Spanish PM sees new Catalonia polls

Parties have until January 9 to pick a leader or return to ballot box

Spain’s acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said yesterday he saw no alternative to a repeat of elections in Catalonia after the region’s pro-independence bloc fractured over who to name as the new government’s leader.

Catalonia, worth a fifth of Spain’s economic output, has been unable to form a government since a regional election in September due to disagreements between the winning, pro-independence coalition parties.

If a new

candidate

is

not chosen before Saturday, new regional elections will be called automatically.

The failure to form a Catalan government echoes a political stalemate gripping Spain at a national level following an inconclusive national election on Dec. 20 and increases the likelihood all Spaniards will return to the ballot box this year.

“I sincerely don’t know what could possibly happen in the next five days, but I believe that the best that could happen is that (acting regional head Artur) Mas drops his independence drive and, as that doesn’t seem possible, there’s no alternative to elections,” Rajoy said in a radio interview.

The protracted efforts to choose a Catalan leader has dampened a separatist movement that at its peak drew one million people onto the streets of Barcelona, and has highlighted divisions between supporters.

On Sunday, a minority party in the regional coalition, CUP, said it would not support the business-friendly Mas in his bid for another term, a red line for partners Junts pel Si.

Junts pel Si (Together for Yes), which pulled together the centre-right CDC party and leftist ERC party to present a united pro-independence front for September’s election, said it would stand by Mas, in power since 2010, as their candidate.

A senior official of the CDC said on Monday the CUP had acted as an “ally of the Spanish state” in rejecting Mas.