The political crisis on the Iberian peninsula continued to escalate on Friday when the Spanish state moved to impose direct rule over Catalonia following an overwhelming vote by the northeastern region’s parliament to declare independence.
The upper house of the Spanish parliament gave the OK to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to invoke the never-before-used Article 155 of the Constitution, which he promptly utilized to oust Catalan President Carles Puigdemont and his cabinet, sack a regional police chief, and declare new regional elections.
Spain’s prosecutor office also said it would seek “rebellion” charges for Puigdemont. In addition, the Telegraph reports, “The national police may be deployed to bring Catalonia under Madrid’s control.”
“Exceptional measures need to be adopted when there are no other ways to go back to normality,” Rajoy said to the Spanish senate. “The government will make any decisions needed to go back to legality, and we will do that this evening,” he also told reporters in Madrid.
“If unrest threatens in Barcelona or other Catalan cities,” Simon Tisdall writes for the Guardian, “a curfew could be imposed. The main government buildings and pro-independence media outlets may be seized.” He argues:
The crisis reached a fever pitch on Oct. 1 when the Catalan referendum on independence took place. Madrid, which deemed it unconstitutional, has faced strong criticism for its harsh crackdown on the effort including attempts to thwart the vote and violence by Spanish national police.
Though 90 percent of voters were in favor of independence, just 42 percent of eligible voters showed up to the polls.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT