Victor Mondelo

Updated Friday, March 22, 2024-02:17

  • Catalonia Puigdemont will be a candidate for 12-M "to restore the presidency of the Generalitat and complete the independence process"

  • Direct witness Puigdemont wins the symbolic battle: "he is our true president"

Appealing to his status as "legitimate president",

Carles Puigdemont

launched his candidacy for 12-M yesterday from the south of France. He said the fugitive would appear to achieve "the restitution of the presidency of the Generalitat" of which he was deprived in application of article 155 of the Constitution after illegally declaring independence and before fleeing to Belgium. "Today the countdown to the return begins," proclaimed the moral leader of Junts, who promised to return to Catalonia for the investiture session, that is,

only if he has real options to be anointed

.

Dressed in the insignia that identifies the presidents of the Generalitat and after acknowledging that he had been waiting for this "opportunity" for six years, the fugitive announced the

relaunch of the process

. Puigdemont promised to "successfully complete the independence process that began in October 2017" taking advantage of the fact that during the next legislature "the tenth anniversary of the referendum" will be celebrated and suggesting, consequently, that 2027 would be a symbolic and ideal date to organize

a new 1 -EITHER

. "We are going to finish the job we left half done," he warned from Elna, the French town where separatism hid the ballot boxes from the illegal referendum.

"We have the duty to try to agree on a self-determination referendum. It is as possible as the amnesty was and you know it. I am willing to negotiate, as I was in 2017," said the leader of Junts to question Pedro

Sánchez

, whom he warned that

he will consider recovering the unilateral path

towards independence if he ends up becoming president of the Generalitat and his negotiations with the Government fail. "If we see that there is a delay in the negotiation, we will in no way renounce acquiring full independence if this is the will of the Catalans," he warned the head of the Executive. "They know that we have not given up anything nor will we, and that we maintain the legitimacy of both the referendum and the declaration of independence," he concluded.

Puigdemont boasted of having obtained concessions of historical relevance from the PSOE. The escapee boasted of

having "dragged" the socialists to approve the amnesty

and of having "sat the Spanish Government in a negotiation space in Switzerland" to discuss the self-determination of Catalonia under the supervision of the Salvadoran diplomat. "It is not the same to meet at La Moncloa, which is like playing at the Bernabéu with a referee and VAR in favor of the locals, than to do it in Switzerland with international mediation, which is like playing at Wembley with neutral referees," said the neo-convergent, hugging a sarcastic tone that he would not abandon until he recounted each and every one of the victories achieved against the PSOE since, after the general elections, Sánchez chose Junts as his preferred partner to remain in power and decided to politically rehabilitate the escapee.

"That a prime minister of a member state of the European Union has had to be sworn in thanks to an agreement negotiated and signed outside his country is the first example of the exceptional nature of the stage we have opened," Puigdemont continued to highlight before his potential electorate the investiture agreement signed with the PSOE in Brussels.

In his list of achievements, Puigdemont also mentioned having managed to "normalize the official use of Catalan in Congress" or getting "to see a Spanish minister requesting its official status in the European institutions."

The former president of the Generalitat acknowledged having reacted to an "unforeseen and sudden" electoral calendar caused by the electoral advance of

Pere Aragonès

after seeing his Budgets knocked down and that this is what led him to

resign from heading the list of European elections

to opt to the presidency of the Generalitat, when his initial plan was to repeat as an MEP and more calmly plan his triumphant return to Spain, now with the amnesty fully applied, and then guess whether he would lead the Junts al Parlament list.

The neoconvergent defended that his candidacy should go beyond the acronym of his party and offered to lead a coalition like Junts pel Sí, the unitary secessionist list that united CDC and ERC in the 2015 Catalan elections and governed during the legislature that led to 1-O. Puigdemont is well aware that the Republicans will not agree in any way to such a request, but he aspires to incorporate personalities from "different pro-independence sectors" to reinforce his status as plenipotentiary leader of separatism.

Before calling for a "massive mobilization", the former president presented the next elections as a plebiscite "between those who want to sink Catalonia as another autonomous community and those of us who want Catalonia to be recognized among the nations of the world."

The impact of the Puigdemont factor on the campaign is unknown. But the Government tries to

reduce its importance

. Dress the decision, despite the moment, in an aura of normality. "He is still a candidate who presented himself in 2017. There is little new in that," said Pedro Sánchez from Brussels, reports

Raúl Piña

.