ROGER Torrent, who has been a Catalan MP since 2012 and mayor of Sarrià de Ter since 2007, has been elected as President of the Catalan Parliament.
His appointment maintains the pro-independence parties’ parliamentary majority.
The 40-year-old is widely seen as a rising star of the ERC, and replaces Carme Forcadell, who resigned to fight the charges of rebellion and sedition she faces over the parliament’s declaration of independence in October.
Torrent, a member of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) received 65 votes against José María Espejo-Saavedra, from the Ciutadans (Citizens) Party.
Pro-independence MPs who are in prison without trial for their role in the independence declaration voted by proxy.
Oriol Junqueras, who was deputy to ousted President Carles Puigdemont, entrusted his vote to Marta Rovira (ERC), while Jordi Turull (Together for Catalonia) voted for Joaquim Forn and Jordi Sànchez.
The interim bureau nominated to oversee today’s procedures accepted the proxy votes, after the Spanish Supreme Court opened the door to the possibility last week.
Although unionist parties asked the bureau to reconsider the decision, it dismissed their request and Junqueras, Forn and Sànchez were able to record their proxy votes.
Puigdemont, and other MPs in exile in Brussels, did not ask to vote by proxy. Pro-independence parties did not want to risk a challenge from Spain’s central government after Madrid said it would challenge in the constitutional court any vote that allowed the MPs in Belgium to take part remotely.
However, Puigdemont said on social media: “They only understand fear, violence and imposition. We will teach them that there is nothing that can bend the spirit of a free, peaceful and democratic people. We recover our institutions. We fight for the country. We exercise dignity. Live the land, and live Catalonia free!”
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