Mas i Gavarró, Artur

Mas i Gavarró, Artur,

1956–, Catalonian nationalist leader, b. Barcelona, grad. Univ. of Barcelona. An economist, he was the head of the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC), a centrist Catalan nationalist party. Mas held several ministerial posts in the Spanish region's government (1995–2003) and was the leader of the opposition (2004–10). In 2010 he was elected president of Catalonia; he was reelected in 2012. He increasingly pushed for Catalonia's independence from Spain, and supported a referendum on self-determination that when finally held (2014) was extralegal and symbolic. Despite separatist gains in 2015, he failed to win the support of leftist separatists for a third term as president. In 2017 he was convicted of disobeying the Spanish constitutional court for holding the 2014 referendum, and he was fined and banned for two years from holding public office.