In challenge to Madrid, Catalan assembly elects separatist speaker

CATALONIA’S parliament picked a separatist speaker on Wednesday, signalling the possible return of sacked nationalist Carles Puigdemont as the region’s leader and the renewal of full-blown political confrontation with Madrid.

The new regional assembly was meeting for the first time, and the decision to appoint Roger Torrent shattered the fragile calm that has characterised relations with central government since it was elected in December.

“The will of the Catalan people is to have President Puigdemont back” as head of government, pro-independence lawmaker Elsa Artadi said after the legislature, where secessionists hold a slim majority, picked Mr Torrent as speaker.

Mr Puigdemont is in self-imposed exile in Belgium, where he fled in October to avoid arrest and the threat of jail after Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy fired him from the same job for leading Catalonia’s independence bid. A first vote to choose a new leader is likely on January 31, and Catalonia’s two main pro-independence parties reaffirmed late on Tuesday they would back Mr Puigdemont.

Mr Rajoy said he would not allow him to be reappointed, and rule, from Brussels. But in a possible sign of how such an arrangement might work, Mr Puigdemont’s party posted a photo of a smiling Mr Torrent speaking on a mobile in parliament, with a caption saying it was taken as the ex-leader congratulated him on his appointment.

Triggering one of Spain’s biggest political crises since its return to democracy four decades ago, the previous Puigdemont-led Catalan administration made a unilateral declaration of independence in October following an illegal referendum.

The government in Madrid then imposed direct rule on the region and called elections there. Mr Rajoy on Monday dismissed the possibility of long-distance rule by Mr Puigdemont as absurd and said Madrid would stay in charge of Catalonia if the ex-leader tried to govern from abroad.

The prime minister said he would contest in the courts any move to elect Mr Puigdemont remotely. Mr Puigdemont’s former spokesman told Catalunya Radio that he wanted to come back to be sworn in as president “but everything has to be taken into account.”