After almost five months without a government, Catalonia finally has a new leader. Quim Torra won a second-round investiture vote this week to take the helm of the region’s separatist government. Unfortunately for Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, Torra’s pledge is the same as his exiled predecessor’s: to pursue an independent Catalonia. The Catalan secessionists are back.
Yet Torra’s appointment also raises problems for the pro-independence movement. He nurses an apparently visceral hatred for Spain, which sullies a cause that likes to describe itself as “progressive”. The man now leading the secessionist charge has described Spaniards as “scavengers, vipers and hyenas”. He has also said that speaking Castilian Spanish in Catalonia is not “natural”. Now in power, Torra has said sorry for these remarks, claiming that they were taken out of context. But it seems unlikely he has changed his views.
Torra was put forward by Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan president who orchestrated last October’s shambolic independence referendum.
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