The Popular Party does not rule out that one day a pardon for Carles Puigdemont may be considered, as, at the time, the Government of Pedro Sánchez pardoned the nine independence supporters convicted by the Supreme Court for the cause of the procés.
In fact, as a result of an informative contact with journalists, popular sources consider that pardons could be an alternative route to the controversial Amnesty law that the PSOE has been negotiating with the Catalan independentists for months.
Now, these same sources specify that the conditions of the PP would not be the same.
A pardon signed by Alberto Núñez Feijóo would only occur if Puigdemont and the rest of the expatriate politicians (Marta Rovira, Toni Comín and Lluís Puig) appeared before the Spanish courts to be tried, and that, once convicted, they regretted what they had done. made from the Generalitat. The popular ones also assume that a commitment to never exceed the limits of the rule of law would be essential. They do not specify exactly what this commitment should be like, but they assume that forgiveness should be “verbalized.”
Just yesterday, at a lunch-rally in Sarria (Lugo), Feijóo admitted that “reconciliation is necessary but it can never happen through impunity.”
The criminal pardon that the PP would propose should be explicitly requested by Puigdemont. It would not be worth it, these popular sources say, for it to be promoted by someone from civil society as in the case of those convicted by the Supreme Court. If all these assumptions were met, the PP assures that the pardons would not even be granted in exchange for a political pact that would condition the course of a legislature as they consider from Genoa that is happening now.
This position was never raised in the conversations that representatives of the party leadership held with representatives of Junts per Catalunya at the beginning of August, when they were seeking support for his failed investiture, as La Vanguardia reported. However, an amnesty was proposed for those prosecuted by the process. The leader of the PP revealed yesterday, during his public speech, that Puigdemont's entourage offered them their votes in exchange for approving the law, but he assured that it took "less than a day to discard" the proposal that was put on the table. The day before these statements were made, the general coordinator of the PP, Elías Bendodo, also made reference in Barcelona to the meeting with Junts in August and defended the right of the PP to speak with the post-convergent formation.
Popular sources now reveal that those conversations that, until recently, were summarized in something less than a coffee in a hotel cafeteria, were something more. The party leadership, with documents in hand that they had at their disposal for 24 hours, was able to analyze the proposal with “legal arguments” and conclude that the law was unconstitutional. In fact, Feijóo publicly insists that “accepting an amnesty in favor of some politicians breaks the principle of equality before the laws.”
Furthermore, they consider that the amnesty represents a breach of the rule of law with accusations of terrorism now included in Judge Manuel García Castellón's summary against various independence activists, including Puigdemont himself.
However, the Popular Party is skeptical that the investigation will prove that the former president of the Generalitat was involved in acts of terrorism. On the other hand, these popular sources highlight the importance of the contacts that Puigdemont's entourage may have maintained with Russian citizens and admit that this issue makes some European Union countries very nervous.
The PP has turned the Amnesty law into one of its fundamental arguments in opposition to Pedro Sánchez in the conviction that today it is its greatest weak point, even more so after the bill was stalled in Congress after that Junts decided to oppose the current wording and vote against it.
Although the Government maintains that this setback can be resolved through other means, the truth is that the opposition of Junts and other allies and partners of the Government to some of the legal solutions proposed to get out of the impasse, puts the legislature in a delicate situation. situation. The popular ones may once again think that Sánchez's mandate will not last four years. The President of the Government, on the other hand, maintains the determination to continue with the hope that at some point Junts will come to their senses.
To all this has been added in recent days the reports from prosecutors on Puigdemont's indictment for terrorism, which adds even more difficulties if possible.
