The small amount of uncertainty that existed regarding the candidacy of Carles Puigdemont in the Catalan election on May 12th was removed this Thursday in his address delivered in the symbolic municipality of Elna, in Northern Catalonia, the town where the ballot boxes for the referendum of October 1st, 2017 were hidden till needed. In an austere staging, with no party logos and a blue background only broken by his name and position as president in white, Puigdemont asserted the legacy of the Catalonia of enthusiasm and leadership of 2017, in the face of the lethargy, discouragement and apathy of 2024. Also, the persistence to resist the state's attacks and preserve the presidency of the Generalitat in exile, to avoid being hostage or bargaining chip for anybody. He presented the election of May 12th as a two-horse race between the Catalan Socialists (PSC), which he grouped with all those parties that want to finish the job of sinking the Catalan nation and diluting Catalonia in the concert of Spanish regions, and his candidacy, which will seek to go beyond the Together for Catalonia (Junts per Catalunya) party, and finish the work he started so that Catalonia is recognized in the concert of the world's independent nations.
Like any address that seeks to maintain a base and if possible to expand it, the discourse offered headlines from aimed at one side and the other. There were quotes that were more pro-independence and others more moderate. Minutes for self-criticism and for proudly defending that he had not been defeated. And phrases which assumed the incapacity of the past with an excess of defeatism. He gave the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) a kind of bear hug by setting out a unitary candidacy as the best formula to win the Catalan election, but he did not leave room for speculation, since he accepted that it was not possible. Yes, he examined the margins of this refusal by extending an invitation to all the parties that took part in the broad Junts pel Sí (Together for Yes) candidature of 2015, even if Oriol Junqueras's ERC does not want to play. Although this reference to unitary candidacies never pleases the Republicans, his speech was far from sour towards the party that currently governs Catalonia. In fact, the criticism was left behind at Waterloo, in the Casa de la República, and he opted for a more prudent speech, with an obvious desire to gain moderate space.
Puigdemont asserted the legacy of the Catalonia of enthusiasm and leadership of 2017, in the face of the lethargy, discouragement and apathy of 2024.
That it was a multifaceted speech is also shown by some of the winks he made. For example, by recovering the language of Jordi Pujol and his 1980 electoral slogan of lifting up Catalonia ("Aixecar Catalunya"), given the opportunity for a new beginning in a Catalonia that lacks a sure direction. It is still fascinating to return to the posters and banners of that first Catalan election in which Pujol proposed that in order to lift Catalonia up, it was necessary to vote for those who knew Catalonia best. There were also gestures to Artur Mas with his insistence on the fiscal pact to end the calculated and premeditated suffocation from successive PP and PSOE governments that has taken place since the beginning of Spanish democracy. Puigdemont knows that joining the battle for a fiscal pact is transversal and a winning strategy in Catalonia and that the best way to avoid Pere Aragonès carrying this flag is to make testimony to Mas, who was the first to raise it from the presidency of the Generalitat.
The moderates will undoubtedly criticize his statement of a return to Catalonia to finish the job and, on the other end, that he again propose to the state the holding of a referendum on self-determination in the next legislature. More than a few will also be aware of some inaccuracy and will recall that he was always willing to negotiate during that October of 2017 and that, in any case, it was other people who did not want to. Now, with a Socialist government that depends on pro-independence votes to continue in power, and with the accumulated experience of the mistakes that were made then, he believes that the road will be easier. One final and subtle detail in the Puigdemont language: along with his commitment to country-building discourse, the absence of grievances over the monarchy, whose king he did not even mention.
Accordingly, the timetable for his return has been activated. There is no plan B electorally speaking, since he excludes itself from the European elections to run only in the Catalan polls. Having set out that he intends to go forward heart and soul, he assumes his responsibilities, leaving his comfort zone, and defines the calendar for the next few months: "Today I begin the countdown for the return, which only makes sense if it is in the service of the country. I have worked hard to preserve the institution of the presidency of the Generalitat dismissed by Article 155, and to keep it apart from personal interests. I have always thought that the return from exile of the institution of the presidency cannot be done in secret, nor can it be a provocative outburst, nor, of course, the result of a surrender or a personal indulgence. It cannot be opportunistic. Nor can it be an act at the service of a party or a specific organization to obtain electoral benefit. We can't cheapen it. If I am a candidate for the investiture, I will leave exile definitively to attend the plenary session of the Catalan Parliament and seek the confidence of the chamber. If the judges do not comply with the amnesty and adopt an attitude of rebellion, I will attend anyway if I have the majority to be invested", he responded. The clock has started ticking and we will see how Catalan society responds.