Newly elected Catalonia regional president, Quim Torra, is applauded by pro-indpendence parties during an investiture debate at the regional parliament in Barcelona, Spain, May 14, 2018. REUTERS/Albert Gea

MADRID (Reuters) - The Catalan parliament elected hard-line separatist Quim Torra as regional leader on Monday, heralding an end to seven months of direct rule from Madrid but also more political uncertainty in a region that retains a mandate to seek a split from Spain.

The deeply-divided parliament voted 66 in favor, 65 against and 4 abstentions for the election of Torra, handpicked by the region’s exiled former leader Carles Puigdemont. </s> Separatist lawmaker Quim Torra, candidate for regional president, leaves the chamber at the end of the parliamentary session in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, May 12, 2018. Catalonia's separatists have failed to elect a new leader for the restive Spanish region, likely leaving them with one more chance to form a government or face new elections. Candidate Quim Torra fell short on Saturday of the absolute majority of 68 votes needed to be elected on a first round. Torra, a fervent secessionist, will have a second opportunity on Monday when only a simple majority of more "Yes" than "No" votes is required. less </s> Quim Torra, a lawmaker from Junts per Catalunya party, was backed by 66 lawmakers, 65 were against, while four abstained.

The candidate was backed by his own party and the Republican Left of Catalonia. However, the parties that object to Catalonia's independence voted against him, while the four representatives of the pro-independence Popular Unity Candidacy abstained.

READ MORE: Catalan Parliament Allows Regional Government Head to Be Elected in Absence

A new round of voting is scheduled for Monday. To win in the first round, Torra needed an absolute majority, or 68 votes. At Monday's second round, he can win with a simple majority.

Earlier in May, Catalan lawmakers voted in favor of an amendment that would allow the regional president to be elected without his or her presence in the parliament, in a move that could return former leader Carles Puigdemont, who is in self-imposed exile, to power. </s> Separatist Quim Torra is expected to become president of Catalonia on Monday, ending months of political stalemate and greatly reducing the chances of a new regional election.

Torra, a close ally of former president Carles Puigdemont, failed to win an absolute majority in the Catalan parliament on Saturday but will require only a simple majority in the next round of voting. The way seemed clear for him to reach that threshold after the radical leftist Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) said on Sunday it would abstain rather than vote against Torra.

The party said in a tweet that while it will “not block the formation of a new government” it intends to be “an active opposition.”

Torra’s election and the formation of a new government would close the latest chapter in the Catalan crisis, which reached its height last year when regional leaders held a disputed referendum on breaking away from Spain and then declared independence.

A failure to elect a president and form a government would have left Catalonia facing another regional election, just months after Madrid imposed one in December to try to end the crisis. In the event, pro-independence parties retained their slim majority in the Catalan parliament and a new government will have to decide whether to pursue another collision course with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

Puigdemont fled Spain last fall after the declaration of independence, which went unrecognized internationally. The Spanish legal system has charged Puigdemont and other separatist leaders with a range of offenses over their roles in the independence push.

Puigdemont is currently in Berlin, awaiting a decision from a German court on whether he will be extradited to Spain. </s> Quim Torra has been sworn in as the 131st president of Catalonia amid growing pressure over the “xenophobic” and anti-Spanish tone of his past writings and comments.



Torra, a hardline Catalan nationalist handpicked by the region’s deposed president, Carles Puigdemont, was elected by 66 votes to 65 on Monday and assumed office at a low-key ceremony in Barcelona on Thursday.

“I promise to loyally fulfil the duties of the post of regional president being faithful to the will of the Catalan people represented by the Catalan parliament,” he said, using the same formula as Puigdemont and avoiding mention of obeying the Spanish constitution. Central government representatives did not attend the ceremony.

Since his appointment the 55-year-old lawyer and editor has been dogged by accusations that he is Puigdemont’s puppet and that his long history of anti-Spanish comments makes him unfit to lead a government.



Six years ago, Torra wrote an article in which he described Spanish-speakers in Catalonia as “carrion-feeders, vipers and hyenas” who hated the Catalan language and culture and were “beasts in human form”.



“It is a sick phobia,” he wrote. “There is something Freudian in these beasts, a rough patch in their DNA.”

In a string of tweets written the same year, Torra suggested that “Spaniards know only how to plunder”, claimed that Catalonia had been under Spanish occupation since 1714 and said Spaniards had long since removed the word “shame” from the dictionary. He later apologised “if anyone was offended by the tweets”.

He has also been ridiculed for saying that Catalonia was suffering “a humanitarian crisis”.

Politicians including Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, and Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the opposition Socialist party, have criticised the “xenophobic nature” of his past pronouncements.

On Tuesday, a Catalan anti-racism group took Torra to task for repeatedly using “a dangerous, irresponsible and unacceptable discourse, based on prejudices”.

The Spanish justice ministry declined to comment on reports that prosecutors were looking into the possibility of bringing charges of racial hate crimes against Torra over his tweets and articles.

Although Torra has said he wants to hold talks with Rajoy, he insists that Puigdemont remains the “legitimate president” of Catalonia and has vowed to try to restore his predecessor’s sacked cabinet to their previous posts and push on with plans to create an independence republic.

The region has been under direct control from Madrid since the end of October last year, when Rajoy responded to Puigdemont’s unilateral independence referendum and the subsequent declaration of independence by firing the Catalan president and his cabinet and calling new elections.

However, Rajoy’s electoral gamble failed to pay off: the pro-independence bloc retained its parliamentary majority and Puigdemont, who remains in self-imposed exile in Germany, finally anointed Torra as his successor after efforts to install three other candidates, including himself, failed.



Torra’s closeness to Puigdemont and similarly firm stance on independence have not gone unnoticed.

A cartoon in El Mundo this week showed the former president as a fairy godmother, telling a Pinocchio-Torra puppet: “And if you’re really good, I’ll turn you into a real boy.”

Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Carlos III University in Madrid, said Torra was likely to prove a divisive choice both inside Catalonia and within the independence movement itself, and that Puigdemont had chosen him as a means of maintaining the current situation of tension and polarisation.

“It suits Puigdemont better because at the end of the day, it reinforces the idea of a stopgap presidency, which will be subordinate to his presidency in Berlin,” said Simón. “It’s about the idea of trying to restore the last government rather than trying to move things forward, like being a statue made of salt, paralysed and always looking backwards.”

Antonio Barroso, an analyst at the political risk advisory firm Teneo Intelligence, said Puigdemont was using Torra as a means to remain relevant at home and abroad and was “prioritising his own strategy over the unity of the pro-independence movement”.

Barroso said that Torra’s anti-Spanish declarations would damage the independence movement’s international image, with the president’s old articles being seized on by opponents of secession.

“The whole rhetoric of the independence movement says: ‘This is about democracy.’ But now the other side can say it’s not about democracy because clearly you have someone with ideas that try to exclude one part of the population.”

Some see the advent of Torra as proof that a latent strain of supremacism is seeping into the Catalan mainstream.

“Catalan nationalism has always been characterised by what you could call a ‘civic nationalism’; it’s always been based on integrating people who come into Catalonia and on a non-ethnic idea of who Catalans are,” said Pau Marí-Klose, a professor of sociology at the University of Zaragoza.

But the polarisation and radicalisation brought about by Puigdemont’s push for independence – and the Spanish authorities’ response to it – had “slightly opened the door” to Torra’s school of thought and reignited old feelings of resentment.

“The idea that Catalonia has been mistreated by Spain has gathered more and more momentum during the process and has somehow given rise to these very supremacist ideas: that anything Spanish is despicable; that Spanish culture is prone to authoritarianism and isn’t a truly European culture, whereas Catalan culture is,” said Marí-Klose.

“There’s a metaphor that you see, even in cartoons, of Spain as an abusive husband and Catalonia as the wife trying to leave the relationship but isn’t allowed … Torra feeds off that but that doesn’t mean that the majority of Catalans buy into these ideas.” </s> Unionists dismiss Quim Torra as puppet of former president and point to controversial tweets

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has anointed a new candidate as his successor, raising hopes that the region could have a government as early as next week after five months of legal and political impasse.



Quim Torra, a close ally and former leader of the pro-independence grassroots group Òmnium Cultural, was announced by Puigdemont on Thursday night.

Catalonia has been without a government since the regional election in December, which was called by the Spanish government after it sacked Puigdemont’s administration in response to its independence referendum and subsequent unilateral declaration of independence.

However, the move backfired after the three secessionist parties held on to their parliamentary majority.

Attempts to form a new government have so far come to nothing. Puigdemont remains in self-imposed exile, facing possible extradition in Spain over his role in the push for independence, while two other presidential candidates – Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Turull – are still on remand.

Although Torra faces no such legal barriers, Puigdemont acknowledged that his latest candidate would not have an easy ride.



“We have the opportunity to use the [referendum] mandate and build the country of freedoms and rights that millions of people are demanding,” he tweeted on Thursday night, adding: “I personally understand the effort and sacrifice of taking office in such extreme circumstances.”

The first investiture debate will be held at noon on Saturday. However, as Torra does not have the necessary support to win an absolute majority in the subsequent vote, there will be a second debate on Monday, which requires only a simple majority for victory.

Torra said he was honoured by Puigdemont’s confidence, referring to him as “the legitimate president of Catalonia”.



His anointment was swiftly dismissed by unionist parties in Catalonia. The centre-right Citizens party, which took the largest share of the vote in the December election, described Torra as Puigdemont’s puppet and pointed out that he had written a string of controversial tweets six years ago.

Among them were: “Spaniards know only how to plunder”; “It’s been quite a while since Spaniards removed the word shame from the dictionary”, and “We’ve been living under Spanish occupation since 1714”.

The Catalan Socialist party said it would not support Torra, whom it described as one of “the most sectarian” voices in the pro-independence bloc.

Ada Colau, the mayor of Barcelona, called on Torra to apologise for his anti-Spanish remarks. “Perhaps Quim Torra is Puigdemont’s most faithful candidate, but Catalonia needs a president with a capacity for dialogue and reconciling the country,” she tweeted on Thursday.

If Torra did attend parliament to be invested, she added, he ought to begin by saying sorry for his “ethnicist” comments that were offensive to millions of Catalans.

The region will have to return to the polls in July if a government is not in place by 22 May. </s> Image copyright Reuters Image caption Mr Torra - a staunch Catalan separatist - is a relative newcomer to politics

Catalonia's parliament has sworn in a new separatist leader who has pledged to continue the region's battle for independence from Spain.

Catalan MPs elected Quim Torra, 55, as president by the narrowest of margins - 66 votes to 65.

The vote had been blocked for nearly five months - yet it remains unclear when Spain will lift its direct rule over Catalonia.

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has offered talks with Mr Torra.

The prosperous region has been under Madrid's direct rule since the Catalan separatists held a referendum in October and declared independence unilaterally - moves declared illegal by Spain.

Separatist leader Carles Puigdemont and five of his allies fled Spain during the crackdown and remain in self-imposed exile. Four others are in pre-trial detention, and 25 in total face charges of rebellion, sedition and corruption.

Read more on the Catalan crisis:

Addressing the parliament on Monday, Mr Torra said "Carles Puigdemont is our president".

He said he would "implement the mandate from the October referendum". He said his new government would "build an independent state in the form of a republic".

Unionist leader Ines Arrimadas of the anti-independence Ciudadanos party called Mr Torra a mere "puppet for Puigdemont".

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Mr Puigdemont is in a legal fight against extradition from Germany

Mr Puigdemont nominated Quim Torra on Thursday as a candidate for Catalan president, in a video from his self-imposed exile in Berlin.

Mr Torra has been criticised by opponents for writing what some have called an inflammatory article in 2012, in which he said some Catalans from Spanish-speaking backgrounds were "animals in human form who spew out hate".

Mr Torra worked as an executive for a multi-national insurance company, before he entered politics by joining the pro-independence civil society pressure group Òmnium Cultural.

He also ran a publishing company, dedicated to publishing works of Catalan literature and journalism. </s> Catalonia's parliament has elected hard-line separatist Quim Torra as the Spanish region's new leader. The divided parliament voted 66 in favour, 65 against and 4 abstentions for the election of Torra, who was handpicked by the region's exiled former leader, Carles Puigdemont. </s> The following content is sourced from external partners. We cannot guarantee that it is suitable for the visually or hearing impaired.

This content was published on May 19, 2018 4:54 PM

Quim Torra takes his oath as new Catalan Regional President next to regional parliament speaker Roger Torrent during a ceremony at Generalitat Palace in Barcelona, Spain, May 17, 2018. Alberto Estevez/Pool via REUTERS

MADRID (Reuters) - Catalonia's new leader Quim Torra named his cabinet on Saturday, though the inclusion of politicians who are either in jail awaiting trial or in self-imposed exile was instantly denounced as provocation by Spain's ruling party.

The central government has been at loggerheads with Catalonia since the previous regional government set up an illegal popular vote on secession in October before a unilateral declaration of independence prompted Madrid to take control.

Pro-independence leaders in the wealthy region, which accounts for around a fifth of Spain's total economic output, claim it unfairly pays too much into government coffers and have campaigned for the creation of a new republic.

After pro-independence parties won a slim majority in December's election, and following a number of failed attempts to name a leader who was neither in jail nor abroad, Torra was sworn in on Monday.

Torra, a hard-line supporter of Catalan independence and close ally of former leader Carles Puigdemont who is in Berlin while a decision is made on his extradition, has called on the central government to end direct rule.

The inclusion of Jordi Turull and Josep Rull, both on remand for their part in the drive, and Antoni Comin and Lluis Puig i Gordi, in Brussels and also wanted by the Spanish police, is unlikely to loosen Madrid's reins on the region.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has said that, once a full and legal government was running in Catalonia, he would return direct rule to Catalonia.

However, government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo said on Friday that the inclusion of jailed politicians would be rejected by the courts which had already blocked attempts to name detained or absent nominees for the leadership position.

"The composition of the new (Catalan government) is a clear message that they want to continue with the problems, the conflict and provocation," the ruling People Party's (PP) candidate in Catalonia, Xavier Garcia Albiol, said on Twitter after Torra's announcement.
Writer and radical independentist Quim Torra faces his first investiture debate after being nominated yesterday for President of the Generalitat of Catalonia. In his speech, he reaffirms to continue with the republican project, to undertake a constituent process and to be under Carles Puigdemont's directions.