Madrid. The former president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Carles Puigemont, demanded from the bloc of the Spanish left that demands its support for the inauguration of the acting president, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, “verifiable facts” about their specific demands to give their support, it is say the amnesty of those accused for the failed declaration of independence of October 2017 and the recognition of the right to self-determination through a binding referendum. Puigdemont, in his capacity as leader of Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), keeps the entire Spanish political class in suspense just a few hours before the crucial vote in which the members of the Congress Table will be elected, which is the body of government of the legislature.
Puigdemont is aware that all the political parties in the Congress of Deputies are awaiting his movements, of any sign that allows them to know his intentions in the crucial votes in the coming days. And the first will be this Thursday, when in the first session of the legislature that was elected in the general elections on July 23, the Board of Congress is elected, that is, the president, vice presidents, and secretaries. And the seven deputies of JxCat, who are the ones who hold the key to these positions and to the future investiture of the president of the Spanish government, have not yet revealed whether they will vote in favor of the progressive bloc, as will the rest of the nationalist parties. Basques, Catalans and Galicians, or if, on the contrary, they decide to abstain until they have sufficient guarantees that their demands will be met.
Puigdemont has lived in Belgium since October 2017, when he decided to leave the country to avoid judicial and police repression promoted by the previous Spanish government, that of the right-wing Mariano Rajoy, with the support of the then opposition leader and current prime minister, Pedro Sanchez. Hence his reluctance: “We have no confidence in the Spanish political parties, all precaution is little and promises do not warm us up or cool us down,” he said, after demanding “verifiable facts before committing any vote”, both for the vote of the Table as for “more far-reaching agreements, such as the investiture”.
JxCat will meet its executive this Thursday, a few hours before the parliamentary session, in which the main intervention will be that of Puigdemont by electronic means and in which it is assumed that he will present the strategy that he intends to follow in the coming days and, therefore, the meaning of their votes, which in turn will define the political future of the country. But Puigdemont is firm: “The Spanish political and media system talks about blackmail, but it is an error that reveals the extent to which they are ignorant, whether out of disinterest or arrogance, the reality that has brought us here. It is the result of a deep mistrust, based on real events, which is not going to disappear through an agreement”.
Meanwhile, the acting president and candidate of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), Pedro Sánchez, reappeared in the Congress of Deputies in an intervention before his deputies and senators, in which he harshly attacked the Popular Party (PP) and its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, whom he accused of “pressuring” King Felipe VI to entrust him with the investiture, which is a prerogative he has in his capacity as head of state. In addition, he pointed out to the coalition governments of the PP and Vox to subject the regions in which they are at the forefront to “regressions of rights.”
