Catalonia headed for February 14 election as no presidential candidate put forward

Catalonia appears to be headed for a snap election on February 14, 2021, after no candidate has been put forward to replace the ousted Quim Torra as president. 

Roger Torrent, the parliament speaker, held discussions with the various political groups and no candidate was presented. 

Torra was disqualified from holding office in September after the Spanish Supreme Court upheld his disobedience conviction for failing to remove a banner in favor of jailed pro-independence leaders from the Catalan government headquarters building during an election campaign in 2019. 

Once he was ousted from power, a two-month time period began to find a replacement president. The pro-independence parties, who hold a majority vote in the chamber, decided not to put forward a candidate and instead head for elections, and no opposition party has presented a potential new president either. 

Formal communication to the Parliament is the equivalent act of a failed investiture and therefore the countdown to the election then begins. 

Ahead of this early election, Ciudadanos has accused the pro-independence camp of "always thinking about half of the population."

"Most of us Catalans feel just as Catalan as we do Spanish and European," claimed Cs' Carlos Carrizosa after Torrent announced no replacement candidate had been found.