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Catalonia independence: Spain tries to quell crisis
Madrid moves to take over region, ousts president
Spain’s central government fired separatist leaders hours after lawmakers voted in favor of independence.
BARCELONA, Spain — Spain’s central government Friday fired Catalonia’s separatist leaders, dissolved its parliament and called new elections for December, hours after regional lawmakers voted in favor of a historic declaration of independence.
Seeking to quell Spain’s gravest constitutional crisis in its nearly four decades of democracy, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy ousted the man who has become a personal nemesis after weeks of confrontation, the region’s outspoken president, Carles Puigdemont.
The prime minister’s grimly delivered remarks, which followed a special Cabinet session, stood in stark contrast to the celebrations that broke out in Barcelona after the Catalan parliament’s vote. Cheers erupted in the ornate chamber after the result was read — a nearly unbroken series of“Si, si, si.”
The final tally was 70 yes, 10 opposed and two blank ballots. The opposition had walked out in protest moments earlier.
“Long live Catalonia!” Puigdemont told the packed chamber, where some lawmakers brushed away tears.
In brief remarks, the Catalan leader called on supporters to hew to “peaceful, dignified” behavior.
But the dramatic vote also laid bare deep divisions over independence. During parliamentary debate, an anti-secessionist lawmaker, Carlos Carrizosa, tore up a copy of the proposed declaration and castigated the other parliamentarians.
“You leave those Catalans who don’t follow you orphaned, without a government,” he told them.
For both sides, independence for Catalonia, which has about 7.5 million residents, is a question bound up with history and culture, pride and passion.
Spain considers the secession drive not only a blatant insurrection, but a scalding affront to the country’s still-young democracy and its system of limited self-rule for its 17 regions, including Catalonia.
Catalan nationalists, meanwhile, embrace a past steeped in their own language and traditions, but also shudder at the memory of Gen. Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, under which the region’s suffering was particularly pronounced. Franco died in 1975.
The region has grown into Spain’s economic powerhouse, with the tourist hub of Barcelona as its capital.
The Catalan parliament’s motion called for the start of an independence process that would include the drafting of new regional laws and envisioned the start of negotiations “on equal footing” with Spanish authorities.
In Madrid, a dramatically opposing scenario played out only moments after the Catalan vote. Spain’s Senate voted to trigger Article 155 of the Spanish constitution, effectively authorizing a central government takeover of the region.
That move had been telegraphed for days by the central government but took on heightened, even ominous significance on the heels of Catalonia’s remarkable show of defiance.
Rajoy, who has long denounced the region’s independence drive as illegal, said in his evening address that Catalan leaders had perpetrated a “fraud” that regional elections, to be held Dec. 21, would redress.
Rajoy also said he was firing the head of Catalonia’s regional police force, some of whose members refused to act against Catalans during the violencemarred independence referendum on Oct. 1.
At bars and open-air cafes in Barcelona, passers-by paused before televisions to hear Rajoy’s speech from Madrid. Some laughed, others muttered profanities and some shook their heads and repeated certain words ironically, including “freedom.”
“We have to take civic action,” said Jord Guiu, a 33-year-old who works in e-commerce. “Or we will lose everything we gained over the past 12 hours.”
At the Cabinet meeting, Spanish ministers also agreed to seek a ruling against the Catalan declaration from Spain’s constitutional court. The court already had called Catalonia’s independence referendum illegal.
The constitutional provision triggered by Spanish lawmakers gives the central government broad powers to act against any region that is in grave breach of the law. In a further portent of confrontation, the Spanish prosecutor’s office said it could seek charges of rebellion against those behind the vote, including Puigdemont, his top deputies and, perhaps, lawmakers as well.
In Barcelona, the scene outside parliament was one of jubilation after the parliamentary vote, with an enormous crowd cheering wildly and shouting: “We’re a republic!”
Huge street celebrations erupted, with people toasting each other with bubbly wine poured into plastic cups. Revelers sang the Catalan anthem “Els Segadors,” or “The Reapers,” which celebrates a 17th-century independence bid.
But some in Catalonia greeted the news with foreboding. Less than half of the electorate turned out for the Oct. 1 independence referendum, even though the result was overwhelmingly in favor of secession.
“What scares me is that they will shut down the government and parliament,” said government worker Nuria Carre. “We’ll see what happens tomorrow, if Puigdemont and the rest of the government are in jail.”