POLITICIANS involved in the disputed independence referendum in Catalunya on October 1, 2017 have been formally pardoned – although in practice, they have been granted a suspended sentence and a ban on holding public office, even if elected, until their original custodial terms were due to end.
Back on the date now referred to in Spain simply as '1-O', the government in power in national Parliament was the right-wing PP, which had refused to even discuss or approach the subject of Catalunya's holding a referendum on independence, even a non-binding opinion poll.
As far as Mariano Rajoy's government was concerned, the article in the Spanish Constitution which makes any action that 'threatens the unity of Spain' illegal was the only answer they needed.
This impasse, and threats of court action if they went their own way, only incensed the independence movement more, and the then regional president Carles Puigdemont called the public to the polls.
What happened on '1-O'
Of those who voted, 99% opted for secession, but those who abstained said the vote was illegal and they did not intend to take part – in total, around half the electorate cast their ballots in favour of independence, a wafer-thin majority which Puigdemont decided was enough to make a unilateral declaration of the region's split from Spain.
But this declaration was not recognised by anyone outside Catalunya, and immediately led to the region's temporarily losing its devolved powers and those who had organised the referendum to be arrested.
Puigdemont and a handful of others left the country – Puigdemont himself has been living in Belgium ever since, knowing that a national arrest warrant would see him in custody the moment he set foot in Spain again, whilst former education minister Dr Clara Ponsati went back to her old job as lecturer and researcher at Edinburgh's St Andrew's University, hailed a heroine by Scottish independence supporters.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com