Junts’ agenda included a last campaign event on Friday in Barcelona, in the Jardinets de Gràcia. It was planned that his candidate, Carles Puigdemont, would take the floor telematically for the last time. “One last screen” – they said in training – after a contest in which the party has “disconnected” the screens with face-to-face meetings of the former Catalan president in Algiers, in the south of France.
Ultimately, it won’t be like that. JxCat will put the finishing touch to the electoral race in Elna, in the old schools, in an in-person event with which the formation aspires to a final victory that catapults Puigdemont to victory on May 12. The intention is to show muscle and try to mobilize their own, those who are hesitant about whether or not to vote, and to convince those who are undecided.
The decision has been made after the Jean Carrère space in Argelers, where Junts has held the rallies of this campaign in which Puigdemont has participated, has been filled every day and there have been at least 500 people on the weakest days. . That is why the formation hopes to once again fill the premises of the old Elna schools, where the JxCat candidates were presented at the beginning of April. Before, in March, at the Town Hall of that town, Puigdemont confirmed that he would be the post-convergent candidate.
The formation believes that the difference between winning or not on May 12 is in the mobilization, which now would not be enough, but there is potential for it to be, as the former Catalan president detailed yesterday. “No vote at home; to raise Catalonia and to make the country shine again,” harangued along these lines the number one of the post-convergents in Lleida, Jeannine Abella, mayor of Isona i Conca Dellà. “It is worth going to vote, and all hours are valid to go and seek votes from those who doubt,” Puigdemont later concluded, warning that abstention does not change “the things that must be reviewed.”
According to the polls that were published until Monday – the majority place the PSC first and JxCat in second place comfortably above Esquerra –, the party has tried these days to concentrate the pro-independence vote and convince the undecided to pose 12-M as a face to face between Illa and Puigdemont. Yesterday, the former president, in a press conference organized by the Efe agency, pointed out that the socialists can lead the Generalitat with the help of their former partner, ERC. For this reason, he urged the Republicans to clarify whether they will give their votes for Illa’s investiture or will opt to recover the relationship with Junts. Above all, after Illa has opened the door to re-editing a tripartite.
“It is evident that this is his priority, it is the only option that Illa has to be president: to try to gather the support of the Catalan left and the Spanish left,” Puigdemont said. “It would be good, before going to the elections, for everyone to clarify what their position will be in this scenario,” remarked the former Catalan president, who promised that they will not support Illa and believes that “it would be good” for ERC to “clarify” if the tripartite with the PSC “is its priority or not.”
