Ben Pawlowski
SALVADOR Illa, the leader of the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), has been formally elected as the President of Catalunya this evening following a controversial investiture debate in the regional parliament.
Illa, a former national health minister and key ally of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, received 68 votes in favour of his investiture – the exact amount required to command a working majority within the regional chamber.
The decision puts an end to months of uncertainty following an inconclusive regional election in May, which sparked a frantic summer of negotiations.
Illa was one of two candidates for president – alongside the former president and fugitive from Spanish justice Carles Puigdemont – representing the two parties who secured the most seats in the vote.
Puigdemont’s separatist Junts per Catalunya party won 35 seats, whilst Illa’s Socialists won 42 seats, with both falling well short of the 68 seats required.
However, the deadlock was finally broken last week after Illa struck a deal with the left-wing, pro-independence Esquerra Republicana (ERC), who were in the position of kingmaker after gaining 20 seats in May’s election.
Members of the ERC agreed to endorse Illa’s investiture in exchange for several key concessions, including the formulation of a new financing model which has been described as a key step to ‘fiscal sovereignty’.
The Catalan government will assume 100% responsibility for the collection of taxes within the region, akin to the deal the central government has with representatives in the Basque Country.
Illa was also able to gain the support of the far-left Comuns Sumar alliance, providing the six seats required to reach the magic number of 68.
During the investiture debate, the regional parliament’s MPs voted to approve Illa’s agenda, which includes a vow to expand Barcelona’s El-Prat airport, improve the commuter rail network, invest in new highways and build over 4,000 new homes annually to solve the housing crisis.
However, the debate was overshadowed by the brief appearance (and sudden disappearance) of Carles Puigdemont, the separatist leader who has lived in self-imposed exile for seven years.
The Junts per Catalunya leader has lived in Belgium ever since he infamously fled Spain in the boot of a car after the Spanish government launched criminal charges for his role in the 2017 independence drive.
As Catalan president, Puigdemont organised a botched independence referendum, which was deemed illegal, and unilaterally declared Catalunya as an independent state, provoking Spain’s most significant political crisis since the Franco dictatorship.
This morning, Puigdemont crossed the Spanish border for the first time since 2017 to coincide with the investiture debate of Salvador Illa, a Socialist ally of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez who appears set to become the region’s first pro-unity president in 14 years.
Flanked by members of his Junts party, including the regional parliamentary speaker Josep Rull, Puigdemont gave a brief speech to 2,500 pro-independence supporters outside the parliament building.
Videos emerged on social media of supporters clashing with counter-protesters from far-right Vox and Spanish police who launched tear gas as tensions boiled over.
After the speech, Puigdemont quickly disappeared, prompting police to launch ‘Operation Cage’, an attempt to block all exits out of Barcelona so that police can arrest the former regional president.
According to reports, police are searching for the location of a white car, a vehicle owned by one of two Mossos officers arrested in relation to the separatist leader’s escape , which they believe Puigdemont used to leave the city and likely head towards the French border.
Puigdemont is currently subject to an arrest warrant regarding the alleged embezzlement of public funds whilst he was regional premier.
A highly controversial amnesty law passed earlier this year by the Socialist-led government of Pedro Sanchez was deemed to not apply to the charge laid against Puigdemont, meaning any return to Spain was fraught with the risk of arrest.
However, it appears that Puigdemont has successfully eluded the police, who had vowed to arrest him upon his return.
