Tens of thousands of Spanish protesters are demonstrating across the country calling for better economic opportunities, a more representative electoral system, and an end to political corruption. The pro-democracy protests started on May 15 in Madrid when people gathered in the central plaza to advocate for change, calling the budding movement “Toma la Plaza,” or “Take the Square.” In the past week, protests have spread to more than a dozen cities across Spain. The country has the highest unemployment rate in Europe—nearly half of its population under 30 years old is jobless. Protesters are sustaining their decentralized movement through donations of food, fuel and even computers. Daily assemblies democratically vote on all decisions, and local committees are assigned different tasks, from cleanup operations to legal affairs.
They are working on four main points, which is a renewal of the election law, which would end up in each vote meaning the vote and the voice of one person; more control of the corruption, not only in the political area, but in all the high areas of our society; the true separation of powers. All the law power is very related to the political parties. So we find that every four years, when we get a new government, a new political party in the government, all the judges, top parts of the judges, are just on the side of the politics. So we have no real separations of powers. We want that.
And the fourth one is control over the politicians. It’s very usual and very harmful to see in Spain, whenever you see a Congress meeting, to see more than half of the seats empty. We pay the politicians to represent us, and they have to go to the Congress. They have to tell us what they decide, and they have to let us decide for ourselves. It’s not of them. So, if one politician doesn’t go one day to work—we see it in the camera, because we’ve got the meanings, we’ve got the technology—he doesn’t get paid. That’s—it’s as simple as that. It’s the same as happens with me, as with everyone else.
– from democracynow.org