Spain's electoral commission bans Catalan president from office

Spain's Central Electoral Commission voted on Friday to remove pro-independence Catalonia's president Quim Torra from office.

The decision comes a few days before Spain's parliament votes on the new left wing coalition government led by caretaker prime minister Pedro Sánchez. Catalan separatists are considered instrumental for Sánchez to get a majority.

In December 2019, Catalan president Torra was found guilty of disobedience for refusing to take down separatist banners and yellow ribbons supporting the nine separatist leaders who had been jailed on charges of sedition. Credit: AP Photo/Manu Fernandez

The decision to disqualify Torra from public office, which was welcomed by the right and center-right parties, followed a court ruling by the regional High Court of Justice in December that ordered the removal of the Catalan president from office for 18 months over "disobedience".

In March 2019, Torra refused to take down separatist symbols from the regional government headquarters ahead of the parliamentary elections in April, after repeatedly being ordered to do so by the Spanish electoral authorities.

In December, Catalonia's own electoral commission overturned the court ruling disbarring its president and an appeal was made to Spain's Supreme Court.

Now the Central Electoral Commission, an authority superior to the Catalan body, ruled by seven votes to six to remove Torra from his duties as regional deputy, which implies the loss of the presidency of Catalonia. The president must be a regional deputy.

Spain's acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez has received support by the Catalan biggest separatist party to form a new coalition government. Credit: Pierre-Philippe Marcou / AFP

This ruling, which exacerbates the conflict between Catalan separatists and Madrid, comes just before Spain's acting prime minister Sánchez seeks parliament's backing for a new coalition government formed by his Socialist party and the far-left Podemos party.

To win a majority, Socialists and Podemos need Catalan separatists to abstain in the votes. Sánchez has won the support of Catalan's biggest separatist party, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), but the possibility of defusing the political tensions between Catalan separatist and Spain's central government that this agreement seemed to offer has been thrown into doubt by the electoral commission's ruling.

The parliament's first vote on the coalition government is on Sunday. If the new government does not reach an absolute majority in parliament then, a second vote is scheduled for Tuesday, where Sánchez will only need a simple majority.