Spain to dismiss Catalonia government, call elections

Madrid, October 21 

Spain said today that it will move to dismiss Catalonia’s separatist government and call fresh elections in the region in a bid to stop its leaders from declaring independence.

Speaking after an emergency cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said his government had no choice after the administration of Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont acted in a way that was “unilateral, contrary to the law and seeking confrontation” in holding a banned independence referendum in the northeastern region.

Taking Spain into uncharted legal waters by using Article 155 of the constitution, which allows Madrid to wrest back control of rebellious regions, Rajoy said he was asking the Senate to give him permission to dissolve the Catalan parliament and “call elections within a maximum of six months”.

He is also requesting that all of Puigdemont’s government be stripped of their functions, which “in principle will be carried out by (national) ministers for the duration of this exceptional situation.” The national Senate will now have to agree to these unprecedented steps - a process that will take about a week.

Rajoy’s conservative Popular Party holds a majority in the Senate. As the measures enjoy the support of other major parties, they are highly likely to pass.

Catalonia sparked Spain’s worst political crisis in decades with the chaotic referendum on October 1, which Puigdemont said resulted in a 90 per cent vote in favour of breaking away from Spain.

But turnout was given as 43 per cent as many anti- independence Catalans stayed away from the vote, which had been ruled illegal by the Constitutional Court, while others were hindered from voting by a police crackdown. — AFP

Access blocked: cyber attack hits constitutional court

• The website of Spain’s Constitutional Court, which ruled the independence referendum in Catalonia illegal, was forced down on Saturday following threats from cyber-activists. A court spokeswoman said access to its website had been blocked
• Hackers from the loose-knit collective Anonymous, which has targeted a string of high-profile targets around the world in recent years, had threatened cyber attacks over the Catalan crisis, but the spokeswoman stressed that the source of Saturday’s hacking was unknown
• Spain’s National Security Department, which is part of the prime minister’s office, warned on its website on Friday that Anonymous-linked Twitter accounts had announced a wide-scale cyberattack campaign for Saturday under the hashtags #OpCatalunya and #FreeCatalunya
• The attack on the court website came as Spain’s government prepared today to announce unprecedented measures to seize powers from Catalonia’s regional government over its threat to break away from the rest of the country