Catalonian rebel leader is accused of hiding by jailed rival
Ousted president defends fleeing the country after attack by former deputy
CATALONIA’S independence movement was left divided yesterday after its former leaders exchanged barbs ahead of Thursday’s tight regional elections.
Carles Puigdemont, the ousted Catalan regional president who fled to Belgium to avoid arrest following October’s illegal referendum, replied to a thinly veiled attack by Oriol Junqueras, his former vice president, who stayed in Spain and has spent the past six weeks in prison.
In an interview recorded by the RAC1 radio station at the Estremera jail near Madrid, Mr Junqueras said: “I went to prison because I do not hide and I am consistent with my actions.”
Mr Puigdemont said in response: “I am in Belgium because we don’t hide, because we are consistent and because the wishes and will of Catalans are a mandate we consider valid.”
The remarks came as campaigning ended before voters go to the polls in elections ordered by the Spanish government, which imposed direct rule and dissolved the Catalan parliament after the Oct 1 referendum.
Having run together on a pro-independence ticket in the 2015 elections, the two leaders are competing to become the next president of Catalonia, with Mr Puigdemont heading a new platform named Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia).
Mr Junqueras’ Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) party is neck and neck in polls with the anti-independence Ciudadanos, with Junts per Catalunya battling for third place with Catalonia’s branch of the Spanish socialist party.
It is not clear if the group of pro-independence parties will renew the majority that enabled it to declare independence on Oct 27, before direct rule was imposed.
Mr Puigdemont argues that to wish for anyone other than him to be sworn in as leader is to bow down to the suspension of Catalonia’s autonomy through the use of special powers under Article 155 of Spain’s constitution by Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister.
“I will not accept being dismissed by Mr Rajoy”, Mr Puigdemont said. He urged Catalans “not to legitimise the decapitation of Catalonia’s government” by voting for “anyone else”.
Mr Puigdemont, who faces the same possible charges as his former deputy and 12 other members of the ousted regional government, has suggested that, were he to win, he would return from Belgium to take up his mandate even if it led to his being arrested.
Campaigning for Mr Rajoy’s Popular Party – polling at around five per cent in Catalonia – Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, deputy prime minister, said the Spanish leader should be given credit for the fact that the two main pro-independence parties had been “decapitated” with their leaders either in jail or exile.
The statement contradicted the government’s previous insistence that Spain’s judiciary had acted independently.