Have you ever looked at a photo from when you were little and wondered how that little person became a functioning adult? It's fascinating to watch how people change over the years, going from children to adults. However, on many occasions, facial features can be detected that remain unchanged, allowing someone to be recognized in photos from their childhood.
This is exemplarily captured in the photograph on the cover. The black and white image shows a boy with an infectious smile, holding what appears to be his favorite toy, a truck. His hair, short and common, contrasts drastically with his current hair, which is very identifying, making it quite difficult to know who it is.
Since recognizing this famous politician is difficult, it is better to reveal him. And it may surprise you: this happy child is Carles Puigdemont, former president of the Generalitat of Catalonia and MEP of Junts per Catalunya (JxCat).
Carles Puigdemont, a career journalist but known for his political career, has been an essential character for the independence movement in Catalonia. He became president of the Generalitat in 2016, but his tenure was brief and eventful. In 2017, he organized an independence referendum that Spain deemed illegal. When the Catalan Parliament declared independence, the Spanish Government intervened and dismissed Puigdemont, who left for Belgium to avoid being arrested.
His story doesn't end there. In 2018 he was arrested in Germany, but not extradited to Spain. He was elected MEP in 2019 and has maintained his parliamentary immunity, although with fluctuations. To this day, he is still in Belgium, but he continues to play an important role in Spanish politics.
His party, Junts per Catalunya, became a decisive player after the general elections in July, in which no party achieved a majority to form a government. Puigdemont, from exile, has demanded an amnesty for hundreds of those involved in the 2017 independence attempt, in exchange for supporting Pedro Sánchez's PSOE in the investiture. This amnesty proposal has divided Spanish politics and, it seems, will cause a lot of talk, since Puigdemont himself has already threatened Sánchez with a motion of censure if he does not comply with what was promised.
