Carles Puigdemont participated yesterday for the first time in an electoral event without screens after several years of telematic presence. That is the dynamic that will occur in the coming weeks with the Junts per Catalunya campaign, with the desire to demonstrate that this time the former Catalan president will return for the investiture debate in Parliament if necessary and that there is no more candidate than him. He will be the protagonist and the main performer.
The post-convergent leader, who now resides in the south of France, in the Vallespir region, had a mass bath at the presentation of the party's lists for the May 12 elections in the old schools of Elna. In the same venue where he met for the first time with Oriol Junqueras in July 2021, after the prisoners of the process were pardoned in an event organized by Òmnium Cultural, more than 2,000 people gathered – according to data provided by the organization – and three hours Before the rally started there were already lines in the street.
At that same moment, in the Elna City Council the national council of JxCat ratified the candidacies by acclamation.
The former president took advantage of his intervention to ask for passage and establish himself as an “alternative” to the Republicans. He called the Executive of Pere Aragonès “disoriented” and “incapable” and called for a “new impulse” for Catalonia. “The Government has lost its way and is incapable of facing the transformations, some of which are very urgent, that the country needs,” noted Puigdemont, who also pointed out that the Executive “is incapable of rebuilding the political and social majority at the polls to complete the independence". After that, he pointed out that his training is the alternative.
There was also criticism of the management of the Republicans – who were ruined by the “easy and legitimate resource of hiring a well-known face” like Tomàs Molina – either for some of the Catalan president's trips abroad, or for the organization of the oppositions that were chaotic a year ago.
Junts' idea is that the 12-M vote is a plebiscite between Salvador Illa, leader of the PSC, and Puigdemont and, in the process, break the technical tie between JxCat and Esquerra from the last electoral dates. They want the campaign to be projected as a face to face between both leaders, and for that it is necessary to leave ERC behind.
Likewise, in his speech, which followed that of the candidates from Girona, Lleida and Tarragona –Salvador Vergés, Jeannine Abella and Mònica Sales– and a video presentation of the number two, the businesswoman Anna Navarro, who is still in San Francisco, there was a defense of Junts' course and service record in recent months and years, from the departure of the Aragonès Executive in October 2022 to the no to the Amnesty law in the first vote that took place in the Congress of Deputies, one month before final approval. “Time has proven us right,” said Puigdemont.
Thus, the Junts leader vindicated the decision to leave the decision to leave the Government in the hands of the party's militancy. “In a Government that does not comply with the agreements we reached and rejects our proposals, we could not continue,” he justified.
Regarding the JxCat group's refusal to penal oblivion in the Lower House in January, the post-convergent leader stressed that "the Government is the one who has understood best" that "when Junts says no, it means no." “It was thought that we were bluffing. We are not going to make friends or look for new allies, we are going to serve Catalonia, and if to serve we have to say enough, we say it," said the former president, who concluded with the statement that apart from him, "none of the "Other candidates are in a position to offer that and to stand before the Government to defend Catalonia."
Shortly before, he had pointed out that “stateless nations in Europe are few” and that “this has to be noted in the Government.” “You cannot be the president of an autonomous community protected by a Spanish ambassador,” said Puigdemont, who asserted that one must also “nurture hope.” “The people are not only matter, they are also soul and spirit. If we do not take care of that, we will have a region instead of a nation,” he concluded.
