WHAT HAPPENED TO CATALUNYA AFTER THE REFERENDUM?
Most were celebrating after October 1st, as the independence movement had appeared to win 90% of the vote. Shortly after that day, Carles Puigdemont, ex-president of the Catalan government, partly declared independence awaiting international mediation. Meanwhile, the Spanish government announced the invocation of the Spanish Constitution’s Article 155 from 1978 (that should sound scary), meaning the Spanish government would take direct control of Catalunya after senate approval.
Events came to a head on October 27th. First, Carles Puigdemont gave a confusing speech but in the end did declare the independence of Catalunya in the Catalan Parliament. For a grand total of about five minutes since shortly after that, Mariano Rajoy, president of the Spanish government, announced the application of Article 155.
After invoking Article 155, the main public prosecutor of the Spanish government, Jose Manuel Maza, opened an investigation into the entire Catalan Republic government for rebellion, insurrection, and misappropriation of funds. He imprisoned the vice-president, Oriol Junquera and several other ministers of the government. Carles Puigdemont and other ministers fled to Brussels.
On October 31st, Puigdemont was summoned to Spain’s National Audience court in Madrid. Paul Bekaert, Puigdemont’s lawyer in Belgium, announced he and his ministers would not be attending because they were certain to not receive justified justice. On December 5th, judge Pablo Lllarena eliminated the European order of arrest but kept the Spanish one. Meaning, if they had gone back to Spain they would be jailed, so they remained in exile in Brussels.
Article 155 also triggered new elections, which occurred on December 21st. The results were: JxCAT (Union of parties with Puigdemont formerly leading) with 34 seats, ERC (ex-vice-president Junquera’s party) with 32 seats, and CUP with 4 seats. These parties represent the majority of parliament and are FOR Catalan independence. On the opposing side we have Ciutadans with 37 seats, PSC with 27 seats, and PP (Spanish president Mariano Rajoy’s party) with 4 seats. Finally in the middle we have CatComú with 8 seats.
After the elections, the new parliament voted on who would be the president now that Puigdemont cannot. Roger Torrent from ERC was elected on January 17th and now Catalunya is just waiting for parliament to actually begin to function. Article 155 is still operational, Junquera is still in prison, Puigdemont is still in exile. The question is, after the Catalan government is settled, will the Spanish government stop the application of Article 155? Will this archaic oppression finally end?
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