cause alive. I think we ought to do the same thing with dissidents in Venezuela and Bolivia, and generally increase coverage of Latin America. We'll see if anyone listens to me.

Here's Eusebio Val in today's La Vanguardia on the Reagan library in Simi Valley.

Americans love recreation involving their icons and the liturgy of their institutions...Admiration and the absence of criticism dominate the narrative of the museum. Reagan is presented as the man who defeated Communism, without shades of gray. The "Iran-contras" (sic) scandal is barely mentioned. The support for the Afghan mujihadeen appears as a success, without explaining that it was the seed of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The firing of 11,500 air traffic controllers is justified as inevitable, almost heroic. Not one line about the dirty wars in Central America.

Now wait a minute. 1) You don't go to the Reagan library for a critical perspective on Reagan, of course, any more than you go to the Museum of History of Catalonia for a critical perspective on Catalan history. I thought everyone knew this. 2) Reagan did a hell of a lot to defeat Communism, and Communism is one of those black-and-white things with very few shades of gray. 3) I don't remember who said this about Iran-contra, it wasn't me, but it went something like: "We ripped off the Ayatollah, freed the hostages, extended the war against Saddam, and sent the money to the contras. Sheer brilliance."

4) Most of the mujihadeen had nothing to do with either Osama or the Taliban; the Taliban weren't organized until 1993, four years after the Americans cut off aid. I'm pretty sure no American money ever went to either Al Qaeda or the Taliban. The Americans spent a total of about $1 billion funding the mujihadeen, while the Soviets spent about twenty billion a year 1979-1989 on their Vietnam. 5) What dirty wars in Central America? If anyone was fighting a dirty war in Nicaragua it was the Sandinistas against the Miskito Indians, and in El Salvador the Americans supported the Duarte government, which fought the far-right death squads and the far-left guerillas. The Americans never ran any death squads, unlike the Socialist Felipe Gonzalez government in Spain, which had its very own death squad, the GAL, killing both real ETA terrorists and innocent people. 6) As far as firing the air-traffic controllers, they were striking against the public safety. No one's dared try such a thing since.