Puigdemont could be jailed soon
Warning comes as hundreds of thousands rally for Spanish unity in Barcelona
The December 21 election would be very close, with anti-independence parties winning 43.4 per cent of the vote to pro-independence parties’ 42.5 per cent, an opinion poll says
The Spanish government has said the deposed Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, could be jailed within the next two months over his part in the regional parliament’s unilateral declaration of independence.
The warning came yesterday as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Barcelona to call for Spanish unity two days after some Catalan MPs voted for independence and the Spanish government assumed control of the region. Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has fired Puigdemont and his government and called new regional elections for 21 December.
In an interview with the Associated Press, the country’s foreign minister, Alfonso Dastis, said Puigdemont could “theoretically” run for re-election in the December polls “if he is not put in jail at that time”. Spanish prosecutors said on Friday evening that they would file charges of “rebellion” against Puigdemont, a crime punishable with up to 30 years in prison.
According to a poll for El Mundo, the election would be very close, with anti-independence parties winning 43.4 per cent to pro-independence parties’ 42.5 per cent.
Yesterday’s demonstration saw a huge crowd mass in central Barcelona. Organisers put attendance at 1.3 million, while the city’s police said 300,000 turned out.
D efenders of Spanish unity massed in the streets of Catalonia’s capital, Barcelona, yesterday, waving national and European flags and chanting “Viva Espana” two days after regional lawmakers voted to sever the region from Spain.
Protesters flocked in tens of thousands through Barcelona’s streets, in a sea of red-and-yellow Spanish flags, brandishing placards reading “De Todos” (It belongs to all of us).
The stand-off has plunged Spain into its worst political crisis in decades, and raised alarm in Europe.
“We are all Catalonia,” proclaimed a massive banner as the crowd chanted “Prison for Puigdemont” and “Long live Spain”.
Secessionist leader Carles Puigdemont and his regional executive was axed by the central government on Saturday, a day after Catalan lawmakers voted to declare the region of 7.5 million people a republic.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy also dissolved the regional parliament, and called December 21 elections for a new one.
“I am enraged about what they are doing to the country that my grandparents built,” said protester Marina Fernandez, a 19-year-old student from Girona, a separatist stronghold.
In her hometown, she cannot speak out for Spanish unity, she said.
‘Coup d’etat’
As the march got under way, the deputy president of the deposed Catalan government lashed out at Madrid over what he called a “coup d’etat”.
“The president of the country is and will remain Carles Puigdemont,” the axed leader’s deputy, Oriol Junqueras, wrote in newspaper El Punt Avui.
Junqueras used the word “country” to refer to Catalonia, and signed off as the region’s “vice-president”.
“We cannot recognise the coup d’etat against Catalonia, nor any of the anti-democratic decisions that the PP [Rajoy’s ruling Popular Party] is adopting by remote control from Madrid,” he wrote.
Flor Pena, a 59-year-old originally from the northwestern autonomous region of Galicia, described the separatists’ actions as “shameful”. “The thing to do now is to beat them at the polls.”
‘Viva Espana!’
Miguel Angel Garcia Alcala, 70, travelled from the town of Rubi, 22 kilometres from Barcelona, for the march, held near where tens of thousands of people had celebrated the new “republic” with song and fireworks just two days earlier.
For 35-year-old office worker Silvia Alarcon, the separatists “live in a parallel world, a little surreal. I am angry that they claim to speak for all Catalans when they do not.”
The Catalan crisis was triggered by a banned independence referendum on October 1 shunned by many, and marred by police violence.
Then on Friday, Catalan lawmakers passed a motion, by 70 votes out of 135 in the secessionist-majority regional parliament, to declare the region independent from Spain.
Rajoy responded by deposing the regional government, dissolving its parliament, and calling for elections.