The day after marking three months (three!) since Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart entered Soto del Real prison, and as the twelfth legislature of the Parliament of Catalonia is inaugurated, the black storm clouds repeatedly predicted by the unionist leaders who lost the 21st December election seem to have disappeared. The pro-independence majority built on the 70 deputies between Junts per Catalunya, ERC and CUP will enable the election of ERC deputy Roger Torrent as the Parliament's speaker. Torrent, 38 years old, defines himself on his Twitter profile as a "deputy of the Parliament of the Catalan Republic", quite the statement of intentions. Three proxy votes for the parliamentarians in prison (Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Sànchez and Joaquim Forn) have been accepted by the temporary Parliament Board and, as for the five others exiled in Brussels, their participation wasn't necessary in this first debate.
If the agreement for the Parliament's speakership, which in good logic should lead to a pro-independence absolute majority on the Board, is important, more important is the pact reached between JuntsxCat and ERC for Carles Puigdemont to be the candidate of the two parties in the first investiture debate for the new Catalan president to be held before the end of the month. The measured compromise they've released says that "in line with the restoration of the institutions, the two parliamentary groups have agreed to support the proposal as candidate to the presidency of the Catalan government of Carles Puigdemont". It's obvious, therefore, that, in the meetings the new Parliament speaker will start with the different parties to find out their opinions, the cards are already marked and Puigdemont will be chosen. Among other factors, because neither the speaker nor the Board can enter into this phase to debate how the candidate's speech will take place, given that there has never been a debate on the subject before and they cannot officially ask him whether he will physically attend or not. The question will come round, anyway, when the investiture debate starts.
Politically speaking, it's clear that Puigdemont is making his plans with support from ERC, in an open match which doesn't allow for the final result to be prejudged. In this struggle there will be a confrontation between, on the one side, the legitimacy of history and the election result of 21st December and, on the other, the united political-legal mechanisms of the Spanish government and the Constitutional Court and the justice system ready to prevent it, if we pay attention to the pronouncements made so far.
In any case, this onslaught is being fought on a number of different levels. This includes being on the one hand more sneaky than the opponent and, on the other, a slippery politician capable of driving the Spanish government crazy with an apparent stubbornness they are not used to. Given that nobody, absolutely nobody, had withstood such a struggle.