Elections and return of Puigdemont

The cause-effect relationship between the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal and the early call for elections by Pedro Sánchez has been evident to everyone, even though this contradicted all the times he had assured that we would go to the polls next year. The maneuver began to be foreseen from the moment the now-famous two housing decrees were brought to Congress hastily so that Congress would validate them and Sánchez would not lose momentum and could feel as his own the popular indignation that occurred and the general strike that will result from it.

But not everything is explained by the evictions. Whoever has the power to press the election button considers all factors. For example, the rival's situation. Feijóo has never quite managed to take off and all the polls say that the PP will need Vox to govern, a scenario that will allow Sánchez to brandish the ghost of the fear of having the far-right in government.

And among these calculations is that of diluting the historical, political, and emotional burden of Puigdemont's return by submerging it in an electoral campaign and, furthermore, one with a Spanish theme. Precisely for all these reasons, it is highly unlikely that Puigdemont will return to climb onto the podiums of the rallies, even if his presence were to animate the party. Nine years of exile, having avoided Spanish prisons, it is not likely that they will end with Puigdemont turned into just another soundbite in the electoral blocks of a campaign in which he is not a candidate.