Spanish government reacts to Torra's candidacy: 'He has to respect the law'

The Spanish government has said that "whoever" is elected as new Catalan president, he will "have to respect the law." In a press statement after Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont named MP Quim Torra as the next presidential candidate, the Spanish executive said that the candidate "should be in the position to comply with his responsibilities" and always respect the Constitution and laws.

The second pro-independence party in the Catalan parliament, Esquerra Republicana (ERC), announced its "support and trust" in the new presidential candidate. ERC is the main ally of Puigdemont's and Torra's party, Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) and, in fact, it will govern in coalition with them.

The leader of unionist Ciutadans (Cs), Inés Arrimadas, urged Torra to condemn the independence path followed by his predecessor. "We need a president who admits the failure of the path to independence and who respects the law," she insisted.

The socialist party in Catalonia (PSC), led by Miquel Iceta, said that if Torra is elected should govern "respecting the law and the institutions, thinking about the whole country and not only those that want independence." The PSC regretted that, in their view, Torra is one of the "most sectarian" MPs in the pro-independence block.

The leader of Catalunya En Comú-Podem (CatECP), Xavier Domènech, said that Torra is not an appropriate candidate for his group. "Catalonia needs a government, to get back its institutions and face the political and social crisis. The candidate doesn't have the trajectory and is not cross-party enough for the moment that we are living," he added.

The leader of Spain's ruling People's Party in Catalonia, Xavier García Albiol, has spoken out against the new presidential candidate, while bringing up some of Torra's old tweets to discredit him: "Here is how the possible next president of the Catalan government thinks. For him, 'shame is a word that Spaniards have erased from our vocabulary' or '[Spaniards] only know how to exploit."

The smallest pro-independence party, the far-left CUP, shifted focus from Torra's candidacy to the actual policies he will implement as head of government. "For five months we've been asking what their plans are. Depending on their policies we will vote one way or another," said CUP spokesperson Vidal Aragonès in an interview with Catalan public radio.