It was nothing new. In October of last year, the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont already explained in a text on his social networks that “people from the PSOE”, among other interlocutors, visited him to give him “expectations of a good deal, via reform of the Penal Code, and a pardon”. Those statements made in the middle of the debate on the repeal of sedition already had their impact and the PP accused the Government of Pedro Sánchez of sending emissaries to Waterloo. “Who is the new PSOE Mr. X who went to see Puigdemont?” asked his general secretary, Cuca Gamarra, to the head of the Executive in Congress. Two days later Sánchez denied the claim: “The answer is very simple: no”.
But yesterday Puigdemont opened Pandora’s box again a few hours after the start of the electoral campaign in an interview with El món on RAC1 and reiterated that people linked to the PSOE contacted him “more than once ” in the Eurochamber to explore the possibility of obtaining a pardon like those granted by the Executive to the prisoners of 1-O. A possibility that, as he recalled, he has always rejected because he is not looking for a “personal solution” to their situation, but “a solution to the conflict” between Catalonia and the Spanish State. “I will never turn myself in, even if they offer me to spend only a month in prison”, he concluded, to later claim amnesty which, in his opinion, “is not the solution, but a necessary condition for to negotiate”.
The PP did not need more to try to ignite the electoral campaign and, through statements by Cuca Gamarra sent to the media, he revealed a “hidden pact” which is also the “hidden program” with which the leader of the PSOE wants to “stay in Moncloa” at the head of a “new Frankenstein government” for which it is “willing to pardon Puigdemont”. The general secretary of the PP wondered if offering the pardon was the way in which Sánchez intended to bring Puigdemont to Spain and recalled that “this is not what he committed himself to with the Spanish”. The PP took the opportunity to demand that Puigdemont account to justice with Alberto Núñez Feijóo as president of the government, because, he assured, his candidate “is not prepared to pardon him”.
On the part of the Central Government, the first in charge of rejecting the accusations was the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez. “I want to categorically deny these claims, this is false, absolutely false”, said the minister, who framed the former president’s statements in his “total lack of credibility”. Already at night, at the opening of the campaign, it was Pedro Sánchez himself who referred to the former president’s words. “Puigdemont’s word is wet paper. In the past it was a problem, today it is an anecdote”, he pointed out.
On the other hand, the Public Prosecutor’s Office will once again ask the trial judge Pablo Llarena to reactivate the European arrest warrant against the ex-president once the General Court of the EU has confirmed that he is no longer protected for parliamentary immunity, as reported by Carlota Guindal. It was decided, according to prosecutors’ sources, in an initial meeting between the prosecutors of the case. They will first analyze the judgment of the TGUE.
