Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan who served as regional president of his country for 21 months and who fled Spain after declaring Catalonia’s independence in 2017, announced Thursday that he will run again in the Catalan elections on May 12th.
“It’s time to be here. Let me be clear that this is my priority: to successfully complete the independence process that we began in October 2017,” said Puigdemont.
He did it from Elna, the town 30 kilometers from the border with Spain and where the independence movement collected the ballot boxes used for the self-determination referendum of 1 October 2017. which the Constitutional Court declared illegitimate.
“I am not a conformist. I don’t like to resign myself. “I don’t look for what is most comfortable on a personal level,” he added. Now that the opportunity has opened up to make possible the return of that presidency that was unjustly and illicitly removed, I will not give up this responsibility.”
There were applause and chants that animated him: “President! President!”.
“You ruined my surprise,” Puigdemont joked, before confirming what he had come to announce: “This is why I have decided to stand as a candidate in the next elections for the Parliament of Catalonia.”
Considered to this day a fugitive from Spanish justice, Puidgemont will be the first to benefit from the amnesty law awaiting the Congress of Deputies and the Senate.
It is part of the agreement that Puigdemont’s party, Junts per Catalunya, signed with Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE to support the re-election of the current president and, although it has already been approved by deputies, the Senate is doing everything possible to stop it . .
In any case, the senators – including the People’s Party, the main opposition force, has an absolute majority – They can only delay final approval of the amnesty law which, according to the terms of the law, could come into force in mid-May.
The Brussels Agreement
In his own words, Puigdemont aspires to “return to the presidency of the Generalitat to resume the path that repression and division have blocked”.
Carles Puigdemont after announcing his candidacy. Reuters photoHe then referred to the intervention of the national government that fell on Catalonia in 2017 and for which his government was dismissed and Parliament dissolved.
From France, the 61-year-old Catalan warned: “They know we haven’t given up anything and we won’t. And that we maintain the legitimacy and legality of both the referendum and the independence vote. We wrote it in the agreement we signed – he underlined -. Let no one be fooled. We are these.”
He also joked about the pact stipulated outside Spain with the PSOE which allowed Pedro Sánchez to renew his mandate in La Moncloa: “The Brussels agreement was the one that made him president of the Spanish government, does it say anything to the people? ? The Brussels agreement defines the framework,” he assured.
Will you be returning to Spain for the campaign?
Puigdemont’s return to payment depends on the implementation of the law coming into force. Although his lawyer, the Chilean criminal Gonzalo Boye, has not ruled out that the former Catalan president has returned to Spain to campaign and until he is arrested.
If it happened, this imprisonment would be more cinematic than real and the amnesty law, once in force, it will evaporate the accusations and complaints this could weigh on Puigdemont.
Until the announcement of the Catalan electoral advance that the current president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, had anticipated last week – when he had not obtained the support of the local Parliament to approve the budgets for 2024 -, Carles Puigdemont, now MEP , was emerging as Junt’s frontrunner in June’s European Parliament elections.
It would also mean abandoning this idea and declaring yourself a candidate for the presidency of Catalonia lose the legal immunity that has protected him so far as a European parliamentarianadvantage with which he maneuvered every time it was taken away from him and managed to avoid extradition to Spain.
“Extradition attempts have failed in all jurisdictions where they have attempted it,” Puigdemont recalled Thursday.
“We went into exile for the same reasons we will have to return,” the former president said as soon as he learned that there would be early elections in Catalonia.
Union of independence forces
“With the calendar proposed by President Pere Aragonès, it is evident I will be able to be present at the investiture debate and I would be very excited about it”, he expressed from his self-exile in Belgium.
It is not the first time that Puigdemont has escaped ostracism as a ghost candidate. In December 2017, in the elections called by the intervention of the national government of Mariano Rajoy, Puigdemont He did not win but managed to muster the majority needed to be sworn in as president.E. He tried in a thousand ways remotely, but failed: the takeover of the government must take place in person.
A day before Puigdemont announced his candidacy, the current Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, avoided commenting on his electoral rival: “Everyone should be free to present themselves,” Aragonès said during a breakfast organized by the Europa Press agency.
Puigdemont acknowledged the discouragement and loss of confidence on the part of Catalan society: “We left the job halfway done and in all these years we have not been able to correct disunity and internal confrontation. And this has led to fragmentation and mistrust,” he admitted and invited Esquerra to join the independence movement.
“I’m here to finish the job,” Puigdemont promised. We didn’t stop working for a single day to find a solution.”
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.