Whether Carles Puigdemont will be the Junts candidate in the parliamentary elections on May 12 will, for all intents and purposes, be known next week, although all the statements made by the party’s leaders since the early election came to light have been in the same direction: point him out as number one.
The former president will reveal his decision at a political event. This was detailed yesterday by sources from his former president’s office and is indicated by the primary calendar approved by the party leadership. The four candidates who will head the JxCat lists on 12-M in the four constituencies will be voted on on March 23 and a few days before, between the 20th and 21st, they have to formalize their candidacy.
To accompany the former president in the exit positions, at the expense of what the now MEP decides, names such as that of the former councilor Josep Rull, president of the national council of JxCat and leader free of disqualification penalties, or that of the still president of the Parliament, Anna Erra, who is a figure of consensus within the party. Proof of this is that in the 2022 Argelers congress she obtained more votes than the president of the formation, Laura Borràs. In any case, no one wants to get into that matter at the moment and the final lists will not be approved until April 6. The one who is certain that he will not accompany Puigdemont if he takes the step is the general secretary, Jordi Turull, who is disqualified due to the 1-O condemnation.
But the truth is that everything is conjecture and is susceptible to change depending on what the former Catalan president decides next week, at the last moment. For now, on the table is the battery of statements from post-convergent leaders, who ask him to take a step forward and lead the Junts candidacy, and it seems that there has been coordination between Barcelona and Waterloo, although the announcement of the electoral call He caught the former president in Strasbourg at the plenary session of the European Parliament.
In the first reaction to the electoral advance, Turull and the now MEP spoke in identical terms. They stressed that by the time the investiture debate of the next legislature is held, thanks to the Amnesty law that the Congress of Deputies approved yesterday and that will reach the Official State Gazette for its entry into force at the end of May or beginning of June , Puigdemont could already be present in the Parliament. And the former president added that he would be “very excited.”
Beyond deciding whether he is the candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat in May, Puigdemont has to consider what he does with the European elections on June 9, which if elected will confer legal immunity on him. He himself admitted that the electoral advance affects his initial forecast of being the head of the list in the European Parliament elections. A priori, there is no legal impediment to being number one in both events, what there is is incompatibility to be a deputy of both chambers, and, according to sources consulted, the former president is currently inclined to attend only the Catalan ones.
In any case, Turull stressed yesterday in a radio interview that they will go “all in” in the Parliamentary elections and considered that it would be “strange”, in this situation, for Puigdemont to be the head of the list in the two elections. “A decision has to be made, and when you go all out on something, you go all out,” said the post-convergent leader.
Be that as it may, JxCat’s speech has already begun to be outlined for the next campaign. The party’s intention is to polarize the vote between the PSC candidate, Salvador Illa, winner in February 2021, and Puigdemont. Between “recovering national ambition” and the return of tripartite and turning the page of the process.
On the other hand, in the calendar chosen by the Republicans, beyond the budget veto, Junts sees two key factors: not reaching the polls with the management of the drought and summer restrictions in the backpack and taking the formation of Puigdemont on the wrong foot. Whether or not he is a candidate, the former president will not be able to campaign in person in Catalonia.
