Government pledges to make a "final" decision on February elections by Friday
If no "consensus" is reached among the parties, the executive will determine whether to postpone the elections
BarcelonaCatalan Minister for the Presidency and Spokesperson, Meritxell Budó, appeared on Tuesday after the meeting of the Executive Council in the midst of a debate on whether the elections of 14 February should be postponed. However, she did not clarify the Government's position on whether or not the elections can be held, but promised to take a "final" decision on Friday 15 January.
"The consensus is that the decision taken on the 15th will be final. If it is decided that the vote should go ahead, it will take place on February 14. And if not, we will work on the scenario of postponement," she said. The government hopes that, should a postponement be deemed necessary, the parties will agree on an alternative date in the very same meeting.
Budó has insisted that the executive wants to decide on the elections by "consensus". If this is not possible, the executive would have to make a decision on Friday. In fact, technically, according to Budó, on Friday there will be the meeting among the parties and then the government will hold an extraordinary meeting.
Yesterday there was a technical meeting with the political parties in which the Health Department warned that the peak of ICU admissions in the third wave will occur a few days before the elections.
The cabinet meeting on Tuesday dealt with other business, but the prospect of putting off the vote was undoubtedly the elephant in the room, along with the boom in cases after the Christmas holidays, which this Tuesday increased to almost 7,000 in 24 hours.
