Artur Mas i Gavarró

Artur Mas
President of Catalonia
In office 27 December 2010 – 10 January 2016
Vice President	Joana Ortega (2010–2015) Neus Munté (2015–2016)
Preceded by	José Montilla
Succeeded by	Carles Puigdemont
First Minister of Catalonia
In office 19 January 2001 – 20 December 2003
President	Jordi Pujol
Preceded by	Josep Tarradellas (1937)
Succeeded by	Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira
Leader of the Opposition of Catalonia
In office 27 May 2004 – 23 December 2010
Preceded by	Pasqual Maragall (2003)
Succeeded by	Joaquim Nadal
Minister of Economy and Finance of Catalonia
In office 30 July 1997 – 17 January 2001
President	Jordi Pujol
Preceded by	Macià Alavedra
Succeeded by	Francesc Homs
Minister of Town and Country Town and Public Works of Catalonia
In office 15 June 1995 – 30 July 1997
President	Jordi Pujol
Preceded by	Jaume Roma
Succeeded by	Pere Macias
Personal details
Born	Artur Mas i Gavarró (1956-01-31) 31 January 1956 Barcelona, Spain
Political party	Democratic Convergence of Catalonia
Spouse(s)	Helena Rakosnik
Children	Patricia Albert Artur
Alma mater	University of Barcelona
Religion	Catholicism[1]
Signature

Artur Mas i Gavarró (Catalan pronunciation: [ərˈtur ˈmas]; born 31 January 1956) is a politician of Catalonia. He was the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia from 2010 to 2016.^[2] He is also the leader of the Catalan liberal nationalist party Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC).^[3]

Mas is an economist who obtained his degree from the University of Barcelona, and is fluent in English and French, in addition to Catalan and Spanish. His ideology tends to be considered liberal from the economic point of view and increasingly supportive of Catalan independence. From the social point of view, he has mostly supported a moderate agenda in numerous issues, such as gay rights, but not same-sex marriage^[4] and free debate on his party concerning abortion.^[5]

In 2010 for the first time Mas indicated he would vote yes on a hypothetical referendum to secede from Spain. Since then, sovereignty and Catalan independence have become the central part of his political agenda.^[6][7]

Early life

Mas was born in Barcelona as one of the four children of a wealthy industrialist family.^[8] His mother was originally from Sabadell and his father from Poblenou. He studied at the Lycée Français de Barcelone (French language high school in Barcelona), and is thereby fluent in French, English, Catalan and Spanish. Later he graduated in Economics from the University of Barcelona and married Helena Rakòsnik.^[9]

Politics

Before acquiring political responsibilities in Catalonia, Mas held different posts in both the private and public sectors, especially relating to the internationalization of Catalan enterprises. He was a member of the Barcelona City Council from 1987 to 1995, representing the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia.^[10] His first high responsibilities in the Catalan government came during the presidency of Jordi Pujol, President of the Generalitat de Catalunya from 1980 to 2003. Artur Mas served as Catalan Minister of Public Works from 1995 to 1997, as Minister of Economy and Finance from 1997 to 2001, and Deputy Prime Minister (conseller en cap) from 2001 to 2003, as well as being the government's official spokesman from 2000 to 2003.^[11]

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.^[12] However, the latter obtained a slightly larger number 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, having forged a coalition with two other left-wing parties, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and Initiative for Catalonia – Greens (ICV).

Mas ran again for president in the 2006 elections. Though his party CiU won these both in number of votes and seats^[13]—unlike in the previous elections, it did not reach the absolute majority of seats in the parliament, allowing PSC's new candidate, José Montilla, to reach an absolute majority by repeating the coalition government with the same left-wing partners (ERC and ICV).

Mas talking to Oriol Pujol at Parliament in 2009

Mas in 2010

Since 2007, he has put special emphasis on initiating a process, known as the Refoundation of Catalanism (in Catalan, Refundació del catalanisme), to build upon the principles and values of the Catalanist movement, in order to enlarge the majority of society in Catalonia that expresses a nationalist feeling, and not merely inside his own party, CDC. The 'Refoundation of Catalanism' that Mas is actively leading calls for Catalonia to obtain the so-called 'Right to decide' on matters that affect it. This implicitly includes the possibility of putting independence from Spain to a hypothetical referendum. This point is significantly closer to the traditionally more separatist positions of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and has gained momentum since the issue of the verdict on the Catalan Statute—the Estatut—in July 2010 by the Spanish Constitutional Court, which invalidates certain parts of this law although they were backed by a large majority of Catalan voters by referendum back in 2006 (73.9 Yes, 20.7% No, 49.4% Turnout).^[14][15]

Presidency

The Catalan elections that took place on 28 November 2010 were to finally determine the political future of Mas, who was for the third time the Convergència i Unió candidate to the presidency of the country. During the campaign Mas had promised to put into place the government of 'the best' people, including the possibility of appointing ministers ('Consellers') from outside his political coalition, Convergència i Unió, if their talent justifies doing so.^[16] Moreover, he also engaged in a process culminating in full powers over taxation for Catalonia—significantly reducing the so-called 'fiscal deficit' between Catalonia and Spain—by putting this issue to referendum to the Catalans and as a condition for giving any support to Spanish governments in Madrid after the Spanish elections scheduled for 2012.

Surveys had indicated that this time his party would obtain enough seats to govern without being heavily dependent on third parties and with no risk of a repetition of left-wing coalitions like those of 2003 and 2006. His party finally won 62 of the 135 seats in the Catalan Parliament, thus ensuring that Mas will head the next regional government as president of the Generalitat of Catalonia.^[17] He was invested as president on 23 December 2010. In the investiture speech, Mas claimed a new funding model for Catalonia inspired by the Economic Agreement and proclaimed the Catalonia national transition based on the right to decide.^[18]

Artur Mas and Oriol Junqueras (Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of Catalonia), signing the 2012–2016 governability agreement in December 2012

After the massive 2012 Catalan independence demonstration with an estimated number of participants at about 1.5 million according to Barcelona's Municipal Police and Catalonia's Department of the Interior,^[19] Artur Mas declared in a speech to Parliament that it was time for the people of Catalonia to exercise the right of self-determination.^[20] On 25 September 2012, Mas announced snap elections for the Parliament of Catalonia to be held on 25 November and argued, referring to the demonstration, that "the street vocal must be moved to the polls".^[21] Parties defending Catalonia's independence from Spain obtained more than half the Catalan Parliament seats and significantly increased their votes, although Mas' party lost seats.^[21] The "Agreement for Freedom" (2012–2016 governability agreement) was negotiated and accorded between Artur Mas (CiU) and Oriol Junqueras (ERC), the Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of Catalonia. Artur Mas was invested for the second time President of Catalonia on 21 December 2012^[22] and 24 December he took up office at the Palace of the Generalitat of Catalonia.^[23]

On 12 December 2013, Artur Mas, with leaders of five Catalan parliamentary parties, announced the date for the Catalan self-determination referendum, that was set for Sunday 9 November 2014 and contained a question with two sections: "Do you want Catalonia to become a State?" and "In case of an affirmative response, do you want this State to be independent?". In April 2014 the proposal was presented to the Spanish Parliament and it was defeated by a vote of 299–47. Mas, both before and after this vote has declared that the referendum will take place in a legal manner, but Spanish government promised to stop the vote through the application of national law.^[24][25][26]

Mas intended to avoid prosecution by reducing it to a non-binding and purely symbolic vote, and staffing it with volunteers.^[27][28] Despite these efforts the Spanish Central Government still deemed the vote as unconstitutional and thus illegal. Mas has been charged by the Spanish attorney general with perverting the course of justice, misuse of public funds and abuse of power, with regards to the role he assumed in the unofficial referendum.^[29][30] Mas has been summoned to present himself in front of the high court on 15 October 2015. Mas faces a ban from holding public office of up to 10 years and one year of jail time.^[31][32]

On 27 December 2015 an internal vote by the Popular Unity Candidacy on whether Mas would be allowed to continue in a leadership role ended in a tie, with 1,515 votes for and the same number against.^[33]

References

Bibliography

• Nagel, Klaus-Jürgen (2015). In: Ferran Requejo and Klaus-Jürgen Nagel (Eds.). "Religion and the political accommodation of Catalonia. A non-relation?". Politics of religion and nationalism: federalism, consociationalism and seccession (Routledge): 194–210. ISBN 978-1-138-02414-4. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Artur Mas.

• Official website
• Artur Mas at Facebook

First Ministers of Catalonia Artur Mas i Gavarró Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira Josep Bargalló i Valls