Calling new investiture debate 'essential'
Pro-independence JxCat urges Parliament speaker to set fresh date to vote in jailed presidential candidate Jordi Sànchez
The spokeswoman for pro-independence Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), Elsa Artadi, said on Monday that it is "essential" to call a new investiture debate in Parliament as soon as possible to elect jailed MP Jordi Sànchez Catalan president.
Sànchez, in prison since October last year, is the candidate put forward by Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont. The UN Committee on Human Rights has urged Spain to protect Sànchez’s political rights, and Puigdemont's party wants to "use this opportunity" to try and elect him.
JxCat said that it is "urgent" to "show irrefutably" whether or not Spain respects "fundamental rights and precautionary measures" stipulated by the UN. According to the pro-independence group, if Spain was to ignore the UN calls to protect Sànchez's political rights it would be yet more proof of what they see as judicial interference in the legislature. So far, all three presidential candidates put forward by pro-independence forces have been blocked by Spain, either because they were in jail or abroad.
They include Puigdemont himself, Sànchez – who was already denied permission to attend his own investiture debate by the judge- and Jordi Turull, who was jailed and was unable to attend the second round of his swearing-in, which finally had to be cancelled.
Pro-independence Esquerra Republicana (ERC), the second largest 'yes' group in the Catalan Parliament, on Monday also urged the formation of a government as soon as possible and rejected the possibility of new elections. "It would be unacceptable to have new elections in this serious situation," said ERC MP Gerard Gómez del Moral.
Far-left pro-independence CUP, which has four MPs in Parliament, insisted that they will only support Carles Puigdemont as presidential candidate, as they see him as the only option to "face up" to the Spanish state. Even though Puigdemont himself –who is now in Germany fighting extradition- put forward Sànchez as candidate, the anti-capitalists will abstain in his investiture debate, thus forcing a second round.
Elsa Artadi from JxCat said to CUP spokesman Carles Riera on Monday that Sànchez candidacy is "provisional" until the conditions to swear in Puigdemont are in place. In the meantime, though, both JxCat and ERC assume that they will need to agree on an "effective" government, that is, an executive that can retake control of the Catalan administration, in Madrid's hands since the Spanish government imposed direct rule through Article 155 last October.