Puigdemont claims to be the only candidate capable of “standing” in front of the Government

Carles Puigdemont has announced the content of the script that he plans to follow during the Catalan electoral campaign: the interests of Catalonia involve challenging the Executive whenever appropriate. “The Government thought that we were bluffing, that we were not going to dare, and we have already shown them our intentions, we are not going to make friends,” said Puigdemont in Elna (France). The blockade that Junts imposed on the processing of the amnesty law serves Puigdemont to try to profit from what he calls “the management of the no.” In an event organized to officially present his candidacy lists, he defined himself as the only candidate “capable of standing” before the Government.

Junts per Catalunya held this Saturday in Elna the official presentation ceremony of the candidacy for the Catalan elections on May 12. The National Council, the highest governing body of the party, has ratified “by acclamation” the lists that Puigdemont himself has set up, and which displace important names in the party to give way to independent profiles with which the former Catalan president seeks catch the hesitant independence movement, beyond the acronym JuntsxCat. “Thank you for your understanding,” Puigdemont stressed, addressing the parliamentary positions that have been relegated on his list.

The gratitude to his faithful has turned into reproach when he has alluded to the president and ERC candidate Pere Aragonès, whom he has accused of “incapacity” and of having “wasted the pro-independence majority” that led to the 2021 elections in Parliament, when ERC, Junts and the CUP added a total of 74 seats out of 135. The polls for May 12 present Salvador Illa's PSC as the favorite, and Junts assumes that Esquerra has been knocked out of the fight for victory and focuses on the attacks on the socialists: “The PSC does not exist, The northeastern PSOE is not an option,” proclaimed Salvador Vergés, Junts candidate for Girona, who has described Illa as a “Trojan horse” at the service of Madrid in Catalonia.

The event has mobilized around 2,000 people to the south of France; The town, of just over 8,000 residents, has been collapsed. She has not appeared for Elna, however, the number two on Puigdemont's candidacy, the technology entrepreneur Anna Navarro, who has sent a video from California, where she has lived for the last 32 years. “I am aware that I am taking a risky step,” she said in the recording about her incorporation into politics.

The event had a high intensity staging. The candidates have been presented one by one, like sports figures when they take the field, and with a unique musical mix. He Bella Ciao, an anthem for European communism, has served as a prologue to the entry of the Junts candidates, who go to the elections with a program that defends the reduction of taxes, greater control of immigration and demands more resources to increase the police . Puigdemont's speech was closed by No Surrenderby Bruce Springsteen.

The appearance before his supporters of the candidate, who went to Belgium in 2017 to avoid being judged for his participation in the organization of the illegal 1-O referendum, was the highlight of the event. Puigdemont will hold most of the promotional events in the south of France to avoid the risk of being arrested if he enters Spain, waiting for the amnesty law to be approved. After living for more than six years in Belgium, during last Easter he finalized his move to the French region of Vallespir, and now resides a few kilometers from the Spanish border.

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