Spanish Prosecutors to Sue Catalan President Over Referendum
Spanish prosecutors said Tuesday they will sue Catalan president Artur Mas after he went ahead with a symbolic independence referendum in defiance of a court injunction.
"The public prosecutor's office will take the appropriate legal actions in the High Court of Justice of Catalonia," the public prosecutor's office said in a statement.
The Catalan government says 2.3 million took part in the vote on November 9 which Mas held following a legal block by the central government against his plans to hold an official, non-binding referendum on the issue that day.
Of the 5.4 million voters aged over 16 who were authorized to vote, 1.86 million favored independence, it said.
Mas has hailed the ballot, which was organised by over 41,000 volunteers, as a "total success" but Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has dismissed it as a "deep failure" since "two out of three Catalans paid no attention".
Catalonia's nationalist government has said it will now push for an official referendum similar to the one held in Scotland in September but Rajoy has already said he will not agree to this.
Mas has said that if he fails to reach an agreement with Rajoy over a referendum, he could call early regional parliamentary elections that might serve as a plebiscite on independence.
Demands for independence in Catalonia have grown over recent years despite Madrid's resistance, fanned by the economic crisis.
Catalans complain that their region does not receive investments in proportion to the taxes it pays and that the central government meddles in its linguistic and education policy.
Source: Agence France Presse
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