Victor Mondelo Barcelona
Barcelona
Updated Friday, April 5, 2024-10:37
The Catalan independence movement plans to hold electoral debates outside of Spain so that
Carles Puigdemont
, who still has an arrest warrant in national territory, can participate.
It was the president of the Generalitat and ERC candidate,
Pere Aragonès
, who this morning challenged the presidential candidate of Junts and that of the PSC, Salvador Illa, to confront their ideas in a televised fight that takes place abroad. "I am willing to go wherever I need to to debate with Puigdemont," said the Republican, who in recent days has been putting special effort into compensating for the escapee's media attention.
This explains why in two weeks Aragonès has presented his formal proposal for the Catalan economic agreement and for an eventual referendum agreed with the State or that next Monday he plans to go to the Senate to defend the secessionist vote and the amnesty taking advantage of the session called by the PP to address the impact of the rule that will exonerate the separatists.
Junts avoids, for the moment, specifying whether it will take up Aragonès's gauntlet, but pro-independence sources assure this newspaper that the
neoconvergents
have been considering for weeks the idea of demanding the holding of a televised debate in France, preferably broadcast by the Catalan public channel. TV3, so that Puigdemont can participate in person and claim his status as "
legitimate and exiled
president
." That idea had also reached the ears of ERC, although they had not received a formal proposal from Junts, as Republican sources confirm to this newspaper. Hence, they have decided to take the initiative.
It should be remembered that the former president of the Generalitat only promised to return to Spain to be "reinstated" in office if, after the elections, he has the option of being anointed. Which rules out a return to Catalonia during the campaign, when the amnesty law has not yet been applied.
Puigdemont estimates that the grace period will be in force in June, a month after 12-M, and that its application will coincide with the investiture plenary session of the Parliament to elect a new
president
.
Immediately after Aragonès called the elections early to react to the failure of his Budgets, Junts used the calculator to check that Puigdemont's candidacy was viable, taking into account the amnesty application schedule. After considering that the escapee would be in a position to submit to the investiture of being the most voted secessionist candidate, the general secretary of the party that inherited Convergència, Jordi Turull, suggested that Puigdemont would be the candidate and publicly accused the president of the Generalitat of having premeditatedly advanced the elections to make it difficult for the Junts leader to attend.
The fugitive would confirm his candidacy a week later with a brilliant conference given in Elna, the French town where the 1-O ballot boxes were hidden, and this Saturday he organized a new event in the same town to present the rest of his candidacy. . Resort to French lands, and specifically to the city of Perpignan - where Puigdemont already held a massive rally in 2020 taking advantage of his immunity as an MEP - to confront Aragonès and anyone who agrees to debate outside Spain on the occasion of regional elections It is on the agenda of the moral leader of Junts.