Spanish leader’s allies urging unity party to rule Catalonia

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s allies are trying to thwart attempts by separatists to form a government in Catalonia and exploit the fact that its two main leaders are in prison or self-imposed exile.

Pro-independence groups together won a majority in the Barcelona regional parliament last week, but Ciudadanos gained the most seats of any single party in the election and opposes any breakaway from the rest of Spain. Rajoy’s People’s Party is now leaning on Ciudadanos to explore ways to govern Catalonia, which accounts for a fififififififth of the country’s economy.

“There is an alternative a nd we have to put i t to work because anything can happen in Catalonia,” Fernando Martinez Maillo, general coordinator of the People’s Party, said in a Tweet on Wednesday. “After winning the elections, the logical step would be to try to form a government.”

While Ciudadanos officials played down the idea because they don’t have the popular support to challenge the separatist majority, the clock is ticking for the Catalans after a vote that laid bare the divi s i ons i n the region and did little to put the i ssue of self- determination to rest following a tumultuous t wo months. The regional president must be chosen by Feb. 8.

There’s much that needs to be resolved before the separatists can turn their election victory into a working administration, not least who would lead it.

Carles Puigdemont, the regional president who was ousted by Spain after he led a unilateral declaration of independence in October, remains in Brussels. He faces arrest if he returns to Spain and said he would come back to be sworn in again only if the “right guarantees” are offffffffffffered.

Then there’s Oriol Junqueras, his former vice- president and stalwart of the independence push. He’s being held in jail awaiting trial as a judge ascertains whether he and other pro-independence campaigners participated in a rebellion against Spain.

It’s still unclear how either man could be named president if they can’t turn up i n person for a n i nve s t i - ture vote, said Argelia Queralt, professor of constitutional law at Barcelona University. Any decision to let them attend would be in the hands of the Supreme Court judge, she said.

“There’s a tussle for power going on here,” she said.

Rajoy called the election in Catalonia after dismissing Puigdemont and his government and dissolving the regional parliament. The vote yielded 70 seats for the three parties that back independence, enough to give them a majority in the 135seat chamber.

Anti- separati sts used a Twitter campaign to highl i ght the divi s ions i n t he region with a parody independence push for “Tabarnia,” a hypothetical territory comprising parts of the provinces of Barcelona and Tarragona that favor staying in Spain.

More offifficials from Rajoy’s party lined up to urge Ines Arrimadas, the leader of Ciudadanos in Catalonia, to take on the separatists. There are other ways they can inflfluence the outcome of events, perhaps by pushing for a pro-Spain candidate to be speaker of the parliament, Javier Maroto, the PP’s vice-secretary for social pol- icy, told Onda Cero radio.

“No one is asking Arrimadas to throw herself from the balcony politically speaking,” he said. “But it’s not enough to look at the electoral result and say there’s no majority.”

Miguel Guti e r re z , Ci udadanos’s general sec re - tary in parliament, said the pro-Spain bloc didn’t have enough seats for a majority in the regional assembly. The People’s Party, which saw its vote decimated, has no authorit y to tell his part y what to do, he said.

“It looks like it left its calculator at home,” he told Onda Cero. “The question is what the separatists do because they have a majority. Let’s see if they can use it to govern.”