Barcelona's Mayor Ada Colau was re-elected on Saturday after staving off a challenge from separatist contender Ernest Maragall
MADRID (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th June, 2019) Barcelona's Mayor Ada Colau was re-elected on Saturday after staving off a challenge from separatist contender Ernest Maragall.The voting aired by the city hall showed Colau of leftist Barcelona en Comu win 21 votes, versus 15 votes for Maragall from pro-independence Republican Left.
Republican Left came first in May's municipal race, winning 10 seats in the 41-seat city council but Colau got Socialist and three of the six Citizens councilors to back her.
The voting was attended by former Catalan interior minister Joaquim Forn who was voted back into the legislature after he was removed for his role in the 2017 independence bid.
Forn has been in custody on charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds. The top court freed him from a Madrid jail so that he could vote in the mayoral contest.
Catalonia declared independence in October 2017 after a referendum found that the majority of those who voted wanted a split from Spain. The turnout was less than 50 percent.
