Carles Puigdemont was re-elected President of the Consell de la República in a vote attended by less than 10% of the body's respondents. 8,941 people voted, among the 89,970 members called for a telematic election to decide who will command the private independence association that Puigdemont founded from Belgium after he left Spain in 2017 to avoid trial. Puigdemont has received 92.4% support, but support is weak as turnout does not exceed 9.9%. When he presented his candidacy for the leadership of the Consell in 2021, the former Catalan president received 21,000 votes in elections in which he ran against Clara Ponsatí and mobilized 25.7% of voters.
The elections to the Council of the Republic demonstrated the degree of leadership that Puigdemont continues to exercise among the members of the organization that he himself founded when he left for Belgium in 2017 and which he has always considered as a transversal platform for the exercise of the parallel generalitat presented abroad. In practice, the Consell has played little relevant role in Catalan politics and both Esquerra and the CUP consider it a stronghold of the Junts per Catalunya. Puigdemont's dual role as president of the Consell and at the same time as the main ideologue of the Junts has illuminated situations of conflict of interest.
Singer-songwriter and independence activist Lluís Llach announced two weeks ago that he had resigned from the Consell because he disagreed with the former president's negotiations with the PSOE. “I understand that an instrument like the seven deputies in Madrid is very important, but at the same time I also think it is dangerous and compromising,” Llach said in statements to Vilaweb. “But when he [Puigdemont]Somehow he becomes the negotiator, I don't feel comfortable and decide to leave the Consell just for that. I don’t feel comfortable in these roles, even though I respect his political initiative.”
Puigdemont's re-election came at a time when the Catalan independence movement is eyeing the parliamentary development of the amnesty law. The legal instrument, which was intended to allow the judicial settlement of all the causes that gave rise to the 1-O referendum and the separatist challenge, was due to its importance to become a kind of glue between the different factions of the independence movement. However, Junts and ERC are using the amnesty as a weapon and criticizing each other for the way both parties have approached the tests with the PSOE.
The Republicans do not hide that they are in a hurry to pass the law, while Junts is prolonging talks with the administration under the pretext that the articles need to be strengthened and made more robust. Carles Puigdemont and his lawyer Gonzalo Boye are responsible for shaping JxCat's strategy in the amnesty negotiations.
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