Catalan Defiance Only Growing After Latest Round of Elections

Attempts by Madrid to crush the spirit of independence in Catalonia have only been met with growing numbers of Catalans icreasingly desiring to be independent from Madrid. It's funny how, when a thug puts his boot on your neck and then expects you to voluntarily want to stay in his gang, you increasingly find yourslf not want to voluntarily stay in his gang.

The last round of elections, forced on the Catalonians by Madrid, shows that the Independence referendum on October 1st are actually more legitimate than previously thought. Certainly, the support for independence isn't the 90 plus percent that voted for independence in the October referendum, but, at this point, it appears that support for indpendence has become the majority opinion of Catalans.

Here are two stories that cover this growing defiance in Catalonia.

Catalonia won't be silenced

The Spanish government’s attempt to repress the voice of the Catalan people has failed.

In last month’s Catalonian parliamentary election, pro-independence parties won the greatest support in their history. There were 113,000 more pro-independence votes than in the previous parliamentary election, in 2015, and 35,000 more votes than in the October 1 referendum on independence. It was, moreover, a record turnout for an election to the parliament of Catalonia.

The final count shows support for independence at 2,079,340 votes (almost 180,000 more votes than those won by the constitutionalist bloc). Not only has the threshold of 2 million votes been surpassed, but independence sentiment has been consolidated and continues to grow.

These figures serve as a ratification of the results of the October 1 referendum, which was held in highly adverse conditions. On that occasion, the Spanish government’s propaganda disparaged the results, arguing that there had not been sufficient guarantees. Madrid claimed that the census was not official, that the electoral authority was not independent, that the parties opposed to independence refused to take part and that the count hid fraudulent practices.

In spite of the extreme violence deployed by the government to try to prevent us from voting, the results of the referendum that I later conveyed to the parliament of Catalonia reflected a true, rigorous and valid opinion. The election on December 21 was called by Madrid, with its census, with its electoral authority, its ballot count and its rules of the game. What was the result? More votes for independence than on October 1.
Read More at Politico.eu

Catalan parties propose self-exiled former leader as president

The two main pro-independence parties in Catalonia have agreed to back former leader Carles Puigdemont as their candidate to head the region, raising the likelihood of a renewed push this year for a split from Spain.

However, the anti-independence party that won most votes in a Dec. 21 regional election poured scorn on the plan as Puigdemont remains in self-imposed exile in Brussels and it said he would be a “hologram president”.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called the election in Catalonia last month to try to resolve Spain’s worst political crisis in decades after Catalan leaders declared independence in October following a banned referendum on secession.

Pro-independence parties secured a slim majority of seats but failed to win more than 50 percent of the popular vote, meaning there is still no end in sight to the months-long, and increasingly bitter, impasse.
Read More at Reuters