With the upcoming pact between the ERC and PSC to invest Salvador Illa as a backdrop, the former president of the Generalitat and leader of the Junts, Carles Puigdemont, appeared on the scene this Saturday and announced that he will return to Catalonia for the investiture debate. “If there is an investiture, I will be there,” he said. “Only a coup d’état can prevent this.”
At an event in the French town of Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda, a few kilometers from Catalonia (perhaps the last the former president will represent abroad), Puigdemont celebrated the four years of the creation of Junts together with top party officials and 2,500 activists, according to the organization.
“There are some decisive days ahead, even critical ones,” the former president said. “The judges are refusing to apply the amnesty and are giving Spanish politics the appearance of a coup d’état.” “We must prepare and arm ourselves to face this serious challenge,” he added.
Since the night of May 12, the day of the Catalan elections, Puigdemont has confirmed that there is no viable pro-independence majority in parliament. The former president has tried to eliminate every possibility of an agreement between the PSC and the ERC that would definitively remove him from the Generalitat.
“There is a real threat that we will have a government chaired by the most Spanish version of the PSC,” he warned. “Much closer to what Josep Borrell represents and the opposite of what Pasqual Maragall represented.”
In addition to the announcement of his return to Catalonia, which has been on the table for months – or years – and which became a reality this Saturday, the Junts have been pressing for the past week to try to derail the PSC-ERC agreement through several important projects for the Executive. Above these voices has been a veiled threat: an agreement to bring Illa to the Generalitat could blow up the legislative power in Congress.
The return of the former president, who is still under arrest because the amnesty has not been applied to him, could change the investiture debate that both ERC and PSC are planning for next August, probably the first or second week.
“They want to prevent the image of my return as a free man, of the democratic triumph that the amnesty law represents,” the former president said.[Los jueces] They want to replace the image of celebration with that of our captivity. “They have decided to confront and block.”
Puigdemont, in turn, has demanded that the attorney general prevent his “illegal and arbitrary detention” and considers the attempt to prevent the amnesty law from being applied to him a “crime”. “Judges can give their opinion, but they have the duty to apply the law,” he said.
The possible arrest of Puigdemont – and his entry into prison – upon his arrival at an investiture debate in Parliament could be a shot in the arm for the turn that the ERC has in mind, ready to reverse the bloc policy of the process that this supposed numerous confrontations with Junts. The president of the parliament, Josep Rull, has already warned that he is ready to prevent the arrest from taking place in the Catalan chamber.
Puigdemont has asked his bases to be prepared to mobilize in the face of possible reprisals for his return. “Let us charge ourselves with energy, with the capacity to react,” he has asked his voters. “Let us prepare and mobilize to win again and get the job done.”
At the ERC, they fear the effect that such a situation could have, or even the possibility of it, in the consultations that it plans to hold with its bases to ratify the previous agreement reached with the Socialists. From Junts, they also stress that Puigdemont's desire remains to submit to a plenary vote and to try to move forward with the inauguration (despite the fact that this would require the abstention of the PSC, the winners of the elections, and the support of the ERC).
Both the former mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias, and the secretary general of the Junts, Jordi Turull, attacked Illa in their interventions this Saturday. “Don't trust Illa,” Trias snapped. “He puts on a good face, he makes good gestures, but then he stabs you in the back.” Turull has defined the socialist as the “supporter” of the “fascist society called Catalan civil society.” “We will do everything to prevent the president from being inaugurated.”