Catalonia President Calls Early Regional Elections For May 12

Catalonia's President Pere Aragones said Wednesday that he had dissolved the Spanish region's parliament and called early elections for May 12 after his proposed budget was rejected by the assembly

Barcelona, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th Mar, 2024) Catalonia's President Pere Aragones said Wednesday that he had dissolved the Spanish region's parliament and called early elections for May 12 after his proposed budget was rejected by the assembly.

"I have decided to call elections for the Catalan parliament for May 12," Aragones, a proponent of the region's independence from Spain, said during a brief press conference, accusing opposition lawmakers of "irresponsibility".

The regional election had originally been set for early 2025.

Aragones, a moderate separatist from the left-wing ERC party, lost his majority in the Catalan parliament in October 2022 when the rival separatist party JxCat withdrew from an alliance, accusing the regional president of not doing enough to secure independence from Madrid.

The move to dissolve parliament comes ahead of a national parliament vote Thursday on granting amnesty to people prosecuted for their role in Catalonia's failed 2017 independence bid, which was spearheaded by JxCat.

Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez proposed the amnesty bill in exchange for crucial parliamentary support from JxCat, after his party failed to secure a majority in general elections in July.

The call for early Catalan elections is unlikely to have an impact on the vote.

Aragones has insisted he intended to remain in post until the end of the current legislature, but "the blockages... among the political groups in the parliament are not making this possible", he said Wednesday.