This text belongs to ‘Político’, the newsletter that Lola García sends every Thursday to the readers of ‘La Vanguardia’. If you want to receive it in your mailbox, sign up here.
Carles Puigdemont is a persevering politician. He never deviates from his initial purpose. The list that will lead the Catalan elections on May 12 has been renamed to include his name in a remake of other previous attempts. Puigdemont longs for the leadership of the entire independence movement and for years has been trying to unite that movement under one name and one figure. The reality is that each attempt in this direction has resulted in more divisions in his party.
The former president has always thought that his independence aspiration will not be successful if he cannot overcome the partisan acronyms. He believes that he can represent the entire secession movement. On his day, Convergència already seemed like a corset that was too tight. Then he felt constrained by the PDCat and now Junts has outgrown him. Hence, he has launched a candidacy with a somewhat convoluted name: Together Puigdemont per Catalunya.
It is not that the former president is the first politician who considers that his contribution is greater than that of his party. They have hidden the acronym in electoral campaigns from Pasqual Maragall, through Alberto Núñez Feijóo in Galicia or, more recently, the former mayor of Barcelona Xavier Trias, who premiered precisely the play on words Trias per Barcelona (You choose for Barcelona), without Junts appearing on the posters. All of them did so to take advantage of the strength of their leadership and minimize the weaknesses of their parties at certain times. But in the case of Puigdemont it is not something temporary.
The former president does not like parties. He is also not interested in submitting to his internal rules and balances, but rather he prefers to have free hands to do and undo without giving too many explanations. Whenever he has been able (as on this occasion) he has imposed his criteria in the preparation of the electoral lists. In recent years, taking advantage of the fact that Puigdemont had decided to leave the presidency of the party to dedicate himself to the Consell per la República, Junts had tried to organize itself as an organization, with many internal conflicts with some previous signings closer to activism than politics. But Puigdemont’s return to the political front line has once again changed the rules of the game. The chats of the middle tables of the party are fuming.
The first “president’s list” emerged from the old Convergència at the end of 2014, then in clear electoral decline in favor of ERC. Artur Mas’s environment convinced him to lead a candidacy that went beyond CiU, then a brand burned by the Pujol case. It was about establishing the president as the figure that brought together the independence movement beyond the parties. In that scenario, Unió’s reluctance was an annoying hindrance that was soon removed. But ERC did not want to take the bait. He resisted for about a year, until he agreed to create Junts pel Sí, headed by Raül Romeva, with Mas as fourth on the list, but with the agreement that he would be the president of the Generalitat.
The experiment was remembered these days by Puigdemont with nostalgia. But the truth is that Junts pel Sí achieved 62 seats and was six short of the absolute majority, when now ERC and Junts separately have 65. After the failed declaration of independence in 2017 and the application of 155, in the elections December of that year Puigdemont tried again to lead a unitary candidacy without success. He first shuffled a group of voters, as the ANC wanted. Then he settled for expelling from the list anyone who had an organic position in the PDCat, with Marta Pascal at the head. He announced that a “transversal” candidacy called Junts per Catalunya had been born. It was the second “president’s list.”
When he settled in Belgium, Puigdemont tried again to get rid of any assimilation to a party and created the Consell per la República. But ERC was always reticent towards an artifact that it saw conceived for the greater glory of its political rival. The entity was languishing when Puigdemont unexpectedly came across a gift: the electoral result in the general elections was bad, but the seven deputies obtained provided the key to governability.
The early electoral in Catalonia has not pleased Puigdemont, since it prevents him from presenting himself on equal terms with the rest, since the amnesty law is not yet in force. But he has decided to take the reins. He needs a good result and, above all, beat ERC. He knows that he will not be able to reissue a joint list. Although he believes that he is the natural leader of the independence movement, the Republicans position him precisely as the main obstacle to unity. But he tries to incorporate signings that place him beyond the simple leader of a party. The question is how he will manage all of this Junts after the elections.
