Artur Mas - President of the Catalan Generalitat

Artur Mas - President of the Catalan Generalitat
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By m.p. - Apr 25, 2011 - 11:47 AM
The Convergencia i Unió politician was elected in December 2010

Artur Mas - Photo EFE

Artur Mas i Gavarró was sworn in as the 129th President of the Generalitat de Cataluña in December 2010, after standing for the third time as the Convergencia i Unió candidate for presidency of the region and seven years in opposition in the regional parliament.

Born in Barcelona on January 31 1956 and married with three children, Artur Mas holds a degree in Economics and Business Sciences from Barcelona University. He entered the world of business immediately after graduating in 1979 and it was not until 1987 that he entered politics, when he was elected as a councillor at Barcelona City Hall.

He retained his seat on the council until he moved to regional politics in 1995, when he was elected to the Catalan parliament as a deputy for the CiU coalition, the alliance founded in 1978 by the two nationalist parties Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya and Unió Democràtica de Catalunya.

CiU had been governing Cataluña since 1980, under the Presidency of Jordi Pujol, and it was after the 1995 regional poll that Pujol decided to appoint Artur Mas as regional councillor for territorial policy and public works. Mas was moved over to economy and finance two years later and in 2000 became spokesperson for the regional government.

He was appointed as Chief Councillor of the Catalan government in 2001.

Artur Mas had been elected as CDC’s General Secretary in November 2000 and was proclaimed in January 2002 as the CiU candidate for Presidency of the Generalitat for the 2003 regional elections. The CDC-UDC coalition agreement had been formalised as a federation in December 2001.

CiU achieved the highest number of seats in the November 2003 regional election, but was behind the PSC Catalan Socialist Party in the number of votes. A pact to form a tripartite government between PSC, ERC and the ICV-EA green-left electoral coalition ended more than two decades of CiU government in Cataluña, and the PSC candidate, Pasqual Maragall, became the 127th President of the Generalitat.

Mas went into opposition in the Catalan parliament, leading CiU as its President from November 2004.

Maragall chose not to stand for re-election and PSC chose José Montilla as their candidate for Presidency of the Generalitat in the November 2006 regional election. He had been appointed as Industry Minister in the central government Cabinet after José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was elected as Spain’s new Socialist Prime Minister in March 2004.

Artur Mas led CiU to victory in both seats and votes, but the party failed to win an absolute majority. Talks on a government pact with the Catalan Socialists were unsuccessful, and the previous three-way coalition returned to government for another four years, with the Socialist José Montilla as the 128th President of the Generalitat.

Mas continued in opposition in the regional parliament until the November 2010 election saw CiU winning 62 seats in the Catalan parliament, 14 more than they had in 2006, and just six away from an absolute majority.

He was sworn into office by the Catalan parliament on December 23 2010 and four days later became the 129th President of the Generalitat de Cataluña.

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