Oman Daily Observer

From jail with love: The Catalan campaign

- TONI CERDA AND DANIEL BOSQUE

With one candidate speaking via video conference from Belgium and another sending despatches from prison, Catalan separatist­s are engaged in a highly abnormal campaign ahead of pivotal elections on Thursday. Carles Puigdemont and Oriol Junqueras, the president and vicepresid­ent of Catalonia who were deposed by Madrid, have had to resort to alternativ­e ways of campaignin­g for polls on December 21, when they will be pitted against each other to lead the region.

How that will work if one of them wins, however, remains a mystery.

Puigdemont fled to Belgium after the Catalan parliament declared independen­ce on October 27 and is wanted by Spain on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds for his role in the secession drive.

Junqueras — who remained in the country — was jailed pending an investigat­ion into the same charges.

Following the independen­ce declaratio­n, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy imposed direct rule on the semiautono­mous region, sacked the regional government, dismissed the Catalan parliament and called snap elections.

Puigdemont says he decided to go to Belgium to demonstrat­e that Spain is subjecting separatist­s to a “political trial”.

Calling himself the “legitimate president” of Catalonia, he heads up the Together for Catalonia list that includes members of his conservati­ve PDeCAT party and independen­t candidates.

The list has slowly been gaining support, according to opinion polls, closing the gap with Junqueras’s leftwing Esquerra Republican­a (ERC) party, which is largely favourite to win.

“We vote Esquerra Republican­a, but our president is Puigdemont,” explained Eli Baro, one of 45,000 people who flocked to Brussels on December 7 to show their support.

ERC, on the other hand, hasn’t had it so easy, with Junqueras behind bars.

“Our ability to influence citizens has dwindled. We can’t go to debates, nor grant interviews, nor attend television shows,” Raul Murcia, Junqueras’s right- hand man, says.

The ERC candidate’s only way of taking part in the campaign is to write articles from his cell, which he sends to his advisers.

But “it’s staggering­ly complicate­d to campaign,” says Murcia.

From his prison in Estremera near Madrid, Junqueras can only make 10 phone calls a week lasting five minutes each, he adds. “Of those, eight are for his wife.” Murcia says that when he speaks to Junqueras, he takes quick notes of what he says and passes the “instructio­ns” on to ERC’s number two, Marta Rovira.

Initially, ERC was the clear favourite to win the elections, according to opinion polls.

But now the party is neck-and-neck with Ciudadanos, an anti-independen­ce party whose leader in Catalonia, Ines Arrimadas, could benefit from divisions in the independen­ce camp.

While they ran as a coalition in 2015, Puigdemont’s PDeCAT and ERC are now on separate tickets, competing for the same chunk of votes.

While they try and put on a united front, both sides have neverthele­ss criticised each other.

Where they coincide is in their outcry over the jailing of Junqueras, Catalonia’s former interior minister Joaquim Forn and two pro-independen­ce civic leaders. However, some rifts have emerged. Carles Mundo, an ERC member of the sacked government who was in jail until last week when a judge released him on bail, said Puigdemont could not be president again and it was a mere “dream” that he could come back and retake his position.

Puigdemont recently left the door open to coming back for the customary parliament­ary debate before a candidate is officially voted into office.

But he pointed to how paradoxica­l it would be to “leave the parliament in handcuffs” after the debate and possibly taken to the same prison as his former vice-president and now rival.

CARLES PUIGDEMONT AND ORIOL JUNQUERAS, THE PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT OF CATALONIA, WILL BE PITTED AGAINST EACH OTHER IN THE POLL SLATED FOR DECEMBER 21

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