Catalonia on Friday postponed a parliamentary election scheduled for Feb. 14 until May 30 because of a surge in coronavirus cases that has pushed hospital occupancy in the restive northeastern region of Spain to one of the highest levels in the country.
Catalonia on Friday postponed a parliamentary election scheduled for Feb. 14 until May 30 because of a surge in coronavirus cases that has pushed hospital occupancy in the restive northeastern region of Spain to one of the highest levels in the country.
It is. For Illa’s party, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), which runs the Spanish government with Unidas Podemos (UP) as junior partner, the Catalan independence movement is a graver concern than any virus even one that has so far claimed 52,000 lives.
With reliable opinion polls last month showing that the February 14 Catalan election would return a larger pro-independence majority, PSOE anxiety would have deepened. According to the December survey of Catalonia’s official Centre for Opinion Studies, pro-independence parties would win up to 50.9% of the vote and 77-seats in the country’s 135-seat parliament.
That figure compares with their present majority of 70 seats, won with 47.5% support at the December 2017 Catalan election, following the country’s “illegal” October 1, 2017, independence referendum.
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The northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia will hold regional elections on February 14, a year earlier than scheduled, as its powerful separatist movement becomes increasingly divided.
The dissolution of Catalonia s regional parliament and the setting of a date for the early polls were announced Tuesday in the region s official state gazette.
The election, Catalonia s fifth in 10 years, will be held a year ahead of schedule because the region s separatist leader Quim Torra was barred last year by the courts from holding public office.
He was ruled unfit to hold public office for 18 months after he refused to remove separatist symbols from public buildings during a general election campaign in April 2019 despite orders from Spain s electoral committee.