Spain: Muslim party launched

Spain: Muslim party launched

Many thanks to L. for the translation.


The Partido Renacimiento y Unión de España (Rebirth and union of Spain party), known as PRUNE, was officially presented in Granada the day before the EU?- Morocco trade conference was held in that city.


The party was founded by the writer, poet, and journalist Mostafa Bakkach El-Bakkach.
Sr Bakkach, who adopted Spanish nationality in 2001, read out the party’s charter in Arabic and Spanish.


The party aims to bring Muslims into mainstream Spanish society, promoting “their interest in politics, in equality, in justice, in solidarity, and under the banner of the Spanish rule of law and the Constitution”, although the party admits that its fundamental roots lie in Islamic tradition.


The party, based on Islam, said it intended to contest the municipal elections next year in Málaga, Madrid, Barcelona, Murcia, Valencia, Oviedo and Toledo on a manifesto of ‘justice, equality and solidarity’


Sr Bakkach regretted that since the creation of the party he had been the victim of "a slur attempt to spread fear, by saying the new party is a radical pro-Morrocan Islamist party", which he denounced as lies.


The founder of PRUNE, who has been a delegate on the Spanish Islamic Commission for the Moroccan community and vice president of the Federation of Islamic Religious Entities of Spain (Feeri), believes that "if other parties are of Christian inspiration, I do not see what the problem is that our roots lie in Islam. "


"We are a Spanish party that aspires to work in Spain, I know what interests have prompted the attacks of recent months," he said, adding that "we are not financed by any foreign country, although there have been attempts to have our registration rejected."


Claims that "our goal is to rebuild Al-Andalus or implement Sharia law" are "nonsense, like so many others have said."


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Now they have a name -- the Rebirth and Union party -- and the determination to consolidate themselves as another force on the national political scape. But the people behind the initiative, mostly Spanish Muslims living in Granada and descended from immigrants, are aware that it won't be an easy task.

Putting together a new electoral offering is never an easy task. But it has been done. There are the cases of the Citizens, and the Progressive Union and Democracy, which with messages different from those of the major parties, have obtained representation in the Catalonian parliament and the Congress of Deputies, respectively. There are also examples more similar to what Rebirth and Union aspires, such as Coalition for Melilla, which has capitalized on the majority of the Muslim vote in the autonomous city enclave and has made itself an unavoidable political interlocutor. In the May 27, 2007 elections, it obtained the most votes second to only the Partido Popular. However, the Coaltion's actions are limited to Spanish territory on the African continent.

That's how it always was until now, says Jose Antonio Pena Ramos, a professor with the Political Science Department at the University of Granada. "Since 1995, the parties with Muslim bases in Spain have existed in the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, whose Muslim electorate has been an electoral body characterized fundamentally by its lack of mobility and its highly fragmented vote. Until now, the parties with Muslim bases have had distinctly local political characters and also have been oriented toward specific groups within the Muslim electorate. Some have seemed destined to fail, like the National Party of Rif and the Hispanoberber Party, and others have had a limited presence in the different representational bodies, such as the Democratic and Social Party of Ceuta and the Ceuta Democratic Union. Nevertheless, in Ceuta, the parties with Muslim bases have doubled their percentage of the vote since 1999. Also in Melilla, these parties have seen their support grow, in particularly the Coalition for Melill, but they are actually going through a crisis."

According to the documentation to which IDEAL has access, Rebirth and Union aspires to it all, but still has its feet firmly on the ground. "Surely, some day not very far off, no more than 30 years from now, one of our children will be a mayor, a government minister and even president of the nation," they say. Pena Ramos says this ambition is what differentiates Rebirth and Union from the current Muslim parties. "The great novelty that Rebirth and Union could introduce to the party system is that it seeks to be a national initiative, or at the least will seek to transcend the Granada political sphere. It's looking toward Madrid. It's seeking to be a party that amplifies its electoral space among the foreign population or among people with foreign ancestors, including non-Muslims, with the pretension of consolidating the multi-ethnic character of the society in Granada, Andalucia and Spain. Undoubtedly, it's likely that in consolidating itself, Rebirth and Union will have converted itself into a party that is definitively oriented toward the Muslim electorate, whether those people be Spanish or foreign-born."

For the people behind the embryo of a party -- the project hasn't gone past this phase -- Spain needs a group that is led by one of its "minorities." They say they don't care whether this "minority" is "Spanish-born or of Arab, African, Asian, Latin origin, among others ..." What matters to them is that they unite "to defend their rights."

Rebirth and Union has also declared its "Spanishness." In fact, it could include some reference to this in its actual name, such as adding "of Spain," "in Spain" or "Spanish."


Sources: The Reader (English), WebIslam (Spanish)