'Deposed Catalan leader's party will run in snap vote'

The party of Catalonia's dismissed president Carles Puigdemont will run in a December regional election called by Spain's government in response to a declaration of independence by Catalan leaders, a spokeswoman said today.
"We will go to the polls on (December) 21. We will go with conviction and with a commitment to letting the Catalan people express themselves," Marta Pascal, spokeswoman for the PDeCAT party, told reporters.
On Friday, Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he had dissolved the Catalan parliament and called a snap vote for the region under sweeping powers approved by the Senate to stop the secessionist movement.

Separatist parties of all political stripes, from Puigdemont's conservatives to the far-left, have dominated the Catalan parliament since the last election in 2015, holding 72 seats out of 135.