5. Irene Montero.

It’s been a funny old year for Podemos. The party began 2017 hobbled by infighting as its two most prominent figures, Pablo Iglesias and Íñigo Errejón, battled for its soul. Iglesias emerged as the winner and his deputy was banished to a lesser role, with Irene Montero taking his place as the party’s parliamentary spokesperson. Amid the sound and fury in Catalonia, Podemos struggled to make itself heard at times this year as it carefully trod a path between unionism and separatism. But in the spring, it did manage to hog the headlines when it presented a no-confidence motion against prime minister Mariano Rajoy. The proposal failed but it allowed the 29-year-old Montero to deliver a withering parliamentary attack on Rajoy and his party and to announce her own arrival as a political player.

4. Garbiñe Muguruza.

Although Garbiñe Muguruza only won two tournaments in 2017, the fact that one of them was Wimbledon made this a year to remember for the Caracas-born tennis player. Her high-energy game, built on powerful groundstrokes, helped the 24-year-old beat Venus Williams in straight sets in the final at the All England Club. She also held the world number one ranking (before losing it to Simona Halep) and took a WTA Player of the Year award. “Muguruza should win another Slam in 2018, and maybe even two,” warned Baseline website. With Rafa Nadal back at the pinnacle of the men’s game, it has been a year to celebrate for Spanish tennis.

3. Inés Arrimadas.

Inés Arrimadas has long been a thorn in the side of the Catalan independence movement. As the Popular Party (PP) and Socialists lost ground in the region, her Ciudadanos party emerged as the leading unionist voice and Arrimadas as an aggressive and effective critic of separatism. But this year, the 36-year-old has been even more in the news, assuming her new dual role as leader of the party in Catalonia and its national spokeswoman with aplomb. Arrimadas ended 2017 by delivering an historic electoral result: she secured 37 seats in the regional chamber, making Ciudadanos the first non-nationalist party ever to come first in a Catalan election. That remarkable result will almost certainly not be enough to make her the new regional premier, but it did highlight how unionist Catalans finally found their voice after a tumultuous few months.

2. Javier Martínez.

Amid all the political histrionics in Catalonia this year, a genuine tragedy did take place in the region: a terrorist rampage along Barcelona’s Ramblas on August 17^th, followed by a similar attack in Cambrils the next day, leaving a total of 16 people dead. The official response ranged from the impressive to the petty and to their immense shame, a number of public figures saw the aftermath as an opportunity to advance their political agenda. But in a year when clumsiness and mediocrity was so often on display from national leaders, others showed a remarkable degree of integrity. Among them was Javier Martínez, father of a three-year-old boy, Xavi, who died on the Ramblas in the first terror attack. Just days afterwards, he embraced an imam in the town of Rubí, in a gesture of unity that was as astonishing as it was rational.

1.The “injured woman”.

Long billed as the day the Catalan government would hold its outlawed referendum on independence, October 1st always looked like a day of reckoning for Spain’s territorial crisis. But the vote itself was overshadowed by the behaviour of the national police and civil guard, who were deployed to several polling stations where they proceeded to attack voters and seize ballot boxes. Both sides of this conflict have been guilty at various times of a crass disrespect for democracy, but as footage and pictures of this violence travelled around the world (along with other, fake, footage), it became apparent that this had been a monumental error of judgement by the Spanish state, whose efforts did not even manage to halt the referendum. Catalan separatists were handed another grievance against Spain, one that will no doubt stick in their minds for years to come. I have chosen the (unidentified) woman in this picture as Spain’s person of the year, not because of anything she has consciously set out to do, but because she represents the entrenchment and polarisation that the Catalan dispute has caused and the senseless violence it provoked.