The former president of the Generalitat and Junts MEP, Carles Puigdemontwill announce this Thursday in the border town of Elna, in France, If he is the Junts candidate for the elections to the Catalan Parliament next May 12.
He will do so in a conference from the City Council, accompanied by the formation’s senior staff, and thus clarifies the Junts electoral poster with a month and a half left until the elections.
In recent days, his party had raised the possibility that Puigdemont would lead the candidacy, and he himself was convinced that could be in Catalonia for the investiture debate.
Although Puigdemont was clear that he would lead the European posterhas had to advance something that was planned among the different Junts families: the possibility of leading the candidacy in the Catalan and predictably abandon your initial idea.
Although the Amnesty Law is not yet in force, The former president can attend the elections as he already did in 2021, when he led the Junts list accompanied by the president of the party, Laura Borràs,—number two—who was finally the effective candidate.
Thus, Puigdemont can repeat as a candidate, but the approval of the Amnesty Law can open the scenario for the possible return of the former president to Catalonia once it comes into forcewhich various voices suggest could occur in June or July.
This is what has led the former president of the Generalitat to state that He would be excited to be at the investiture session after the Catalan elections, thus flirting with their possible return as theirs already did in 2017 and in subsequent elections.
His lawyer, Gonzalo Boyeasked about the possibility that if he wins the elections and crosses the border may be arrestedacknowledged that “it is a possibility, but what will not be able to prevent him from being president of the Generalitat.”
The opposition parties have already begun to accuse Junts of presenting the trump card of Puigdemont’s possible return as the only one they have to try to win the elections, aware that this conditions their electoral strategies.
From Junts they deny this and They want to present the elections as a plebiscite between their figure and that of the PSC candidate, Salvador Illaleaving the ERC candidate, the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, in the background.
Together strategy
In fact, Junts’ strategy involves squeezing the so-called ‘Puigdemont effect‘ with the objective of collect maximum votes and thus surpass a PSC that the surveys place in first place and an ERC that is behind.
Waiting for the party to explain the campaign they will carry out, The former president of the Generalitat will hardly be able to campaign in person because the Amnesty Law will not have come into force yet.
In the event that the former Catalan president returned before its application, His possible arrest could shake up the electoral campaign and distort the electoral result.
After Junts left the Catalan Government in autumn 2022, the party also wants to capitalize on the profits achieved in Madridsuch as Catalan in Congress, meetings abroad with the PSOE to resolve the conflict and the Amnesty Law, among others.
The formation also wants to vindicate the work that the parliamentary group has carried out in areas such as drought and education, and demands that they have made within the framework of budget negotiation, such as the elimination of the Inheritance tax.
Elna symbolism
Elnathe municipality in which Puigdemont will reveal his decision, exudes special symbolism for the independence movement due to its connection with 1-O, given that there millions of ballots were printed and the ballot boxes were hidden in a warehouse in a nearby town.
Furthermore, the municipality has housed acts of the Council of the Republic (CdRep), led by the former Catalan president, as well as the one organized by Òmnium Cultural to commemorate the 60 years of the entity.
From a historical point of view, at the end of the Civil War, hundreds of exiled republican women gave birth in the Elna Maternity Hospital, a center promoted by the Swiss nurse Elizabeth Eidenbenz.