After yesterday's Spanish election, Catalan president Quim Torra wanted to phone acting Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez. The leader of the largest party in yesterday's vote, however, still won't pick up.
According to sources from the president's office, he called the acting prime minister before 10am this morning, only to be told Sánchez was in a meeting. Since then, he has heard nothing.
Last month, after the Supreme Court announced its sentences against nine pro-independence leaders and as protests rocked Catalonia, the president had made a first attempt to call the prime minister in Madrid. Members of his government and mayors around Catalonia wanted him to ask for dialogue without conditions.
Sánchez didn't respond that time, nor on subsequent occasions. Cameras from Catalan broadcaster TV3, filming a documentary on the responses to the sentences, were present one of the times the president was told Madrid wouldn't take his call. Torra's response to the news went viral: "Quins collons", loosely, "what cheek".
Yesterday, the president said he would try again, this time with the election results showing the independence movement growing in both number of seats and vote share. Congress deputy Laura Borràs asked the president, in his press conference to discuss the results, if he would do so and he agreed.
Later, Torra wrote on Twitter: "Spain can't be governed without listening to Catalonia. I congratulate PSOE as the winner of the Spanish election and ask acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez to assume his responsibility."