Lorena Roldán, new unionist Ciutadans candidate for Catalan president

Lorena Roldán will be the frontrunner of the unionist Ciutadans party in the next Catalan election. 

She has been elected by her party colleagues in an internal vote with 86.6% of the ballots (993), the group announced on Friday.  

Roldán will take over from Inés Arrimadas, who left the Catalan parliament for the Spanish congress, where she is the spokesperson of her party. 

Ciutadans is the first group to have appointed its frontrunner for the next Catalan election – which cannot be held after December 2021, but which is widely expected to be called much earlier. 

None of the others have picked their candidates, and so far only the Socialists (PSC) seem to have clear who will represent them in the upcoming poll: Miquel Iceta, the current party head in Catalonia. PSC will elect its frontrunner in November, and Iceta is the only one to have stepped forward. 

Who is Lorena Roldán?

Roldán has been a member of the Catalan parliament since October 2015, and a Spanish senator since May 2018. 

In the past, she has faced criticism for having taken part in a pro-independence demonstration on the 2013 National Day. Although she acknowledged attending, she argued it was to avoid being singled out by her colleagues at work. 

She is from Tarragona, southern coast of Catalonia, finished her law studies there and worked as a lawyer before moving to politics.