Spaniards tired of king's influence, income: Commentator

Press TV has conducted an interview with Ramin Vahidzadeh, a political commentator from Tehran, on the public protests against Spain's monarchical system.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Why do you think the Spaniards are protesting against the monarchy at this time? Given that Spain's 1978 Constitution established a parliamentary democracy and the king’s role is largely ceremonial.
Vahidzadeh: Well, the first thing is that although we see in the Constitution that the role of the monarchy is ceremonial it is not, in practice like that, because every law should be enforced and should be signed by the monarch.

And although he hasn’t objected any of these laws but before that he had his pressure on them.

And the royal family which the late king Juan Carlos had the influence on the other monarchies like in the Persian Gulf states, calling them for favors in some oil measures that they took part.

And also the income of royal family is very high due to this situation of economic crisis that we see in Spain for example the family that are now in the house, the little one just having more than hundred of thousand euros for her income monthly and she doesn’t do anything, she hasn’t finished the high school.

But the economic crisis right now is vanishing jobs for Spaniards. So, in this situation they want somehow to have the justice to be served for them.

And the emerging parities like Podemos is one of the most parties that is going in favor of abolishing this monarchy and going for a Republican system.

Press TV: We know that the Spanish prime minister actually rejected the proposal of the monarchy being put to a referendum, do you think there is any hope of that happening now?

Vahidzadeh: For right now, no, it’s not, because the ruling party – Partido Popular – and also the socialists are in favor of the monarchy system. The difference is that the ruling party wants to keep the monarchy system as it is, but the socialists want a reform on that.

Mainly, these two parties have had power between themselves and these two parties want the monarchy system, because in this system they can have what they want to do with the politics.

But we have two new parties which are Ciudadanos and Podemos. These two parties have the key role in the next elections on December 20.

If Podemos or Ciudananos can be the next prime minister, we can have some force on the Monarchy system. But if not, this should be put on ice for some time.