“Raise Catalonia” is one of the mantras that all Junts candidates repeat to try to mobilize those who have doubts or abstained in the previous electoral cycle and it was the claim that Carles Puigdemont used yesterday at the central event of the post-convergent campaign, in Algiers, with the overflowing pavilion and many people who watched the rally from the outside through a giant screen; with 3,000 people in total, according to the party.
“If we mobilize, we can win”, they say in the JxCat campaign. The formation comes second in the polls and tries to avoid the dispersion of the vote among other minor forces in order to take first place in the PSC and have options to lead the next Catalan executive with Puigdemont, who sees himself as the winner and warns that the 12-M is ” a great occasion” for the Catalans to take out their “secret weapon”: the vote. “Let’s blow up the ballot boxes”, asked Puigdemont yesterday with an irony about the accusations of terrorism weighing on him.
“In the days to come, it is more important than ever that we note that there are two possibilities for Catalonia”, stressed the pro-independence leader with reference to the dilemma posed by Junts between Puigdemont and Salvador Illa.
“We see their real face and that they cannot hide under layers of presumed moderation”, he said of the PSC, referring to the criticism and mockery that the president of the UGT Catalonia and member of the socialist candidate, Matías Carnero, for the former Catalan president.
In addition, the JxCat candidate stated that the PSC “will only be able to govern Catalonia thanks to those who have sunk Barcelona”, alluding to the communes of Jéssica Albiach and Ada Colau. “They have agreed with the PP the mayor’s office, they have demonstrated together with Vox and they cannot make us believe that they have any other option”, he added.
“The option is to raise Catalonia for the future”, remarked Puigdemont, who prescribed “returning the illusion” to the people as a winning formula and reiterated that, if an economic concert is not approved so that Catalonia can manage and collect 100% of the taxes, they will not approve the general budgets of the State. “We are the only ones who can say it”, he assured. “Do they want management? Here they have it”, exclaimed the former president, who pointed out that Pere Aragonès and Illa cannot say the same. “On the contrary”, said the post-convergent, who admitted that the situation is “circumstantial”, although he bet to take advantage of it. “Now is the time”, he harangued.
Also, Puigdemont promised that, if they lead the Catalan executive, they will demand that “all Catalans are treated, vote what they vote, speak whatever language they speak, as first class citizens”. “Only an independent Catalonia has the ability to guarantee that in Catalonia the citizens are treated as first class citizens”, continued the pro-independence leader, who asserted that “today Spain cannot guarantee this”. “He has never done it”, he concluded.
