Junqueras will run for the presidency of the Generalitat
The ERC leader remains banned from parliament but is awaiting a ruling on his appeal to the Constitutional Court (TC) for amnesty.
BarcelonaThe leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, will run as the party's candidate for the next Catalan elections, as Catalunya Ràdio and The Newspaper and the ARA has been able to confirm. The Republican leader, who regained the presidency of the party in December of last year, will make it official this Tuesday at a conference in Barcelona under the title A new national ambitionUntil now, Junqueras had resisted confirming his intention to run in the next Catalan elections, because he maintained that he was currently still disqualified from running and that, even if he wanted to, he couldn't.
"Experience teaches us that we can never place too much or too much trust in the Spanish state, but we are convinced that our decisions should not be conditioned by decisions that are manifestly unfair," Junqueras stated in statements to the media. His legal situation has not changed compared to a few months ago, but the Republican leader has decided to take the step in the hope that the Constitutional Court will rule favorably on the appeal for protection of constitutional rights he filed months ago to have the amnesty applied to him and the entire sentence from October 1 lifted. Junqueras remains disqualified until 2031 because the amnesty has not been applied to his embezzlement conviction.
Aside from the appeal to the Constitutional Court, Junqueras is also awaiting the response from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to the preliminary questions sent to it by the Supreme Court regarding his case. This issue is expected to be resolved by the court on November 13, according to Oriol López, deputy secretary general of the ERC, in statements to Catalunya Ràdio. "We are convinced that, if justice is done, the disqualifications that should never have existed and that now certainly should not exist will be resolved favorably," added Junqueras, who asserted that the Spanish government is the "most interested" in resolving this issue.
The Republican leader had already hinted in recent months at the possibility of heading his party's candidacy again. "I want to help in all areas and perhaps through the candidacy for the presidency of the Generalitat," he said, for example, in a recent interview on TV3. Oriol López recalled that the last time Junqueras was a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat was in 2012, before the November 9 and October 1 elections. In the 2015 elections, Esquerra ran in coalition with CDC under the banner of Junts pel Sí, and after the 2017 referendum, Junqueras was no longer able to run due to his disqualification.
The internal war
Whether or not the party's leadership would be renewed marked the internal war within Esquerra a year ago. Junqueras ran with the intention of continuing to lead the party after almost four years in prison, while the alternative candidates—New National Left, Foc Nou, and Recuperem ERC—were banking on a change of leadership. However, both Nova Esquerra Nacional and Foc Nou were banking on a two-headed leadership of Esquerra, and Xavier Godàs's candidacy had opted for a Junqueras was a presidential candidate, although they reminded everyone that a primary process was always required. Militancia Decidim, the candidacy under which Junqueras ran, did not advocate this model of differentiating the party president from the candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat.
