After a two-day absence forced by the death of his mother, Carles Puigdemont reappeared yesterday in Algiers, in a meeting with militants from Barcelona and the former mayor of the Catalan capital, Xavier Trias. In all the interventions there were references to what happened after last year’s municipal elections, when the PSC agreed with the PP and the communes to deprive Trias of the mayorship, but the target was mainly in the return of the president of the central government, Pedro Sánchez, to the public agenda, the same day he visited Catalonia for the first time in this campaign.
The JxCat candidate had not yet commented on the president’s decision and assessed his reflection period as “an orchestrated farce to get votes”. In addition, he took his chest out because, as he said, they were the only ones who did not give credibility to the letter from the also leader of the PSOE. “All this is not about democratic regeneration, it is about regeneration of [Salvador] Illa’s electoral expectations”, he said. Also, Puigdemont accused Illa of a “bad, centralizing and not very transparent” management – “I will be soft”, he pointed out – during his time as Minister of Health and held the socialists responsible for the problems of the suburbs.
In his speech, the post-convergent candidate raised the tone against the PSOE, whom he invited to “clean up his house” and referred to the GALs. In addition, he urged Sánchez to begin the “democratic regeneration” for his party, for which he pointed out some ministers of his Government, such as the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who has had adverse rulings in the European Court of Rights Humans from Strasbourg for his time at the National Court, or the head of Defence, Margarita Robles, from whom the CNI hangs, responsible for spying on pro-independence leaders with Pegasus.
“We come home distrustful. With this gentleman [Sánchez] you have to put on three layers of latex gloves to deal with him”, quipped Puigdemont, who affirmed that at the “origin of this democratic involution” that the president of the central government is now denouncing “there is the PSOE of Felipe González, of Alfonso Guerra, of the GAL”. “The best democratic regeneration for Catalans is called independence”, he concluded.
At the beginning of the speech, Puigdemont also warned about a tripartite future with the “alliance of the Catalan and Spanish lefts” and added that the PSC can also count on the support of the PP if it needs it. “They will say it is a State pact”, he pointed out.
Former president Artur Mas spoke in a similar vein, revealing that he will vote Together so that there is no other tripartite party and advocated for “extracting as much juice as possible for the people of Catalonia if possible” in an act with Jordi Turull in Vilassar de Mar.
