defamation

The incumbent President of the Catalan Government and the main CiU candidate, Artur Mas, is asking for massive support in order to have the strength to negotiate the organisation of an independence referendum. The CiU is focusing the re-election campaign on the self-determination process, heading away from the unpopular budget cuts it has been implementing over the last two years. The CiU is currently Catalonia’s largest party, running most of the public offices. It has 62 MPs in the 135-seat Parliament and gained 38.43% of the votes in the 2010 elections. Polls give them between 61 and 71 seats, in the best scenario obtaining an absolute majority. However, the CiU campaign has been completely derailed nine days before the elections by the Spanish nationalist newspaper El Mundo, which accused Mas and other top CiU leaders of corruption. These accusations turned out to be false and Mas is now accusing the Spanish Government of playing dirty tricks.