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Right wing parties strike deal in Andalusia as Bosquet elected parliament president

The Ciudadanos party's candidate was elected with 59 votes on the afternoon of December 27th.

Published: 27 December 2018 15:48 CET
Right wing parties strike deal in Andalusia as Bosquet elected parliament president
PP candidate Juan Manuel Moreno is expected to be elected president of the region as part of a coalition deal. Photo: Jorge Guerrero/AFP.

Marta Bosquet, an MP for Almeriá, was elected president of the Andalusian Parliament – one of three arms of the 'junta,' the regional administrative body – with the support of delegates from her own party, the People's Party and the far-right VOX party.

Spanish media reported that a deal had been struck by the the People's Party (PP) and Ciudadanos: the latter's candidate Marta Bosquet will preside over the parliament, while Juan Manuel Moreno, the PP's regional leader, will seek election as president of the Andalusian Junta, the effective President of Andalusia, in the coming weeks – according to media reports. 

It is the first time in 36 years that the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) has been voted out in the southern Spanish region and replaced by a rightwing coalition. 

It is also the first time the far-right VOX party has been elected to a Spanish administration. 

READ ALSO: Spanish politics rocked by far-right win in Andalusia

READ ALSO: ANALYSIS: After the elections in Andalusia, expect a lot more Vox in Spanish politics

The far-right VOX party in Andalusia secured 12 seats in regional elections in December 2018 in a clear swing to the right from the electorate. 

READ MORE: ANALYSIS: Gains for Spain's far-right Vox party in Andalusia fuelled by tough opposition to Catalan independence

 

 

 

POLITICS

First pardons granted under Spain’s amnesty for Catalan separatists

A politician and police officer on Tuesday became the first people to benefit from Spain's divisive amnesty law for Catalan separatists involved in a botched 2017 secession bid.

Published: 26 June 2024 07:58 CEST
First pardons granted under Spain's amnesty for Catalan separatists

The amnesty law – approved last month – is expected to affect around 400 people facing trial or already convicted over their roles in the wealthy northeastern region’s failed independence push, which triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez agreed to grant the amnesty in exchange for the key support of Catalan separatist parties in parliament to secure a new term in office following an inconclusive general election last July.

READ ALSO: Spain’s contested Catalan amnesty bill comes into force

The separatist parties have threatened to withdraw their support for Sánchez’s minority government unless the amnesty is applied.

Catalonia’s High Court said it had decided to “declare the extinction of criminal responsibility” for former Catalan regional interior minister Miquel Buch, as well as to Lluís Escolà, an officer in Catalonia’s regional police force, since the crimes they were convicted of “have been amnestied”.

Buch was sentenced last year to four and a half years in jail for embezzlement and misappropriation for hiring Escolà in 2018 and paying him out of public coffers to act as a bodyguard for the former head of the regional Catalan government, Carles Puigdemont, while he was in self-imposed exile in Belgium.

Escolà was handed a four-year prison sentence for working as Puigdemont’s bodyguard.

Puigdemont fled Spain to avoid arrest shortly after his government led Catalonia’s failed secession push, which involved an independence referendum that was banned by the courts followed by a short-lived declaration of independence.

Spain’s conservative opposition has staged massive street protests against the amnesty law, which judges must decide to apply on a case-by-case basis.

Puigdemont had said he hopes to return to Spain but there is still a warrant for his arrest and a Spanish court continues to investigate him for the alleged crimes of embezzlement and disobedience related to the secession bid.

He also remains under investigation for alleged terrorism over protests in 2019 against the jailing of several referendum leaders that sometimes turned violent.

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