The arrest and subsequent release of Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s exiled ex-president, has caused a political storm in the Spanish State, reports Dick Nichols.
Carles Puigdemont
The electoral defeat of the right in Spain on April 28 is a cause for celebration for all progressive people, writes Dick Nichols.
A march of almost 200,000 people in Barcelona on October 1 marked the first anniversary of Catalonia’s independence referendum.
Pro-independence Catalans commemorated the first anniversary of the banned vote, which had to defy heavy repression as the Spanish state sought to stop it taking place. Despite a brutal crackdown by the Spanish police that left 900 people injured, most who voted backed independence.
The Catalan parliament finally voted in a new president on May 14, 199 days after the pro-independence bloc held on to its majority at the December 21 elections imposed by the Spanish government.
After the December 21 Catalan election reconfirmed a majority for pro-independence forces, it seemed inevitable a new government would soon be formed. More than two months later, however, the spectre of a repeat election haunts Catalonia.