Latest candidate for Catalan presidency to learn fate in Madrid

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/23/jordi-turull-latest-candidate-catalan-presidency-appear-court-spain

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Catalonia’s latest presidential candidate is to appear in court hours after the region’s most hardline pro-independence party scuppered his first attempt to be elected by abstaining from an investiture debate.

Jordi Turull and five other separatist leaders have been summoned to the supreme court in Madrid on Friday to learn what action they will face over their roles in last year’s unilateral referendum and subsequent declaration of independence.

One of the six, Marta Rovira, general secretary of the Catalan Republican Left party, failed to attend court and sent a letter to colleagues explaining that she had fled Spain and gone into exile.

Facing rebellion charges that carry maximum 30-year sentences, they could be remanded in custody when they appear on Friday. If charged, Turull could be barred from holding office.

A former chief of staff to the deposed Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, Turull is the third presidential candidate to have been proposed, and had the backing of the two main independence parties, Together for Catalonia and the Catalan Republican Left.

But his hopes of securing the regional parliament’s support were dashed on Thursday after the far-left, anti-capitalist Popular Unity Candidacy (Cup) announced that it would no longer work in coalition with the two larger pro-independence parties.

Turull, who avoided mentioning independence in his speech to MPs and called for “dialogue, dialogue and dialogue” with Madrid, fell short of the absolute majority needed, with 64 votes in favour and 65 against.

The Cup’s four votes in the chamber would have handed him victory, but it withdrew its support in protest at the other parties’ refusal to give an explicit guarantee that they would push ahead with unilateral independence.

“We at the Cup consider that this phase of the independence movement is over,” said the party spokesman Carles Riera. “We are joining the opposition to continue our struggle with the state and to fight those who want to sustain the current regional model.”

Three Catalan Republican Left MPs who are scheduled to appear at the supreme court resigned their seats immediately after the vote. The move allows others to take their places, thus safeguarding votes.

While it remains to be seen what action the judge, Pablo Llarena, will take, a second investiture debate is due to be held on Saturday, in which a simple majority – more votes for than against – is needed.

The debate on Thursday has started the constitutional and electoral clock ticking. Parties have two months to propose and elect a presidential candidate. If none is successful within that time, fresh Catalan elections will be held in mid-July.

Catalonia has been under direct rule from Madrid since the end of October, when Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, responded to the unilateral independence declaration by sacking Puigdemont and his government and calling snap elections that were held in December.