Carles Puigdemont announces candidacy for May election

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has announced that he will stand in the May 12 Catalan election. 

The de facto leader of Junts per Catalunya made the announcement in a press conference from Elna, a town just over the French border in a territory historically known as 'Northern Catalonia.' 

Puigdemont, who spearheaded the 2017 independence referendum in Catalonia deemed illegal by Spanish courts, has lived in exile since the peak of the independence crisis during that autumn. The former president has not returned to Catalonia since, and it is yet to be seen how he will campaign from abroad.

He will benefit from the upcoming amnesty law, which would allow him to return, but this law has yet to be made effective and it's expected that it will take months to come into effect. The amnesty was approved in the Spanish Congress last week, but still has to go through the conservative-controlled Senate and back to the Congress before it comes into effect.

Yet, it's possible that the amnesty law could be in effect by the time of an investiture debate to officially name the next president of the Catalan government. 

The former president pledged to return to Catalonia if he garners a majority to be named president of Catalonia. His lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, assured that he was ready to be arrested to attend the investiture debate, if the amnesty is now in effect by then.

During his speech in the Elna town hall, Puigdemont billed himself as "the restitution candidate," vowing to restore the presidency "illegally dismissed" by Spanish authorities when Catalonia's self-rule was suspended in the wake of the 2017 referendum. 

He also made it clear that he is stepping away from the European Parliament elections, scheduled for June 9, after holding an MEP seat since 2019. 

Although he explained that his preferred option would be for a "unitary list" among pro-independence parties like that of Junts pel Sí in 2017, which unified Esquerra Republicana and the political space that preceded the current party Junts per Catalunya, Puigdemont said that there was resistance to the idea from Esquerra.

For this reason, he assured that his candidacy "must go beyond" Junts per Catalunya and "incorporate profiles and support from other sectors."

Puigdemont also outlined that his negotiation strategy with the Spanish Socialists would be different from the methods of pro-independence rivals ERC.

"I don't know how many times the dialogue table has met," the former president said, before making a simile with football: "It is not the same to meet in Madrid, which is like playing at the Bernabeu with the referee and VAR in favor of the locals, than to do it in Switzerland with international mediation, which is like playing at Wembley with neutral referees.”