Barcelona It will be former president Carles Puigdemont who next week will officially reveal his intention to head the Junts per Catalunya candidacy in the next Catalan elections on May 12, but as of now most sources consulted by the ARA point out that he wants to focus all his efforts on the parliamentary elections: in other words, he wants to gamble everything on a single card, all or nothing. What does it mean? On the one hand, it gains strength that he only presents himself as head of the list in the Catalan elections and does not run in the European elections on June 9 – despite this being the initial plan -; and, on the other hand, his return to Catalonia is planned for the elections, now yes, say joint sources, real and effective, even if he is at risk of being arrested. A risk that, in theory, should be limited when the amnesty comes into effect, considering that the law marks the lifting of arrest warrants. Supreme Court sources acknowledge that this is a scenario to consider, informa Ot Serra.
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So – if there is no last-minute twist of script – Junts outlines a campaign with a single candidate for the Generalitat – Puigdemont –, without plan B, because they say that with the amnesty he will be able to be an effective candidate, and focused on a clear message: the possibility of a return from exile and a “restitution” at the head of the Government almost seven years after his dismissal by 155. An electoral campaign approach that would be more similar to that of 2017, in which Puigdemont was the only head of Junts’ list, than in 2021, in which the ex-president symbolically led the list and Junts openly said that the candidate for the presidency was Laura Borràs. In fact, the campaign director, from the environment closest to the former president, already played a key role in the 2017 elections: he will be the current president of the Junts al Parlament group, Albert Batet.
Party sources consider that the amnesty law, even though election day will still be fifteen days before it is approved, gives enough guarantees to the ex-president to risk stepping on Spanish territory this time. For now, the European warrants are not in force – the Supreme Court has not issued them again – and only the national arrest warrant is in force for October 1st, which should expire as a precautionary measure once the amnesty enters into force in force at the end of May.
In any case, the lawyer of the ex-president Gonzalo Boye assured in an interview with RAC1 that Puigdemont is ready to return and be arrested, but also hinted that this eventual prison could not last long: “They will not be able to prevent it from being president”, he said, assuming that with the current amnesty sooner or later the courts would have to apply it.
For the lawyer, there is “fear” that Puigdemont will be a candidate in the Catalan elections, win them and be able to go to the investiture debate: that is why agendas have been “coordinated”, Boye reaffirmed, hinting – as he also does Together – that Esquerra and the PSOE would have “conspired” to advance Catalan elections before the final approval of the amnesty and thus prevent Puigdemont from benefiting from it. An accusation that the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has emphatically denied this Friday in an interview with RNE. “I have called elections on the first Sunday that was possible. I didn’t choose the date. It was decided by those who overturned the highest budgets in history”, he assured.
Europe’s decision
Now they say, therefore, that Puigdemont would be willing to return. But when? Boye has spoken of the end of May or the beginning of June, once the elections have passed and around the time of the constitution of the Parliament, but some Junt sources consulted do not rule out a previous return: in the middle of the electoral campaign, even if the amnesty If he did so at this time, the arrest would be almost certain – the national prison order is in effect on October 1 – but it is also true, these sources interpret, that it would mark a turning point in the campaign before the vote of May 12. In addition, he would still be a member of the European Parliament, and therefore he would have the protection of immunity in the other charge against him: that of terrorism for the Democratic Tsunami. At the moment, to make any move against him in this case, the Supreme Court would have to request a petition from the European Parliament, which would no longer have time to process it until after the European elections.
Until now Puigdemont had assured that he would appear in the elections of the Eurochamber on June 9 at the head of the list. They had even already thought about what the campaign would be like and the elections were conceived as a kind of test of the loose cotton on their electoral support after the pact with the PSOE, especially to assess whether it was a step forward towards the Catalan women of February 2025. However, the electoral progress of Aragonès has turned his plans upside down, and Puigdemont not only has his neck down to be the head of the list in the parliamentary elections but is even considering not competing in the European and park already the European stage.
For what reason? Several sources point out that in this way he gives more credit to the fact that the return is serious and he cannot be accused of being a symbolic candidate because he will focus on Catalonia without keeping the letter of Europe – it must be borne in mind that exercising the two positions at the same time is incompatible. Now, from the point of view of personal security, standing again in the European elections after the Catalan ones gives him extra protection: since they are on June 9, he could be a member of Parliament and an elected MEP, so that he would face a possible return in the face of the constitution of the Catalan chamber with amnesty and, in addition, with a certain immunity. A double condition that could be maintained until July 16, the day the new European Parliament is established. It would be then when he would have to choose between the two positions, a moment when the result in Catalonia would already be clear. According to consulted sources, this scenario is not ruled out, but Junts’ public messages go in the opposite direction: the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, said it would be “strange” for Puigdemont to appear at the two election dates.
2024-03-15 20:52:16
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