The latest Convergent to leapfrog Puigdemont

BarcelonaAlbert Piñeira (Puigcerdà, 1980) was chosen on Tuesday as new director general of the Generalitat in Perpignan Christopher Person after he refused to talk about Northern Catalonia. The former mayor of Puigcerdà from the PDECat and Junts party thus becomes the latest signing of the Convergent world What President Salvador Illa has done after the additions of Miquel Sàmper, Ramon Espadaler, and David Bonvehí. Carles Puigdemont's party isn't losing just any leader.

Piñeira, a graduate in political science and administration, was one of the party's greatest assets in the Pyrenees. He managed to wrest the mayor's office from ERC in 2011 at just 30 years old and revalidate his victory by an absolute majority in the following two elections before stepping aside in the final elections in 2023. "He's a political animal, he only took two or three days of vacation a year, and he's the mayor who has achieved the best results in a capital city."

Always situated on the moderate axis of the independence movement, Piñeira is part of the Convergence orbit that feels comfortable with President Salvador Illa. "Puigcerdà is more similar to L'Hospitalet de Llobregat than to Bolívar due to the high immigration it has received in recent decades, first Spanish and then South American, and during the campaign, the Estelada is hidden," the same sources explain.

A founding member of PDECat, the distancing from Junts, where he still serves – according to those close to him – came with the configuration of the lists in the last general elections. Piñeira was supposed to be the number two for Girona, but Josep Maria Cervera ultimately went instead, and he was made second in the Senate, where he was not elected. "Priority was given to those who were loyal to Junts, and people from the PDECat were purged," lament members who had been in this party, concluding that "Illa has scored a goal for them because now Junts can no longer attack him." A great lover of the mountains, his other great passion is music. In fact, he always says that if he hadn't been a politician, he would have been an orchestra conductor. His mission now is to set the pace for Northern Catalonia, with the baton, more successfully than Person.