A “useful” opposition which serves to present itself as an “alternative” to Salvador Illa. This is how the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont defined the role that Junts must play in this legislature, which has not yet clarified its immediate future and whether it will keep the promise he made before the elections to abandon politics if he does not do so. win the presidency.
The Junts in Parliament group is holding a working session this Wednesday and Thursday in Waterloo (Belgium) to prepare for next week’s general policy debate which opens the parliamentary year in Catalonia. This debate, Salvador Illa’s first as president, will highlight the new role of Junts as the leading opposition party, three weeks before the congress that the party will hold at the end of October, which will be followed by that of the ERC in November.
Puigdemont’s leadership, while waiting for him to formalize it at the organic level and opt for the presidency of Junts, was demonstrated once again with the trip of the entire parliamentary group to Waterloo (Belgium). The fact that the meeting could not take place in Catalonia due to the Supreme Court’s refusal of amnesty is a sign, according to the former president, that “the normalization that some are talking about is a lie.”
Faced with the general policy debate, Puigdemont demanded that his party present itself as “the bulwark for the defense of the alternative and the plurality of the country”. And he urged his players to go on the offensive: “It’s time to leave our winter quarters and travel the country.”
Regardless of its usefulness, Puigdemont’s speech predicts that Junts’ opposition to Illa will be tough. Among the reproaches that the former president addressed to the new government, he included the usual criticism of Illa for having visited King Felipe VI in his first days in office. The Junts leader also regretted the “influence” of the anti-independence entity Societat Civil Catalana on the new executive.
Puigdemont urged to take advantage of the “fragility” and the lack of absolute majority of the executives of Illa and Pedro Sánchez, “in democracy, the lack of majorities requires respect for minorities, alternatives and plurality”, defended the he former president, who dishonored Sánchez for wanting to speak with Junts “through intermediaries” like the Barcelona lobby of the Círculo de Economía. “If Sánchez wants to speak to Junts, he must do it directly with Junts,” he added.
Puigdemont ignored the congress of Junts, although in his only mention of the event he defined it as an opportunity to “renew messages, speeches and leadership.” However, he did not specify whether he was included in this replacement.
During the 12-M electoral campaign, Puigdemont assured that he would not play the role of leader of the opposition in Parliament, a position that Junts is responsible for occupying but which is currently vacant and waiting for the former president decides his role. in the House.
“I don’t consider myself the leader of the opposition at all,” Puigdemont said in April, when he stressed that his intention, if he did not become president, would be to stick to “the public activity” of a former president. “A president of the Generalitat cannot be in the Senate, nor on the board of directors of a company,” he added.
