Platform for Catalonia

Platform for Catalonia Plataforma per Catalunya (Catalan)
Leader	Xavier Simó
Founded	5 April 2002
Headquarters	10 Jacint Verdaguer St. 08500 Vic, Barcelona
Ideology	Euroscepticism Social conservatism Spanish Unionism[1] Populism[2] Anti-Islam[3] Catalan regionalism
Political position	Far-right
Local Government (Catalonia)	8 / 9,077
Website
www.plataforma.cat
Politics of Catalonia Political parties Elections

Plataforma per Catalunya (PxC; English: Platform for Catalonia) is a Spanish nationalist political party rooted in Catalonia, Spain, which centres its political agenda around controlling immigration. It is strongly anti-Islamic, and is widely considered a racist, xenophobic far-right political force.^[4][5][6][7] Its leader was Josep Anglada, town councillor in Vic. PxC has 8 local representatives, often in cities with tensions between locals and immigrants. They have not had any representatives at provincial, regional or national level.

Ideology

At their 2008 Congress, the PxC invited the Vlaams Belang of Belgium and the Lega Nord of Italy to attend.^[8] In 2012, a senior PxC member congratulated the Golden Dawn of Greece on their general election results.^[9]

In 2011 the PxC were investigated after ordering a "Night of the Long Knives" against Muslim clerics in Catalonia.^[10]

The PxC councillor in Salt, Girona, voted against criminalising homophobia in the city in 2013.^[11]

History

PxC results in the Catalan parliamentary election, 2010. Areas of highest support in red and lowest in blue.

Anglada started the party on 15 January 2001 as the Plataforma Vigatana (Platform for Vic).^[12] The PxC entered their first municipal elections in 2003, winning one seat in five respective cities. Cervera in Lleida province gave the largest percentage to the party, at 9.2%.^[13]

In the 2010 Catalan parliamentary election they received 2.4% of votes, falling 15,000 votes short of entering Parliament.

In the 2011 local elections, PxC got 65,905 votes, and grew from 17 to 67 councillors. Two were elected in Hospitalet de Llobregat, Catalonia's second-largest city. Three were elected in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, which along with the two in Hospitalet constitute the PxC's first representation in Greater Barcelona. Mataró, in Barcelona province, had the highest percentage voting for the party (10.49%, 3 seats). In Vic, the PxC grew from four to five councillors, making them the city's second-largest party after Convergence and Union.^[14]

National expansion

Parties affiliated with the PxC were set up in other regions of Spain. The Platform for Madrid (Spanish: Plataforma por Madrid, PxM) cut off its links to Anglada's party in March 2006.^[15]

In 2012, Anglada announced the launch of the Plataforma por la Libertad (PxL, English: Platform for Freedom), an expansion of the party into the rest of Spain.^[16] Anglada and the PxL have protested against the construction of mosques in Spain.^[17]

References

External links

• Official website