Still the subject of an arrest warrant, the independence leader is the subject of an investigation by the Spanish justice system for “terrorism”.
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A return to favor thanks to the ballot boxes? Independentist Carles Puigdemont, in exile in Belgium for more than six years to flee Spanish justice, announced Thursday March 21 that he would be a candidate again in the regional elections, which will be held on May 12 in Catalonia.
Carles Puigdemont made this announcement from French territory, during a speech in Catalan to an enthusiastic audience in the small town of Elne (Pyrénées-Orientales), close to the Spanish border, a region he described as “Northern Catalonia”. “I have decided to run in the next elections to the Catalan Parliament”he declared in a forum which bore the words “President Carles Puigdemont”.
A third candidacy since his exile
This will be the third time that Carles Puigdemont is running in regional elections in Catalonia since his departure into exile in 2017. He has never been able to occupy his seat due to the arrest warrant hanging over him since the aborted secession attempt. of Catalonia in 2017, which he led as president of the region. This arrest warrant from the Spanish courts is still in force.
The elections in Catalonia, a region of nearly eight million inhabitants, promise to be close. According to a poll published Thursday, the Catalan Socialist Party, regional branch of Pedro Sánchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), would come first with 35 to 42 seats, followed by independence party Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) (from 26 to 32) and the party of Carles Puigdemont, Meetings for Catalunya (24 to 29), now sworn enemies.
The legal situation of the independence leader, against whom the highest Spanish judicial authority opened an investigation for “terrorism” at the end of February, however, remains very uncertain. Especially since many judges intend to apply the amnesty law, soon to be in force for Catalan separatists, in the most restrictive way possible.