The candidacy of former president Carles Puigdemont for the presidency of the Generalitat in the parliamentary elections on May 12 has several similarities with that of Xavier Trias in last year's municipal elections. Not only because of the formula used for the nomenclature of the candidacy, which is similar –Trias for Barcelona, then, now Puigdemont for Catalonia–, or because the headquarters in Barcelona, after a change of image, is the same, at the foot of the street on Gran Via.
As happened a year ago with the former convergent mayor, yesterday a manifesto came to light in support of the candidacy of the former Catalan president, With President Puigdemont, towards an independent Catalonia. It highlights that Puigdemont is the most "recognised" person among the defenders of "the cause of the liberation of the Catalan nation", highlights his journey in European justice to avoid extradition and delivery to Spain and calls for "joining efforts to resume with more strength and intelligence the path taken [in 2017] and to complete it". It is also highlighted that the post-convergent leader is a person now recognized internationally.
It is also pointed out that "Catalan must be its own language and bond of cohesion, amid other major challenges of globalization and the climate emergency that must be attended to urgently".
The text, published on a web page, can be subscribed to by anyone who wishes and has the rubric in the first places of ex-members of other political formations and people of civil society, especially in the field of culture, such as the case of the illustrator Pilarín Bayés; the publisher Isabel Martí; the actor Toni Alba; the writer Albert Sánchez Piñol; the rapper Josep Miquel Arenas (Valtònyc), who coincided with Puigdemont in Belgium for a season and wanted to point out his ideological distance with Junts; the journalist Carles Porta, friend of the ex-president; the former director of the Center for Opinion Studies Jordi Argelaguet; the ex-president of the Chamber of Barcelona Mònica Roca; the activist Uma Alcaide; the anthropologist Eudald Carbonell; the lawyer Jordi Cabré – who has just published a book with his uncle, Xavier Trias–; the sociologist Salvador Cardús; the cook Ada Parellada; the writer Àlex Susanna; and the publisher and writer Iolanda Batallé, from the Ona bookstore, among others. Some of them also supported Trias a year ago.
The former leader of Esquerra Àngel Colom, who once moved to Convergència, is affiliated with JxCat and directed the Fundació Nous Catalans, has also signed his name; the former deputy of the CUP and writer Julià de Jòdar; Jaume Sobrequés and Pere Ayguadé, who come from the PSC; Bernat Joan and Jaume Rodri, who come from ERC; former ICV deputy Carme Garcia, who is also in the Council of the Republic, and Jaume Nualart, who also comes from the ecosocialist ranks; or the ex-Solidarity MP Toni Strubell.
