Millo: Rajoy may impose elections

The Spanish State’s exercising of coercion to prevent the Catalan referendum on independence on October 1 was on display again yesterday through the words of the Spanish government’s delegate to Catalonia, Enric Millo, who for the first time suggested the possibility of Mariano Rajoy usurping Carles Puigdemont by dissolving the Catalan Parliament and calling regional elections on October 1 or another date in the near future. “I hope not, I don’t want it to happen. I will do everything possible to prevent it from happening. But the law allows it. We cannot rule it out because the law allows it”, Millo told Catalunya Ràdio regarding this possible appropriation of powers.

Millo did not specify which rule he was referring to, but article 155 of the Spanish Constitution - which has not been applied or developed in 39 years - is so ambiguous that it says the State “may adopt the necessary measures to oblige the enforced compliance” of constitutional and legal “obligations” or to protect the general interest.

The option suggested by Millo is equivalent to jettisoning three articles of the Statute: number 56.4 - which states that it is the president of the Generalitat who “has to call” the elections - number 66 - the early dissolution of Parliament is “agreed” by the president - and number 75 - which warns that it is “the exclusive responsibility of the president to dissolve Parliament”.

According to Millo, however, “it is legally possible because there are mechanisms for recovering order and the functioning of law and democracy” from Madrid, and more so “if Catalan action is disproportionate”.

In response, the president of the JxSí group, Lluís Corominas, yesterday said “It’s nonsense that the State may consider forcing elections”.