Catalonia’s pro-independence government almost imploded last week. A major disagreement between its two governing parties occurred after one half of the coalition – hardline secessionist party Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) – proposed a no-confidence vote against president Pere Aragones for not pushing the secessionist cause hard enough. Aragones, a member of the more moderate Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), promptly fired his deputy president Jordi Puignero. He said this was ‘absolutely necessary to strengthen the government’. Although an understandable reaction, it’s also just as likely to have the opposite effect.
Aragones is the most capable leader the Catalan separatists have had in years, but he’s in an impossible position. On one side he faces a mutinous coalition partner and the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), a civic organisation that campaigns for an independent Catalonia. On the other is a central government (also a coalition) led by Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez, who has stated that there will be no independence referendum on his watch.
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