CATALONIA -- Artur Mas: ‘The Spanish government has crossed the threshold of the ridiculous’ | News from Catalonia - VilaWeb
Artur Mas: ‘The Spanish government has crossed the threshold of the ridiculous’
The president of the Government of Catalonia reacts to the new legal challenge to the independence consultation vote in an interview with VilaWeb
The president of the Government of Catalonia, Artur Mas, granted VilaWeb an interview
this afternoon, minutes after the Spanish government announced that it
would challenge the independence consultation vote of 9 November before
the Constitutional Court. The president said that he would do everything
in his power to make the vote take place as planned. VilaWeb English
will publish an extract from the interview in English on Sunday.
The president expressed his surprise that the Spanish government used
a press conference two weeks ago as its justification. He can see only
one explanation: the Spanish government wants to scare people. ‘They are
basing their appeal on the press conference I gave on 14 October. If it
was so obvious that it was possible to appeal, why it has taken them
more than two weeks? I can only conclude that as they will be
hard-pressed to really stop it, they want to damage it as possible, they
want to scare people so that they don’t participate, they want to
discredit us internationally and force the issue in a way that is
unprecedented. It shows that they really want to bother us.’
According to the president, the Spanish government has made a fool of
itself with this challenge: ‘The Spanish government has now crossed the
threshold of the ridiculous, because trying to cancel something that
isn’t happening and trying to cancel a participatory process that has
taken on the dimensions that it now has and which is being organized by
volunteers… that crosses the threshold of the ridiculous. And I hope
that they don’t go any further than making a fool of themselves, as they
already do as a government.’
‘And if the Rajoy government goes any further,’ said Mas, ‘we will
have to deal with circumstances as they arise: under minimally normal
circumstances, however much the Spanish government resorts to its old
tricks, the process that has started is a process that I hope will end
well, on 9 November, with a high level of participation and a great
display of civic responsibility. If they want to take it further than
what is can strictly be anticipated we would deal with the circumstances
as they arise. But I hope they can still see sense and do not take
things to a point of no return.’
