Catalan leader calls for political unity
SPAIN: Catalonia’s deposed leader Carles Puigdemont has urged the region’s political forces to unite against Spain, as a window for him to seal an electoral pact with other pro-independence parties begins to close.
Puigdemont went into selfimposed exile in Belgium last month after Spain’s central government fired his secessionist administration, dissolved the Catalan parliament and called an election in the region for December 21.
Pro-secession parties want that vote to become a de facto independence referendum.
Two of those parties, Puigdemont’s PDeCAT and the ERC party, said at the weekend they might contest it on a combined ticket. But they had to register any alliance by today, and prospects of them bridging their differences in time looked slim.
Puigdemont said yesterday all parties contesting the election should unite against Madrid.
‘‘The ideal would be a broad regional list of parties ... that stand for democracy and freedom.’’ he said, mentioning PDeCAT, ERC, the anti-capitalist CUP and Leftwing party +Podemos.
ERC’s spokesman Sergi Sabria said his party was not ruling out a coalition with PDeCAT, but would agree only if other parties joined them, including CUP, which has yet to decide whether it will contest the December ballot.
Unequivocal support for Puigdemont and his cause came from some 200 pro-independence Catalan mayors who attended a rally in Brussels yesterday. They called for continued non-violent resistance, and for the European Union to intervene.
‘‘Perhaps the path towards freedom will be longer than we thought, but it continues and we haven’t given up,’’ said Toni Comin, one of four former cabinet members in Brussels.
Polls show that the ERC and PDeCAT combined would not win enough votes for a majority in the Catalan parliament, though running together would increase their chance of success.
Puigdemont also said he might be in jail by the time of the election, ‘‘but prison doesn’t deprive anyone of legitimacy’’.
Madrid has issued an arrest warrant for Puigdemont on charges including rebellion, but a Brussels court ruled on Tuesday that he could remain at liberty in Belgium until it had decided whether he should be extradited.
The party that forms the main opposition to the secessionists in Catalonia emerged as the big winner in the first nationwide voter survey published by Spain’s most closely watched polling group since the referendum.
Support for the pro-business Ciudadanos rose almost three percentage points to 17.5 percent, the Sociological Research Centre survey showed.
During yesterday’s rally, Puigdemont called on the Spanish government to suspend Article 155 of the constitution, which Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy enacted last month to govern Catalonia from Madrid. – Reuters