Catalan separatists to try again to elect Charles Puigdemont
BERLIN: Catalan separatists, meeting in Berlin, vowed to attempt once again to get their leader-inexile Carles Puigdemont reinstalled as president of the Spanish region while adding that they don’t want to hold fresh elections.
“We don’t want new elections,” said Eduard Pujol, spokesman for Puigdemont’s Together for Catalonia grouping.
However an attempt will be made to install the former Catalan president by May 14 at the latest, he added after talks with Puigdemont after talks in Berlin. Since he fled Spain, Puigdemont has been a divisive figure among the separatists.
The influential grassroots independence group ANC announced the results of an opinion poll, saying that most of its members support the return of the ‘legitimate president’.
However, if this proves impossible, ANC supporters want a new government formed without a return to the ballot boxes. The regional parliament must elect a new president by May 22 or organise fresh elections.
If Puigdemont is not reinstalled, his supporters will propose that ANC leader Jordi Sanchez, currently imprisoned im Madrid over the failed independence bid, be given the job. But last month Spain’s Supreme Court rejected a request by Sanchez to be let out of jail and sworn in as regional head.
If that option proves impossible “we will open the door to another alternative,” Pujol told reporters in Berlin, adding only that ‘none of the names you have speculated about are on the table’. — AFP