Catalan leaders forge ahead for independence vote, defy govt.

PanARMENIAN.Net - Catalan leaders forged ahead for a vote on independence, defying a court challenge by the national government in their bid to redraw the map of Spain, Agence France-Presse reported.

Spain's Constitutional Court had provisionally blocked their plan for the vote, but parties in the northeastern region opted to launch a legal gamble.

"We have agreed to maintain the election decree so that citizens can exercise their right to vote on November 9," the Catalan regional government spokesman Francesc Homs told reporters in Barcelona.

Catalan pro-independence parties declared they were "united" on the issue to the press, after holding meetings to forge a common front in the tense standoff, which threatens to trigger Spain's biggest constitutional crisis in decades.

The central government has vowed to keep Spain whole against the drive for independence for Catalonia.

But, fired up by last month's independence referendum in Scotland -- although voters there rejected independence -- hundreds of thousands of Catalans have protested in the streets in recent weeks, demanding their own vote.

In another move of defiance on Friday, Oct 3 Catalonia's moderate conservative government formally decreed the creation of a commission to supervise the ballot.

The national government will ask the Constitutional Court to suspend that decree, just as it has suspended other Catalan legislation this week over the vote, said Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria.

"No one in Spain can say on their own authority what is legal and what is not. That is a matter for the courts," she told a news conference.

"This government has an obligation to obey the law and to make sure it is obeyed, because it has an obligation to make sure everyone respects democracy."

But Catalonia's president Artur Mas vowed to push on with the bid for independence. "We will forge ahead and we will do it together," he said.