It’ll be a tense Christmas in the Spanish’s PM’s household this year. Yesterday, in an election called by Mariano Rajoy last month, Catalan pro-independence parties gained a slim majority in the region’s parliament: Together for Catalonia, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and the Popular Unity Party (CUP) look set to have jointly won 70 seats in the 135-seat congress. Rajoy’s conservative Popular Party, meanwhile, posted its worst result ever, losing eight of its previously-held eleven seats. The stage is set for the Spanish government’s worst nightmare: another attempt by Catalan secessionists to divorce Spain.
Rajoy had been hoping for a return to normality in Catalonia after a tumultuous few months. On October 1st, the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont held an independence referendum that the Spanish state declared illegal. The vote nevertheless went ahead – despite the baton-wielding efforts of national police – and 90pc of its participants voted for independence from Spain.
Puigdemont’s ensuing declaration of independence caused Rajoy to sack the Catalan government and seize control of the region himself – a drastic option allowed for by clause 155 of the Spanish constitution.
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