Catalonia's Carles Puigdemont has assured that the constitutive session of the Catalan Parliament next week and the session ten days later for the investiture of a new Catalan president will be crucial moments for the independence movement. It needs to show, he said, that it is not willing to accept a democratic fraud by the Spanish state that would prevent the restoration of the Catalan institutions of self-government due to the state's non-acceptance of the results of the elections of 21st December.
The acting Catalan president was speaking via videoconference from Brussels to the national executive meeting of his Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT), having earlier farewelled former Catalan president Artur Mas, now retired from the front line of politics, by making a call to unity to consolidate the space occupied by Catalan nationalism. In his discourse, Puigdemont gave no clues on how he intends to carry out the investiture but ended with the line "I hope we can see each other very soon".
In his opinion, there are three threats hanging over the Catalan Parliament. The first occasions when a threat needs to be resisted are in the sessions to constitute parliament and invest its president, which have to allow the restoration of the institutions which have been "abusively and illegally suspended". If this first crucial period is resolved as the people want, says Puigdemont, one of the risks will have been warded off.
The second threat is that the opposition groups, to whom "Rajoy had given the task of turning Catalonia into a province that has given up", have still not accepted that the people have voted and are hunting in the rules and in the back rooms for ways to alter the result. He warned that it will be necessary to avoid an electoral fraud. "Opposition groups that govern Catalonia from Madrid with 4% of Catalan votes say that it is not possible to govern from exile and prison with 47% of the votes", he declared.
The third threat is for the "Spanish state to lead a democratic fraud". "We will not allow them to, after accepting to take part in an election that subverted the institutions, with unequal electoral rules", he stated. But he also warned that the Spanish state cannot maintain an "attitude of systematic confrontation and fracture, because it is shameful and immoral".
This accusation was a constant in Puigdemont's address, and the Girona politician denounced that, with almost a month having passed since the election, the Spanish Government is "speaking and acting" just as it did before. He recalled that in democracies, elections are democratic mandates from the people and the public powers have the duty to obey what was said at the ballot box. "But when the Spanish government speaks and acts exactly the same as it did before the election, it is saying that it doesn't like the result, it doesn't accept it. When it abandons this, democracy is being damaged", he concluded.
Puigdemont warned that there will be attempts to confuse citizens by speaking about the rights of MPs and he highlighted that the fact of defending the rights of parliamentary representatives must not lead to mistakes and to forgetting the "rights of citizens". "Above the rights and responsibilities of MPs, are the rights of the citizens. We mustn't stop seeing the wood because we are concentrating on the trees; it is true that there are parliamentary questions on procedure, but what under no circumstances can be subverted is the democratic order, the democratic task that the citizens have entrusted via the election", he stated, with repeated emphasis on the will to stay "firm in demanding democracy".
"To turn the absence of policy into the only strategy for Catalonia is a very grave error because it is contrary to the interests of all Catalans, including those who voted for the parties defending article 155", he observed, pointing out that Catalan schools, hospitals and roads are the same for everyone. He said that referring to Catalonia as "all one people" does not mean that everybody thinks the same, but rather that there is the same policy for everybody. He asserted that it was necessary to defend this and not allow it to be broken.
He affirmed that this was the risk: that policies are destroyed. "This is the main risk, that equality of opportunity and equality of access are shattered. We have that and it is up to us to defend it and to extend it", he assured and "if they destroy these universal policies they will have destroyed our country".
"It is up to us to revive the institutions that 155 has anaesthetized", he claimed, to fight against those that want to convert Catalonia into a province. "People have not voted for JuntsXCat to maintain the current situation".