Artur Mas i Gavarró

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Artur Mas i Gavarró
1st First Minister of the Catalan government Generalitat de Catalunya
In office January 19, 2001 – December 20, 2003
Preceded by	none
Succeeded by	Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira

Born	Tuesday, January 31, 1956 Barcelona (Barcelonès)
Political party	CiU
Spouse	Helena Rakosnik

Artur Mas i Gavarró is a Catalan politician. He is currently the leader of the Catalan nationalist party Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC), the main opposition party in the Catalan autonomous parliament.

Artur Mas ran for the 2003 elections to the Catalan government and won a plurality of seats in the parliament, with four more than PSC. However, the latter obtained a slightly higher amount of votes (this discrepancy between votes and seats obtained is explained by the electoral law and the way seats are assigned). Finally Pasqual Maragall i Mira was elected President, with the support of PSC and two more left-wing parties (ERC and ICV).

Mas ran again for president of the Generalitat in the November 1st 2006 elections. Though -unlike in the previous elections- his party CIU won these both in number of votes and seats, it did not reach the absolute majority of seats in the parliament, allowing the PSC-PSOE to reach an absolute majority by repeating the coalition government with the same left wing partners (ERC and ICV).

Preceded by (none)	First Minister of Catalonia 2001–2003	Succeeded by Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira
Preceded by ?	Government Spokesperson 2000–2003	Succeeded by Joaquim Nadal i Farreras