Citizens initially presented itself as a left-of-centre party that promoted social democratic and progressive liberal positions,[29] but it removed any mention of social democracy from its platform in February 2017,[30] moving closer to the political centre. By 2018, it was judged by commentators to have drifted further away from the left, as its focus shifted to competing against both the People's Party (PP) and Vox as the leading party of the Spanish right.[31][32][33][34] This was concurred by opinion polling and the research institute CIS, who also deemed the party to be right-leaning.[35][36][37]
The party initially enjoyed growing support throughout the 2010s on a regional and national level, owing to its staunch opposition to Catalan independence as well as the PP's decline in popularity under then-Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Entering the Congress of Deputies in 2015 in fourth place, it became the single largest party in the Parliament of Catalonia in 2017 and entered government in multiple autonomous communities. Citizens reached its zenith of popularity at the April 2019 general election, where it became the third-largest party in the country and pulled ahead of the PP in several regions. This popularity did not last long: after refusing to form a coalition government with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE),[38] that year's November snap election saw Citizens lose 47 seats and become the country's smallest national party, resulting in leader Albert Rivera's resignation and departure from politics.[39] This proved to be the first of a succession of electoral defeats that Citizens would endure over the following years, with the party's gradual collapse mainly benefitting the PP and Vox.
Citizens was preceded by the political platform Ciutadans de Catalunya (Citizens of Catalonia), which was formed on 7 June 2005 by a group of fifteen academics, writers and other figures of Catalan civic soviety (including Albert Boadella, Félix de Azúa, Francesc de Carreras and Arcadi Espada) in reaction to the Generalitat's plans to reform the Statute of Autonomy. The group presented their manifesto at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona on the 21st of the same month, where they called on "citizens of Catalonia who identify with our proposal to demand a political party which will contribute to the restoration of realism", expressing their lacking confidence in the government to "address the real problems faced by the general public." In this manifesto, they declared that "the rhetoric of hatred promulgated by official Catalan government media against everything Spanish is more alarming than ever" and that "the [Catalan] nation, postulated as an homogenous entity, has taken over the space where an undeniably diverse society lives".[43]
Leading up to their formation as a political party, Ciutadans de Catalunya organised several round table meetings and conferences that were occasionally met with controversy; at one event held ahead of the referendum on the 2006 Catalan Statute of Autonomy, several members of the group were assaulted by pro-independence activists.[44][45] A second manifesto was presented at the Teatro Tívolí in Barcelona on 4 March 2006.[46]
Their founding conference was held in July in Barcelona, where Citizens was formally incorporated as a political party under the full name of Ciudadanos–Partido de la Ciudadanía (Citizens–Party of the Citizenry): Albert Rivera, 26 years old at the time, was elected its first leader.
In the 2006 elections for the Parliament of Catalonia, Citizens won 3% of the votes and returned three MPs, including Rivera. In the 2010 elections, a similar result was achieved (3.4%, 3 MPs). Mainly as a counterweight to the growing public support for independence in Catalonia, the party grew substantially as one of its most outspoken opponents. In the 2012 snap elections, the number of votes more than doubled (7.6%, 9 MPs). All but one of these seats were in the Province of Barcelona. In the 2015 elections, Citizens more than doubled its votes again (17.9%, 25 MPs), becoming the second largest faction in the Catalan parliament.
In 2013, the party started organising in the rest of Spain with a manifesto called "La conjura de Goya" ("Confederacy of Goya") that took place in the Congress Palace of Madrid. In the 2015 general elections, Cs entered parliament with 13.9% and 40 seats. As PP's Mariano Rajoy refused the mandate to form a government, Citizens promised the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) its support in parliament in exchange for a number of political concessions. However, this pact would have needed the support of Podemos, which Citizens could not abide by; this deadlock ultimately led to the 2016 snap elections, where the party lost 0.8% of the popular vote and eight seats. After these elections, Citizens struck a deal with the conservative PP in supporting its government in exchange for a number of political concessions. After a 10-month political deadlock, PP leader Mariano Rajoy was able to win investiture as Prime Minister and retain power.
In March 2021, Citizens, together with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, presented a surprise no-confidence motion in the Region of Murcia against their own regional coalition government with the People's Party.[51] The motion failed due to defection of several Ciudadanos deputies, and triggered a "political earthquake" across the country, leading to a number of high-ranking members abandoning the party.[52] In the aftermath, Cs also lost all its 26 deputies in Madrid in the 2021 Madrilenian regional election, and fell in country-wide polls from ≈7% support (≈10 deputies) down to ≈3% (≈1 deputy).
Ideology
This section's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (October 2017)
The party opposes separatist movements such as the Catalan independence movement[81][82] and federating the autonomous communities. Even though Citizens is currently a supporter of European federalism,[83] it ran in the 2009 European Parliament election in coalition with the pan-European, Eurosceptic party Libertas.[84] Although reconsidering the current head of state is not a priority for the party, Rivera has said that Citizens is "a republican party which claims that Spanish citizens are who have to decide whether they prefer a once-modernized monarchy or a republic through a referendum in the context of a constitutional reform".[85][86][87]
According to its declared identity signs, Cs advocates four basic lines of action:
Cs displays a political discourse mainly centered around opposition to Catalan nationalism,[88] to the extent that it has been frequently criticised for being a single-issue party, a label rejected by its members. In the 2006–2012 period, the number of Cs voters who had voted for centre-right parties in previous elections was similar to the number who had voted for centre-left parties, suggesting that the party's positions on general economic and social issues are not its main draw.[89] Cs criticises any sort of nationalism, "including the Spanish nationalism that Mr. Ynestrillas defends".[90]
One of the main issues raised by the party is the Catalan language policy which actively promotes the use of Catalan language as the sole working language of Catalan public administration.[91][92] The party challenges this policy and defends equal treatment of the Spanish and Catalan languages.[92] It also opposes the current language policy within the Catalan educational system in accordance with which all public schooling is delivered in Catalan. The party also supports strengthening the powers of the Spanish central institutions and curtailing the powers of regional administrations.[93]
Other topics include a thorough reform of the electoral system with the aim of creating greater proportionality that would give less weight to single constituencies. They also support some changes in the 1978 Constitution, especially regarding regional organisation. Regarding the chartered autonomous communities' tax regimes, the party respects and does not want to remove the Basque Country's and Navarre's chartered regimes because it believes that "they aren't discriminatory in and of themselves". However, it criticises what it calls the miscalculation of the quota or contribution which is negotiated between governments and has been causing significant differences that they regard as having become outrageous.[94] It proposes a review and a recalculation of the Basque and Navarrese Economic Agreements[clarification needed] in order to stop the Basque Country and Navarre being "net beneficiaries".[95] Among other policies, they also support legalisation of marijuana, euthanasia, and gestational surrogacy.
Prominent meetings of the party have been reportedly picketed by Catalan separatist groups on several occasions.[96] Its leader Albert Rivera has received anonymous death threats urging him to quit politics. Two members of the ERC Youth were sentenced to prison for it.[97][98][99][100][101] Members of Ciudadanos have repeatedly taken part in violent attacks on Catalan targets[102][103][104][105] and far-right and ultranationalist groups are usually present in their demonstrations.[106][107] In one instance, a Telemadrid cameraman was assaulted, allegedly because he was mistaken for a member of Catalan broadcaster TV3.[108][109][110]
Policies
Former Barcelona Citizens Headquarters (2015-2021) in Sant Gervasi – Galvany. From 2015 to 2017 it also served as its Central HQ before its relocation to Madrid.
Instate an earned income tax credit to fight in-work poverty
"Austrian Backpack"[112] transferable unemployment compensation where a worker accumulates funds throughout their career which are accessible upon job loss or retirement
Devolve training to the citizens from employers associations and trade unions
Ease immigration policies to attract talent and investors
Legalize marijuana
Spanish nationalism
Although the party defines itself as postnationalist, it has been deemed by a variety of sources (including peer-reviewed expert texts)[8] to profess a populistSpanish nationalist ideology.[9][10] In a party conference held on 20 May 2018 to present its platform España Ciudadana, Rivera said in a hall filled with Spanish flags:
I do not see reds and blues, I see Spaniards. I do not see, as they say, urban people and rural people, I see Spaniards. I do not see young or old, I see Spaniards. I do not see workers and entrepreneurs, I see Spaniards. I do not see believers or agnostics, I see Spaniards. [...] So, compatriots, with Citizens, let's go for that Spain, let's feel proud of being Spaniards again.[113][114]
In 2006, the newspaper El Periódico de Catalunya revealed that Rivera was a card-carrying member of the conservative People's Party (PP) between 2002 and 2006 and that he had left the PP only three months before running for election for the Citizen's Party. This was corroborated by El Mundo and El País.[115][116] Despite these revelations, Rivera denied having been a full member of PP and implied that he had voted for the PSOE until recently.[117] Past PP membership is common among Cs members. Former PSC activist Juan Carlos Girauta had joined the PP[118] and became a prolific contributor to conservative journalism from his Libertad Digital column[119] before becoming a Citizens member and candidate in the 2014 European election.[120] During his long tenure as Libertad Digital columnist and COPE debater, Girauta expressed strong sympathies for right-wing Zionism (to the point of calling then-President Zapatero an antisemite)[121] and lent credibility [122][123] to the now discredited book by Victor Farías[124] dismissing socialist politician Salvador Allende as a racist and a social Darwinist, without clarifying that the quotations about genetic determinism in Allende's doctoral dissertation were themselves quotations from other authors (mostly Cesare Lombroso) or the fact that Allende was highly critical of these conclusions in his thesis which was later published as a rebuttal to Farías' position.[125] Farías was later sued for this,[126] but Girauta never retracted his statements.
In 2015, a member of the Citizens electoral list for Gijón to the city council and regional elections posted pro-Falangist, pro-Blue Division and pro-Hitler Youth messages on Facebook.[127] Those same elections carried news of at least five other former card-carrying Falange and/or España 2000 members.[128]
An altercation took place in Canet de Mar on 21 Ma, 2018 between pro-independence local residents, who had planted yellow crosses on the beach to honor imprisoned and fugitive politicians; and anti-independence individuals who decided to remove said crosses. The altercation left at least three people wounded, including an 82-year-old man and a local CUP councilor who explicitly accused Citizens and Falange militants from across the whole region to be among the provocateurs. Citizens Member of Parliament Carlos Carrizosa dismissed the claim that either "councillors or party activists" from the party were involved in the incidents.[129][130][131] Four days later and despite admonishments and warnings by President of the Parliament Roger Torrent, Carrizosa himself removed a yellow ribbon from the seats reserved for absent Cabinet ministers, forcing the President to suspend the entire session.[132]
Relations with the media
During the 2006 Catalan election campaign, the party's president Albert Rivera appeared completely naked in a poster in order to attract publicity to the party.[133][134] In the beginning, the party frequently complained about an alleged boycott on the part of Catalan media. In their opinion, the party was given too little airtime to present its views on the Catalan public television.[135]
2009 European election internal dispute
In 2009, it was announced that Cs would run for the European election allied with the Libertas coalition. The party's association with Declan Ganley's Libertas platform raised some concern on account of the coalition formed by the latter with nationalist and ultranationalist parties in each of its local European chapters, seemingly at odds with the professed ideology of Cs.[136][137][138]
According to some members of Cs, the negotiations prior to this electoral pact were led personally and secretly by the party leader Albert Rivera. This alienated the other two MPs (besides Rivera himself) and a significant part of the party from his leadership.[139] In turn, the official stance of Cs is that the critics are using the dispute as a pretext to canvass support for the ideologically similar UPyD.[140]
Position in the political spectrum
On June 24, 2019, the party's economics spokesman, Toni Roldán, announced that he was leaving Citizens and renouncing his seat in the Spanish parliament in protest at the party's drift to the right and its willingness to enter alliances with the far right after regional and municipal elections.[141] Following Roldán's resignation, MEP Javier Nart and the Asturian leader Juan Vázquez stepped down as well, leaving their political offices in the party's committee and the Asturian Parliament, respectively.[142][143]
Some days later, Francesc de Carreras, one of the party's founders, and Francisco de la Torre, MP and economist, also announced that they would leave the party due to its stances against the PSOE and inclination to alliances with the far right.[144][145]
This crisis came after President of France Emmanuel Macron's government sent a warning to Citizens, with which his En Marche! party shares membership of a group in the EU Parliament, over its willingness to work with the far right.[146]
In 2017, the Court of Audit found irregularities in the accounting books of several political groups, Citizens among them. In respect of Citizens, the irregularities included illegal expenses for advertising on local television in 2015.[148][149]
Cs member Jorge Soler appeared in December 2017 on the TV3 debate Preguntes Freqüents, during which journalist Beatriz Talegón [es; ca] addressed him about the 2.1 million euros spent by Cs in the 21-D Catalan election campaign—higher than the budget spent by any other party on that election. Talegón inquired about the sources of this funding. Soler replied that this ample budget could be ascribed to the austerity of their party.[150]
^Bonnie N. Field; Caroline Gray (2019). "The Spanish Parliament in Context". In Jorge M. Fernandes; Cristina Leston-Bandeira (eds.). The Iberian Legislatures in Comparative Perspective. Taylor & Francis. p. 53. ISBN978-1-351-06520-7.
^Marta Fraile; Enrique Henández (2020). "Determinants of Voting Behaviour". In Diego Muro; Ignacio Lago (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Spanish Politics. Oxford University Press. p. 383. ISBN978-0-19-882693-4. Ciudadanos...competes with the PP in the centre-right of the ideological continuum.
^ ab"Catalexit?". The Economist. Vol. January 7th-13th. 2017. p. 19.
^Ciudadanos – Partido de la Ciudadanía. "Citizens' Ideario"(PDF). ciudadanos-cs.org (in Spanish). Archived from the original(PDF) on 22 January 2015. Retrieved 27 September 2016. Tercera, por el vacío de representación que existía en el espacio electoral de ultra-derecha no nacionalista
^ abDiari de Terrassa (9 April 2009). "Javier González: 'Nuestro objetivo es impulsar una tercera vía política en España". ciudadanos-cs.org (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 September 2016. Somos postnacionalistas y no queremos luchar contra un nacionalismo con otro. Vamos sin banderas, casi desnudos, abriendo camino sin fronteras desde la Constitución
^Delgado Ramos, David (2011). "Elecciones al Parlament 2010: fin de ciclo en Cataluña"(PDF). Revista de Derecho Político (in Spanish). 80. UNED. Retrieved 28 May 2015. El incremento se produjo a costa del PSC, donde en algunos de sus tradicionales «feudos» su electorado optó por votar a Ciutadans como opción «españolista» y de centro-izquierda más adecuada para no votar a su otra opción, el Partido Popular, más alejada ideológicamente de sus postulados.[permanent dead link]
^Gutiérrez Díez, José Manuel (January 2014). "A case of misreckoning: the Catalan election of 2012"(PDF). BORDA: Working Papers (University of Salamanca). Retrieved 8 August 2015. Cs (Ciudadanos). Catalan party (in practice), without reference in Spain. Centre-left
^"Spain's centrist Ciudadanos are on the march". The Economist. 10 February 2018. His party was formed by disillusioned Catalan Socialists who disliked temporising with nationalists. Last year Mr Rivera repositioned it as a centrist, progressive liberal party.
^Castillo, Jésus (18 March 2015). "Spain: Podemos, or how to square a circle". Flash Economics, Economic Research (243). Natixis: 2. ISSN2117-9387. Retrieved 30 January 2016. C's - Ciudadanos - Partido de la Ciudadanía (Citizens - Party of the Citizenry). Creation: 2006. Positioning: Republican centre
^Medda-Windischer & Carlà 2015, p. 178: «It should be said that not all political parties and social entities signed the Agreement: the People's Party (center-right) and Ciutadans (center-right, recently-created pro-Spanish party in the Catalan Parliament) rejected the Agreement on the basis that it had been conceived in a clearly nationalist fashion, whereas the NGO SOS-Racisme and the Trade Union Commissions Obreres considered the document not progressive enough».
^Ancelovici, Dufour & Nez 2016, p. 86: «The voters have been turning to either Podemos, a new radical left-wing party that grew out of the Indignados movement, or to Ciudadanos, a new center-right party that originated in Catalonia but has mobilized more broadly in recent years».
^Ferrán & Hilbink 2016, p. 144: «Ciudadanos is a center-right political party launched in Catalonia in 2006 by a group of self-styled intellectuals (who had published a “manifesto” in 2005) that extended across Spain after the Catalan elections of 2012».
^Butler 2016, p. 24: «On the centre-right of the political continuum, the Ciudadanos ('Citizens') party had less impact in the Basque Country or Navarre».
^Cohen & Muñoz 2016, p. 6: «A center-right party in Spain also emerged, which is called Ciudadanos (“Citizens”), whose base is primarily young and urban and whose focus for addressing income disparity and unemployment is by concentrating on growing the innovation economy in cities throughout the country».
^Buck, Tobias (24 February 2015). "Rajoy promises jobs and growth as fringe parties gain ground". Financial Times. Retrieved 11 April 2015. On the center-right, Ciudadanos is winning backing from former supporters of the PP, suggesting the ruling party's stranglehold on the conservative camp is drawing to an end
^Gómez Fortes, Braulio; Urquizu, Ignacio (23 September 2015). "Political Corruption and the End of two-party system after the May 2015 Spanish Regional Elections". Regional and Federal Studies. 25 (4). Routledge: 379–389. doi:10.1080/13597566.2015.1083013. ISSN1743-9434. S2CID153736868. Retrieved 2 January 2016. Yet the real change that makes these elections so groundbreaking has been the emergence of two change that makes these elections so groundbreaking has been the emergence of two new political forces in all the regional parliaments—one leftist party, Podemos, and one centre-right party, Ciudadanos—which have accounted for 20% of the regional vote and proved decisive in forming regional governments in the 17 autonomous communities, whether via coalition pacts, investiture agreements or legislative pacts
^Auzias & Labourdette 2014, p. 31: «Enfin, Ciutadans (C's), avec 9 députés au parlement, s'oppose aux nationalistes et défend le modèle de l'Etat des autonomies».
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