With the amnesty law ever closer to allowing him to return to Spain without being imprisoned or tried for declaring Catalonia’s independence in 2017, the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont monopolizes political and media attention every time he opens his mouth.
Just like what happened this Tuesday when, despite the election campaign for the regional elections that Catalans will celebrate on May 12, Puigdemont – who will run for his party, Junts per Catalunya – has announced that if he fails to get elected president of the Generalitat by Parliament, he will leave politics.
“I don’t consider myself opposition president at all,” he said in an interview with Catalan radio Rac1 on Tuesday.
“I will be in politics all my life and I hope that politics never abandons me,” Puigdemont clarified when speaking about his aspirations. But I won’t engage in active politics if I don’t have the responsibility of the presidency, which is what matters and leads me to run.”
He promised it anyway will return to Catalonia – a land he has not set foot in since October 2017, when he fled to Belgium – for the investiture debate, the first meeting of which is scheduled for the end of June.
Over Easter, Puigdemont announced he will leave his Belgian home in Waterloo move to the south of France, near the border with Spain. More precisely in Vallespir, about 50 kilometers from his home in Girona.
An image of Carles Puigdemont during a march calling for the independence of Catalonia, in September 2021 in Barcelona. Photo: AP Election calendar
After the elections on 12 May, the new Parliament should be established by 10 June.
With Parliament already in office, the law establishes that there are ten days to set the date of the first investiture debate.
Puigdemont hypothesizes that, by then, the controversial amnesty law that his party agreed with the PSOE in exchange for supporting Pedro Sánchez’s latest re-election will already be in force.
He is currently in the Senate, where the majority of the People’s Party will try to delay its approval certainly as much as possible. And he will then seek to lodge appeals before Spanish and European courts to suspend the application of the law.
Portrait on the ballot papers
Instead of his party’s logo, the cards presenting the former Catalan president’s candidacy couldn’t be more personal: they say “Together+Puigdemont for Catalunya” next to a portrait of him.
The former president bet on an epic storythat of the restoration of the government deposed in 2017, when its separatist attempt provoked the intervention of Catalonia by the national government – then presided over by Mariano Rajoy, of the PP -, which dissolved the regional Parliament and called elections for December next year.
Puigdemont, already in self-exile in Belgium, ran and, although he did not win, the pro-independence majority tried to invest him as president, a move that proved impossible from afar.
He also ran in the 2021 Catalan elections, with a symbolic candidacy, because he would never have been able to take the oath without being present.
The head of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, of the PSOE, managed to be re-elected after an agreement with the Catalan independentists. Photo: AFP“To complete what we started in 2017. That’s the responsibility I want to take on,” says Puigdemont today.
Yellow card for Pedro Sanchez
According to the polls circulated so far, the candidate of the Catalan Socialist Party, former Health Minister Salvador Illa, would win the elections on May 12, even if this hypothetical victory does not guarantee him to become the next president of the Generalitat.
It is very likely that he will not reach the necessary parliamentary majority for which I would have to agree with other lineups. The Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), the other pro-independence party that governs today, is second in the polls. And there is already speculation that a deal between the Socialists, the ERC and En Comú Podem, a Catalan left-wing force that joined Sumar in the national elections, could form a tripartite government excluding Puigdemont.
The former Catalan president warns Pedro Sánchez that this equation could jeopardize the continuity of his government.
“It would make no sense to continue supporting this legislature,” Puigdemont slips, as if in passing. If his people withdraw parliamentary support for the government, night could come for Sánchez.
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.