Catalonia on knife-edge as pivotal elections loom Catalonia is in the final stretch before pivotal elections December 21st that could determine the course of a secession crisis that has thrown Spain into turmoil and rattled the European Union. It is a campaign where the star candidates are in exile or in jail and where pro- and anti-independence parties for the December 21 polls are still neck-and-neck. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES of a campaign rally of the far left pro-independence party CUP