The main idea of ??Junts in the campaign for the Parliamentary elections on May 12 is that the contest is projected as a face to face between Carles Puigdemont and Salvador Illa and to break the technical tie between JxCat and Esquerra from the last electoral appointments.
For this reason, in what was his first “conventional rally” and without screens in an electoral campaign in years, in the old schools of Elna, in the French region of Catalunya del Nord, as he himself recalled , Puigdemont has called for “new momentum” for Catalonia and has stressed that the Government of Pere Aragonès “has lost its way.” “He is confused and is incapable of facing the transformations, some of which are very urgent, that the country needs,” he stressed. “He is incapable of rebuilding the political and social majority that the polls required to complete independence,” he added just before listing the JxCat project as an “alternative.”
In that sense, he has vindicated Junts’ service record in recent years and months, with the negotiation with the socialists for the approval of the Amnesty law and the ‘no’ of the post-convergents to the text in the first vote or the exit of the Catalan Executive in October 2022. “Time has proven us right,” he assured, with criticism of the Republicans, whom the signing of “media candidates” has also made ugly. “We have set up a list thinking about the day after the elections,” he pointed out, to which he added that they have not used the “easy and legitimate resource of hiring a known face”, for the signing of TV3 weatherman Tomás Molina as ERC candidate for the European elections in June.
Thus, Puigdemont has taken pride in leaving the decision to leave the Generalitat Government in the hands of the party’s militancy. “In a Government that does not comply with the agreements we reached and rejects our proposals, we could not continue,” he justified. “We are not interested in power for power’s sake. We are interested in power to transform and to take advantage of opportunities and reinvigorate the country when there are so many things to transform and promote,” he continued.
Regarding JxCat’s refusal to penal oblivion in the Congress of Deputies in January, the post-convergent leader has stressed that “the Government is the one who has understood best” that “when Junts says no it means no.”
“It was thought that we were bluffing. We are not going to make friends or look for new allies, we are going to serve Catalonia and if to serve we have to say enough, we say it,” he highlighted. “None of the other candidates are in a position to offer that and to stand before the Government to defend Catalonia,” she exclaimed.
Among the other candidates from the other provinces, the first to speak was Salvador Vergés, head of the list for Girona and visible face of the post-convergents in the Parliament’s debates on drought or the agrarian world. With an unusual rally tone in his interventions from the lectern of the Catalan Chamber, he has assured that the PSC, whom he has referred to as the “north-eastern PSOE”, “cannot bring the ship to a successful port”, he has said in reference to Catalonia. “The other Salvador [Illa], you know who I mean, will always be a Trojan horse from Madrid to ensure that Spain can continue milking us,” he added. The Girona leader has been succeeded by Jeannine Abella, number one for Lleida, who has claimed the defense of the Pyrenees in his intervention. “If the Pyrenees advances, the country advances,” he stressed.
Mònica Sales, parliamentary spokesperson, and head of the list for Tarragona, was the one who preceded the former president and demanded that the south of Catalonia be the “engine of the country.” “Let us not forget that the south of the country, like the north, is resistance,” she stated. “We defend the nation, identity, culture, language and resources with pride and, above all, firmly,” she added. Likewise, Sales has advocated that the next term be one of Puigdemont’s return and one of “good government, competition, national ambition and making independence possible.”
The number two for Barcelona, ??the businesswoman linked to new technologies Anna Navarro, an independent candidate, remains in San Francisco until next week and has greeted those present in a video. “I really want to meet you all,” she said.
Before the rally started, all the candidates were introduced one by one and entered the venue applauded by the 2,200 people who attended the event, according to the figures provided by the training.
The national council of the formation, the highest governing body of the party between congresses, has given the final approval to the JxCat lists for the 12-M elections in a meeting that was held at the town’s Town Hall, where A little over two weeks ago Puigdemont announced his candidacy. It was just before the meeting in which the lists were presented, in the old schools of Elna.
In the staging and choreography of the event it has become clear once again that Junts trusts everything to the former president. The candidates from Girona, Lleida and Tarragona have praised his figure and the Puigdemont per Catalunya brand appeared above Junts on screens and canvases. At the event a few days ago that took place in the same town, the JxCat logo did not appear anywhere. Nor the turquoise green color, which has given way to blue.
