Ferran requejo artur mas biography

On 20 September Spanish central authorities launched a severe crackdown against the Catalan government, intended to force the halt of the independence referendum called for 1 October by the regional government. Madrid claims the referendum is illegal and illegitimate.

In further steps in its repressive agenda against independence, Guardia Civil – a military police force– raided public buildings, including the regional government’s finance department, and arrested 14 senior officials. This unlashed massive peaceful demonstrations of public anger by Catalan people who fail to understand how a political vote supported by the vast majority of the Catalan population can be declared unconstitutional.

But the sweeping raids were not the only actions conducted by Spanish police that day in Barcelona. Somehow unnoticed by international papers, a group of plain-clothes police surrounded the headquarters of a political party, the Popular Unity Candidacy, known as the CUP, and threatened to enter despite having no judicial warrant to do so.

Thousands of supporters and sympathizers gathered in front of the office and forced the police units to abort this plan after 8 hours of their intimidatory presence.

The demonstrators made a decision to party, sing and dance in front of the police – to avoid any confrontation that could justify the use of force against the vote planned in Catalonia. But why has such tiny political party been at the epicentre of the repression by the central authorities?

Despite having only 10 of the Catalan parliament’s 135 MPs, this anti-capitalist force has become one of the central kingmakers in the process of self-determination conducted by the Catalan government. Its deputies are crucial for ensuring a separatist majority in the chamber, and so, while voting to put a pro-independence government into power, its radical anti-capitalist view has frequently clashed with the Catalan establishment and

Spanish politician (born 1956)

In this Catalan name, the first or paternal surname is Mas and the second or maternal family name is Gavarró; both are generally joined by the conjunction "i".

Artur Mas i Gavarró (Catalan pronunciation:[əɾˈtuɾˈmas]; born 31 January 1956) is a Catalan politician. He was president of the Government of Catalonia from 2010 to 2015 and acting president from September 2015 to 12 January 2016.

Mas is a long time member of Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC by its Catalan acronym) which used to be the bigger of the two component members –along with Unió Democràtica de Catalunya– of what at the time was a long-standing electoral coalition, Convergència i Unió (CiU), a liberal nationalist coalition which had dominated Catalan regional politics since the 1980s. In 2001 Mas was named general secretary of CDC, then, in 2012 he was named president of the party until the party was refounded in July 2016 as PDeCAT, which he presided between July 2016 and January 2018.

From 2003 to 2015, Mas has run five times for the Catalan presidency, four heading the –nowadays defunct– CiU ticket and one running for the novel Junts pel Sí coalition. He attained the presidency in two elections, 2010 and 2012 (both running for CiU) but neither with an absolute majority. In the absence of single party majorities, both tenures were marked by political instability and ended with Mas calling a snap election.

Mas is an economist who obtained his degree from the University of Barcelona, and is fluent in English and French, in addition to Catalan and Spanish.

His ideology tends to be considered liberal from the economic point of view and supportive of Catalan independence. From the social point of view, he has mostly supported a moderate agenda in numerous issues, such as gay rights, but not same-sex marriage and free debate on his party concerning abortion.^[6&#

Catalonia now stands on the brink of a historic election that will serve as a de-facto referendum on the Spanish region’s independence. The electoral campaign begins today — somewhat fittingly on September 11, the National Day of Catalonia — and over 1 million independence supporters will gather on the streets of Barcelona. 

On September 27, the region will take to the voting booths and if the separatist parties win an absolute majority many are predicting that they will begin preparation to secede unilaterally from Spain within 18 months.

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Nominally, Catalonia will simply elect its third parliament in five years, but with the major pro-independence parties all campaigning under a joint secessionist banner and unionists obliged to campaign against this position, the election will function as a kind of mongrel independence referendum — only months before a general election is due.

The pro-independence faction sees the election as a unique opportunity to begin the emancipation of the Catalan people from the bullying, centralist Madrid government. Unionists see Catalan nationalism as a dangerous form of populism doomed to divide a region and cripple the economy. What both agree on, however, is that a unilateral declaration of independence would be a watershed moment in history, not only for Catalonia, but also Spain itself, Europe’s fifth largest economy.

‘The government is scared. They don’t really understand what’s going on here’

“It would be huge,” said Alejandro Quiroga, a Spanish historian at Newcastle University in the UK. “It’s never happened in the Western world that a country has unilaterally decided to quit in a peaceful manner and without any agreement with the other country. When we think about other referenda in Scotland or Quebec they were based on a previous agreement. But in the case of Spain there is no previous agreement.”

And the opening salvos will be f

BARCELONA, Spain — For a fourth consecutive year, hundreds of thousands of pro-independence Catalans are gearing up to rally Friday to break away from Spain, kicking off a fresh secession bid in a push to carve out a new European nation.

After the central government rejected efforts by separatists to hold an independence referendum, Catalan politicians are now heading toward a Sept. 27 regional parliamentary election with candidates staking out positions for or against an independent Catalonia. The northeastern region of 7.5 million people is marked by fierce pride in Catalan language and traditions.

The massive rally for the Catalan National Day holiday on Sept. 11 marks the kickoff of campaigning for secessionists who say Catalonia is culturally different from Spain, doesn’t get back what it pays in taxes — and that independence is the only way forward. The latest effort follows rebukes to requests for greater self-governance by the Madrid central government.

The protest also starts an end-game for the independence drive because the election results will determine whether the region embarks on an 18-month “path to independence” or puts its secession aspirations on hold. Madrid has vowed to block any formal secessionist process.

Pro-independence parties need to win at least 68 seats in the 135-member regional parliament to push their effort forward, and polls show they’re on track to win a slim majority.

“If there is a clear result for the ‘Yes,’ it would be a very powerful message that Catalans want to move toward a Catalan state,” said Artur Mas, Catalonia’s regional president and the top-ranking politician in the secessionist camp, which includes parties from across the political spectrum.

Failure to win a majority, however, would mean a setback of years, if not longer, for a movement based on generations-old dreams of a Catalan state, boosted in recent years by Spain’s econom