• Anti-capitalist party leadership votes 36-30 against Mas bid for presidency
• Independence momentum stalls, parliamentary elections rerun almost certain
Catalonia’s small anti-capitalist Candidatura d’Unitat Popular party (CUP, or Popular Unity Candidacy) announced Sunday that its 10 deputies in the Catalan regional parliament would not vote in favor of giving embattled Catalan president Arturo Mas another term in office, effectively triggering another round of parliamentary elections in Spain’s northern region.
The CUP announcement broke weeks of tension over whether or not it would vote to seat the embattled Mas and left open only one possibility other than new elections in March – that of Mas stepping down as the candidate of the Junts pel Sí coalition in favor of an alternative candidate acceptable to the CUP.
The CUP refusal to vote for Mas all but dooms the immediate hopes of the pro-independence Junts pel Sí electoral coalition, formed last year by Mas’s conservative CDC party and the left of centre ERC party, of proceeding with a clear road map toward a declaration of independence from Spain.
If Junts pel Sí does not name an alternative candidate this week, on Jan. 10th new elections will be automatically convened for Mar. 6th and the Catalonia’s regional legislature will be dissolved and replaced by newly elected members of the region’s parliament chosen by voters in the new election.
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