Madrid calls for fresh elections, dissolution of Catalonia's parliament
Madrid: Spain on Saturday said that it will move to dismiss Catalonia’s separatist government and call fresh elections in the region in a bid to stop its leaders from declaring independence.
Speaking after an emergency Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said his government had no choice after the administration of Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont acted in a way that was “unilateral, contrary to the law and seeking confrontation” in holding a banned independence referendum in the northeastern region.
Taking Spain into uncharted legal waters by using Article 155 of the constitution, which allows Madrid to wrest control of rebellious regions, Mr Rajoy said he was asking the senate to give him permission to dissolve the Catalan parliament and “call elections within a maximum of six months”.
Mr Rajoy said his government had taken this unprecedented decision to restore the law, make sure regional institutions were neutral, and to guarantee public services and economic activity as well as preserve the civil rights of all citizens.
He is also requesting that all of Mr Puigdemont’s government be stripped of their functions, which “in principle will be carried out by (national) ministers for the duration of this exceptional situation.”
The national senate will now have to agree to these unprecedented steps — a process that will take about a week. Mr Rajoy’s conservative Popular Party holds a majority in the senate. As the measures enjoy the support of other major parties, they are highly likely to pass.
Catalonia sparked Spain’s worst political crisis in decades with the chaotic referendum on October 1, which Mr Puigdemont said resulted in a 90 per cent vote in favour of breaking away from Spain. But turnout was given as 43 per cent as many anti-independence Catalans stayed away from the vote, which had been ruled illegal by the constitutional court, while others were hindered from voting by a police crackdown.
The measures take the country into uncharted legal waters, and come just a day after Madrid won powerful backing from the king and the EU in its battle to keep the country together.
King Felipe VI on Friday had blasted what he said was an “unacceptable secession attempt” and said the crisis sparked by the region’s banned referendum must be resolved “through legitimate democratic institutions”.
Autonomy is a hugely sensitive issue in semi-autonomous Catalonia, which saw its powers taken away under Spain’s military dictatorship. Home to 7.5 million people, the region fiercely defends its own language and culture.
Meanwhile, the website of Spain’s constitutional court — which ruled the independence referendum in Catalonia illegal — was forced down on Saturday following threats from cyber-activists.
Hackers from the loose-knit collective Anonymous — which has targeted a string of high-profile targets around the world in recent years — had threatened cyber attacks over the Catalan crisis.
