Catalonia’s former leader turns self in
‘Separatists would lose’
BRUSSELS/MADRID/BARCELONA, Nov 5, (Agencies): Sacked Catalonia leader Carles Puigdemont and four associates turned himself in to Belgian police on Sunday, the Brussels prosecutor’s office said, following Spain’s issuing of an arrest warrant.
He is wanted by Madrid for actions related to his push for the region’s secession from Spain.
Puigdemont’s move comes as two polls suggested pro-Catalonia independence parties will together take the most seats in December’s regional election although they may fall just short of a majority needed to revive the secession campaign.
Parties supporting Catalonia remaining part of Spain would divide seats but garner around 54 percent of the vote, the polls suggested.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called the Dec 21 election after firing the previous government and imposing direct rule over the autonomous region following a unilateral declaration of independence by Catalan lawmakers on Oct 27.
According to a GAD3 survey of 1,233 people conducted between Oct 30 and Nov. 3 and published in La Vanguardia newspaper, pro-independence parties ERC, PDECat and CUP would take between 66 and 69 seats in the 135seat parliament.
A second poll taken over the same period for the conservative newspaper La Razon echoed the GAD3 survey, showing pro-independence parties would capture the most votes though still fall just shy of a parliamentary majority with 65 seats.
Other seats would be generally divided between parties supporting the region continuing to be part of Spain, but they parties are not allied.
Voter participation, however, will rise to a record of 83 percent, the GAD3 poll showed.
Catalonia’s statehood push has tipped Spain into its worst political crisis since its return to democracy four decades ago as surging pro-secession sentiment in the region has in turn kindled nationalism across the country.
Puigdemont
Travelled
Puigdemont travelled to Belgium shortly after Madrid took control and now faces charges for rebellion, sedition, misuse of public funds, disobedience and breach of trust relating to the secessionist campaign.
On Saturday, Puigdemont — who PDECat said on Sunday would lead the party in the election — called for a united Catalan political front in the face of the elections.
On Thursday, nine members of his sacked cabinet were ordered by Spain’s High Court to be held on remand pending an investigation and potential trial.
One member of the dismissed cabinet, Santi Vila, was freed after paying bail of 50,000 euros ($58,035) on Friday. The other eight could remain in custody for up to four years.
According to the GAP3 survey, 59 percent believed legal action against Puigdemont was unjustified while 69.3 percent said that the jailing of the Catalan politicians would give the independence cause a boost at the ballot box.
Catalan civic groups Asamblea Nacional Catalana and Omnium Cultural — whose leaders were imprisoned last month on sedition charges — called for a general strike on Nov. 8 and a mass demonstration on Nov 11 to protest the detentions.
A rally in Barcelona on Sunday, however, attracted just a few hundred people, a long way from the hundreds of thousands to join pro-independence marches in October, many waving the regional flag and carrying protest signs.
Catalonia’s separatist ERC party, whose leader is in custody, would win December regional elections but the independence coalition as a whole could lose its absolute majority in parliament, according to opinion polls published Sunday.
PDeCAT, the party of deposed Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont, who is currently in Belgium and refused to appear before a judge in Madrid last week, would only come fourth, the two surveys suggest.
According to one poll published in Catalan daily La Vanguardia, independence parties ERC, PDeCAT and the far-left CUP would only win 46 percent of votes, 1.8 percent down on the last election in September 2015.
The poll — which was carried out from Oct 30 to Nov 3 — also suggested pro-unity parties would win more votes than in 2015.
It said the conservative Popular Party of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, the centrist Ciudadanos and Catalonia’s Socialist party would together win 44 percent, or five percent more.
Most of the remaining 10 percent, it said, would go to Catalunya en Comu, a party that is anti-independence but supports holding a legal referendum.
Catalonia is currently under direct rule from Madrid after its majority separatist parliament last month declared independence, and Rajoy called a Dec 21 election in a bid to “restore normality” to the region.
Detained
And on Thursday, a Spanish court detained ERC leader Oriol Junqueras and other deposed regional ministers over their role in Catalonia’s independence drive.
The poll in La Vanguardia found that the three independence parties would get 66 to 69 lawmakers in the 135-seat regional parliament, where an absolute majority is 68.
The clear winner would be ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia), followed by Ciudadanos, which was founded in Catalonia as an anti-independence party, and the Socialist party.
Puigdemont’s conservative PDeCAT would come fourth, with 14 to 15 seats.
In another poll published by the conservative La Razon daily, the three separatist parties would only secure 65 lawmakers, seven less than in the 2015 election.
It also said the number of pro-independence voters would drop from 1.9 million in 2015 to 1.7 million out of a total electorate of over five million people.