Jordi Pujol and Salvador Esteve at a Convergència electoral rally in Martorell was not an unusual image a few years ago, but it is today, especially because both are retired from the political front line and that party no longer exists. The former Catalan president intervened yesterday Wednesday at an event of the local group Junts per Martorell together with the former mayor of the city and former president of the Barcelona Provincial Council and asked for a vote for Carles Puigdemont in the Parliamentary elections.
24 hours before the official start of the Catalan electoral campaign, Pujol remarked that "now it's time for the Together" and assured that he will vote for the former Catalan president on May 12. "I will vote for Together. Now it's time for Together and I will vote for Puigdemont," exclaimed the former president, founder of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya.
At the event, according to consulted sources, number three on the list of post-convergents was also present, the former minister Josep Rull, who these days is attending the electoral debates due to the impossibility of the JxCat candidate to attend the presidency of the Generalitat entirely. time that the amnesty has not yet been definitively approved in the Congress of Deputies.
Pujol spoke from the lectern, behind the Junts electoral poster that read "Catalonia needs good government." However, it was not a typical rally, but rather an internal act of the local group Junts per Marotrell, led by mayor Xavier Fonollosa. It is a dinner that is held every year in spring and this time it coincided with the Catalan pre-campaign, the sources consulted detail. Esteve, who also spoke, appears on the Junts list in the Barcelona constituency in a symbolic place, as a substitute and has always had a very good relationship with Pujol.
In Martorell, with an independent candidate who came from the PDECat and its own line such as Fonollosa, the post-convergent space swept the municipal elections last year. In fact, the mayor of the city of Baix Llobregat had been present a little over a year ago at the presentation of the latest book by former president Jordi Pujol, in Barcelona, in a discreet place. At that event, the former president called for a great mobilization for Catalan, which is precisely one of the central axes of the Junts campaign.
Pujol has been seen more times with members of Puigdemont's party in recent years, but not behind the party logo and demanding the vote so clearly. He was seen, for example, at a lunch last year, which was also attended by former president Artur Mas, or giving explicit support to Xavier Trias when he was a candidate for Junts in Barcelona in the municipal elections last year. With yesterday's act, the former president took another step in his support for the post-convergent party, although Trias already revealed in July that both he, Mas, and Pujol would vote for JxCat in the general elections.
In the first public event organized by the Government in which Pujol participated after several years of ostracism for his confession, he had kind words for Puigdemont, who was following the event in the auditorium of the University of Barcelona by videoconference and became emotional. In the summer, at an event in the south of France, both former presidents could be seen together. It was at the tribute to the musician Pau Casals organized by the Universitat Catalana d'Estiu (UCE).
It so happens that yesterday's event coincided with the 44th anniversary of the former president's inauguration for the first time. On April 24, 1980 he obtained the confidence of the Parliament for the first time after having won the Catalan elections by surprise.
