Following the 11 September 2012 independence demonstration, in which many high-ranking members from the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC) participated—such as Ernest Maragall, Antoni Castells, Marina Geli, Àngel Ros, Laia Bonet or Joan Ignasi Elena, among others—a severe party crisis unveiled within the PSC over a manifesto signed by 145 members of the party's Catalanist faction in favour of a self-determination referendum and the establishment of a Catalan state, contrary to the party's official stance of favouring asymmetric federalism within Spain. Ernest Maragall, former regional education minister between 2006 and 2010 and brother of former Catalan president Pasqual Maragall, understood the manifesto as an attempt to open up a debate on the establishment of a new political space. Maragall had already ruled out running within the PSC's lists for the upcoming 2012 Catalan regional election, after a history of breaking party discipline throughout the legislature in favour both of President Artur Mas's proposal of a fiscal agreement with Spain on 25 July 2012, and of a referendum on self-determination to be held during the next legislature on 27 September.