Jailed & exiled leaders wrap up Catalan poll campaign

BARCELONA — Campaigning drew to a close on Tuesday in Catalonia’s regional election, a potential turning point in Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

The atypical campaign ended with deposed Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont holding a rally via video link from exile in Belgium and another candidate rallying voters from behind bars in Spain.

Today’s voting pits leaders of the wealthy northeastern region’s separatist movement against candidates who want to stay part of a unified Spain.

Voters are highly mobilised and a record turnout is expected, but with pro- and anti-independence candidates neck-and-neck in opinion polls neither side is likely to win a clear majority.

The election is being closely watched across a European Union still reeling from Britain’s shock decision to leave and wary about any breakup of the eurozone’s fourth largest economy.

It has inflamed passions not just in Catalonia but across Spain, whose government took the unprecedented step of stripping the region of its autonomy after its parliament declared independence on October 27.

“This is not a normal election,” Puigdemont told supporters in a final, virtual rally via video link from self-imposed exile in Brussels.

“What is at stake is not who gets the most votes, but whether the country [Catalonia] or [Spanish Prime Minister Mariano] Rajoy wins” the standoff, he added.

But with their camp in disarray, secessionists would likely put their independence drive on hold should they win today’s vote.

“Even if a pro-independence government is formed it will be very cautious how it acts because it won’t want to lose the restored authority the Catalan government has,” said Andrew Dowling, contemporary historian in Hispanic studies at Cardiff University.

“It won’t want to see that suspended again,” he added.

The deposed government’s failed independence declaration saw more than 3 000 companies relocating from the region, and no country recognising the new “republic”.

While opinion polls suggest a narrow lead for the leftist, pro-independence ERC, voters could ultimately hand victory to centrist party Ciudadanos, whose charismatic candidate Ines Arrimadas has campaigned on a fierce anti-nationalist ticket.

She is fighting to replace Puigdemont, who is wanted by the Spanish courts on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.

“We are very close to making our dream come true,” Arrimadas told supporters at a rally Tuesday in a working-class district of Barcelona.

“We are going to wake up from this nightmare on Thursday,” she added.—AFP.

Reports of civilian deaths began to dominate military planning meetings in Baghdad in February and early March, according to a senior Western diplomat who was present but not authorised to speak on the record.

After allegations surfaced that a single coalition attack killed hundreds of civilians in Mosul’s al-Jadidah neighbourhood on March 17, the entire fight was put on hold for three weeks.

Under intense international pressure, the coalition sent a team into the city for the first time, ultimately concluding that the 500-pound bomb that killed 105 people was justified to kill a pair of ISIL snipers.

Iraq’s special forces units were instructed not to call in attacks on buildings. Instead, the forces were told to call in coalition air raids on gardens and roads adjacent to ISIL targets.

A WhatsApp group shared by coalition advisers and Iraqi forces coordinating air raids previously named “killing daesh 24/7” was wryly renamed “scaring daesh 24/7.” Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the ISIL group. “It was clear that the whole strategy in western Mosul had to be reconfigured,” said the Western diplomat.

But on the ground, Iraqi special forces officers said after the operational pause, they returned to the fight just as before.

The WhatsApp group’s name was changed back to “killing daesh.”— AP