New Catalan president to be sworn in within 10 days?

A new Catalan president will be sworn in within the next 10 days. That is, if the plan drawn up this weekend by Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), the main pro-independence party, is successful. In a meeting in Berlin, the candidacy insisted on Carles Puigdemont as the candidate for president. If his bid is again blocked by the Spanish judiciary, JxCat will try to swear in jailed MP Jordi Sànchez for a third time, and should this also fail, a candidate who is not involved in the independence legal case will be put forward. All of these attempts should take place by May 14 –although if the investiture debates go to a second round of voting, appointing a leader could be pushed back to May 16. That is the deadline set by Junts per Catalunya.

Why the insistence on Puigdemont?

After last December’s election, the pro-independence parties kept their majority in the chamber, with Puigdemont’s Junts per Catalunya among them getting the most votes. He was the party’s candidate for president despite being in Brussels and threatened with imprisonment should he return to Catalonia.

Yet, the Spanish Constitutional Court ruled that he could not be sworn in by proxy in January. In response, the Catalan Parliament passed an amendment to the presidency law last week, enabling a candidate to be appointed to the post at a distance. That’s why JxCat has decided to make a further attempt to swear in Puigdemont, using the “possibilities” this amendment provides, according to the party.

Has Puigdemont any real chance of being elected?

Puigdemont has a very slim chance to be reinstated. “It is a political and juridical fraud, a nonsense.” That’s the Spanish government’s opinion of Puigdemont’s attempt to be sworn in. Madrid is already challenging the amendment of the Catalan presidency law and will “appeal in the Constitutional Court,” as the executive’s spokesman announced on Friday. The Spanish government is expected to appeal it to the court in the coming hours or days.

 

 

If the Spanish Constitutional Court accepts the appeal for consideration –as expected– the law will automatically be suspended until a final decision is taken. The final call is likely to take months, too late to meet the upcoming deadline.

What do the other parties say?

There is a fair amount of unanimity between the pro-independence and the unionist forces on one thing: Catalonia needs a new president and government urgently. Direct rule on the country has now been in force for more than six months. “There is no republican in the world who leaves their tools in the hands of the Republic’s enemy,” said the jailed pro-independence ERC party president, Oriol Junqueras. The far-left CUP party claims that what is important is not the person who takes the post of president, but “being loyal to the mandate of implementing the Republic.”