Former President Puigdemont has criticized the ERC's decision to invest socialist candidate Salvador Illa after the bases approved the pact between the PSC and the Republicans on Friday. He did so in a lengthy letter published in
And he has placed the responsibility on the Republicans: “The decision of the ERC armed forces to appoint the socialist candidate, Salvador Illa, as president of the Generalitat makes arrest a real possibility within a few days.”
The former president does not stop there and has also accused ERC of “fueling the smear campaigns” that took place against him during the years he was in exile. “Given what we have learned with the scandal of the dirty war campaigns organized by ERC, I have few doubts,” he accuses.
However, he assures that his arrest will not be the relevant fact. It will be, he says, proof that “in Spain amnesty is not amnesty, that there are judges who are willing to ignore the law that the Spanish government lazily looks at, which causes more scandals when a judge charges the president's wife than when the Supreme Court “refuses to apply the only law approved by this legislature.”
Puidemont warns that his arrest will have consequences, describing it as a “serious democratic anomaly” and shaming his former Republican partners, who have prioritized the fight against repression over independence. “Working for independence is the way we will face repression.”
With this sentence, Puigdemont attacks the ERC sharply, a few hours before his party begins its executive session to evaluate the investiture pact. The former president had not spoken about the agreement before, he says, so as not to be accused of “emotional blackmail or interference in the internal process of another political party”.
But once the decision was made, the former president did not hesitate to implicitly share the criticism of the agreement. “They have always focused on the negative impact that a government with a Spanish character will have on Catalonia.” […]. A government that will not have a real negotiating capacity with the Spanish government,” he assures. And he stresses: “Before voting for a PSC government in Catalonia, it was necessary to explore other alternatives, including electoral rerun.”
Full support for Junts
The Junts Executive held an extraordinary meeting last Saturday to analyze the ERC's decision to appoint Salvador Illa as president of the Generalitat. The party issued a statement in which it assured that the party “has endorsed the letter of President Carles Puigdemont”.
Furthermore, Junts defines itself as “the decisive force of the independence movement” and “the only possible alternative to hegemony in the PSC.” In this sense, Junts regrets that “ERC has chosen the worst of the possible alternatives and has invested a president who represents the most Spanish-oriented PSC in history.” For this reason, they announce that they will exert their “voice to continue moving towards independence” as “the only independent force with a free hand and the ability to govern and determine decisions in Parliament and Congress.”