Let us not underestimate Puigdemont
1. Pedro Sánchez arrived at Moncloa through a motion of no confidence against Mariano Rajoy which, at the last moment, was swayed by Carles Puigdemont's PDECAT. Now Pedro Sánchez has resigned ahead of time because Junts struck down his two housing decrees and left him against the ropes in Congress. In the first case, Puigdemont was initially in favor of abstention. He did not view giving the presidency to Sánchez in exchange for nothing favorably, when the PSOE had also gone all out against the 'Procés'. With an abstention from the PDECAT, Rajoy would have been saved, and the Popular Party members were confident that it would be so. By keeping the decision to themselves until the end, with that tactical maneuver that the heirs of Convergència master so well, at the very last instant their eight deputies voted in favor of the motion and there was the fastest change of government in the history of Spain. Rajoy left, Sánchez entered, and until today.
2. Exile has been very long, but memory is very short and perhaps we have not valued enough how, from Waterloo, the president of the Generalitat removed from office by a 155 that still stings him has shaken the Spanish political board to the point of causing two earthquakes. He has consecutively brought down a president of the Popular Party in 2018 and another president of the PSOE in 2026. No joke, then, with Puigdemont, who has done all this from a distance. A man who, among other things, in August 2024 came to show his face in Barcelona, tricked the police, laughed at Judge Llarena's arrest warrant, and stole the spotlight from Salvador Illa on the day of his investiture as president. That fleeting appearance, as criticized as it was applauded, was not an escapist act that should remain only as a footnote. It denotes Puigdemont's need to set the agenda.
3. All this strategy in a Spanish key, however, has not served him well in Catalonia. In nine years in exile, his party has crumbled. Many things must have been done wrong to go from being the leading force in Parliament and coming to form part of a coalition government with Esquerra, to seeing how, according to the most recent polls, it would now be the fifth force in the chamber, surpassed even by Vox and with half the seats of Aliança Catalana, a party that was born and grew while he was in Waterloo. Finally, with the application of the amnesty and the Spanish elections over, everything indicates that Puigdemont will return to Catalonia. From his staging, more or less messianic, conclusions can be drawn and consequences glimpsed. From what happens with popular support, too. But perhaps we would all be wrong if we thought that Puigdemont will want to have a quiet life and a low political profile. He has already warned that he is returning to serve the country. We will have to wait to find out from what sphere and, a not insignificant detail, if the country wants it.
4. Meanwhile, it is hard to swallow that Ada Colau says, on La 2 Cat's Cafè d’idees, that “Puigdemont will have trouble walking through Catalonia”. Perhaps it is just a diagnosis, but it seems like a wish and, what is worse, it sounds like a threat. Pointing out those who do not vote the same as you and putting them in the crosshairs of persecution is a very bad idea. And hardly democratic.
5. Still in the realm of predictions, José María Aznar said this week in Seville, at the conference "1936: The War that we all lost", that if Pedro Sánchez were to form a government again “the monarchy as we have known it would end and there would be a republic”. Where do we sign? May Aznar not give us ideas, because, if that is the prize, Pedro Sánchez will end up being voted for by a whole lot of people who have never voted for him before. By the way, in the Spains they organize some very strange conferences and symposiums. I would say that, in the war, some of us lost much more than others. And we are still paying for it.