The member of parliament for Junts pel Sí, Muriel Casals, died in the early hours of the morning in Barcelona’s Hospital Clínic, where she had been in the intensive care unit since January 30 after being run down by a bicycle on Diagonal avenue. Casals was unable to recover from the traumatic brain injury caused by the accident.
From the political point of view, Muriel Casals was a key figure in the Junts pel Sí candidacy, thanks to her commitment to dialogue and her status in the world of organised civil society as president of Òmnium Cultural. A few days before the accident happened, she had been nominated as president of the Constituent Committee in the Parlament de Catalunya.
Muriel Casals had been part of PSUC and, later, ICV, but since 2008 under Òmnium, she began to champion the cause of independence, until she became one of the key driving forces and visible faces of the process. In July 2015 she gave up the leadership of the cultural organisation to stand as the third candidate on the electoral list of the pro-independence coalition Junts pel Sí in the 27S elections. She was put forward by the CUP party as a consensus president to replace Artur Mas.
Muriel Casals, born in Avinyó in 1945, had a doctorate in Economy from the Universitat de Barcelona, and at the time of her death was emeritus professor of Economy and Economic History at the UAB.
