The acting Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has given a warning this Saturday night to the Democratic Tsunami protest platform that if the protest actions it plans to call next Saturday, the day before Spain's general election, were to lead to incidents affecting public order, then "we'd be speaking about serious crimes against an electoral process".
In an interview with Spanish TV network La Sexta, Sánchez was at pains to demonstrate that he had the situation under control, and he stated that in the event that there were effects on law and order "the [Spanish] government would guarantee the normality of the election day" on 10th November.
The Spanish prime minister indicated that, in the face of any breach of the law by the Catalan government or the independence movement, he would act "with determination, firmness, and also with moderation, which does not mean weakness." In his view, "what the independence movement wants, at least the most recalcitrant part of it, is for the right to govern, for the Partido Popular to govern." And he attributed that to the fact that the PP is "a factory" for creating independence supporters.
Sánchez reiterated his argument that in Catalonia there is simply "a crisis of social coexistence," and he only had any positive words for the Catalan interior minister, Miquel Buch. By contrast, he expressed a lack of confidence in Catalan president Quim Torra, and gave the clear impression that he would continue to ignore any further attempted phone calls from Torra. "Until he condemns the violence and shows his support for the families of the wounded policemen," he said.
The Spanish Socialist leader totally ruled out forming any stability pact in the next Spanish legislature with the Catalan pro-independence parties ERC or JxCAT.