Carles Puigdemont demands to head the government of Catalonia

Puigdemont, who has been a refugee in Belgium since 2017 and hopes to be able to return to Spain when an amnesty law is published later this month, says his Junts party has a better chance of taking over the party. a new “sovereignist” coalition with the ERC and CUP than the socialist candidate Salvador Illa, whose most viable option is to form a left-wing government with the ERC and the House of Commons. Neither option would guarantee an absolute majority in parliament, but both would be approved by a simple majority in the second vote upon taking office.

It must be remembered that the socialist government of Pedro Sánchez is dependent on the votes of the juntas at the national level, and the withdrawal of his support would likely lead to the fall of the executive and trigger new elections. It is with this “weapon” that Puigdemont intends to play in order to force Sanchez to refuse Illa’s investiture. The Catalan Socialists, however, have already ruled out facilitating Puigdemont’s accession to office and remember that Ilya “was the winner of the elections” and the independence parties lost their majority.

The key to the next government may lie in the hands of the ERC’s moderate independents, who suffered a heavy defeat in Sunday’s elections when their number of MPs increased from 33 to 20. Its leader, Pere Aragones, resigned and announced the party would go into opposition, but the Republicans are under intense pressure from socialists and juntas to help make their candidates viable.