The return of Carles Puigdemont: the most difficult part remains
MadridNot even the best screenwriter could have foreseen it better. Three years after the amnesty gave Pedro Sánchez another term, the amnesty has also put an end to it. The acceleration of events following the investiture case of Carles Puigdemont has meant that the dissolution of the Courts has practically coincided with the Constitutional Court's order to the Supreme Court to immediately apply the amnesty to the leaders of the 'Procés' and with the withdrawal of the arrest warrants for former president Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín, and Lluís Puig. A sword of Damocles that they had been carrying for nine years. However, after almost a decade, the most difficult part remains for Carles Puigdemont: the true return.
A distinction must be made between the procedural moment of returning and the political moment that the former president of the Generalitat will choose to do so, as they do not necessarily have to coincide. Regarding the procedural moment, it is not now. That is to say, it is not at the moment of the withdrawal of the arrest warrants, but when the criminal chamber of the Supreme Court definitively archives the case pursuing the former president. When will that be? There is no date, only legal steps that must be followed. Once there is no longer a prison order, Pablo Llarena must now issue the interlocutory order concluding the summary of the case and send it to the criminal chamber of the Supreme Court presided over by Andrés Martínez-Arrieta, and of which Manuel Marchena is also a member. They will be the ones who, after deliberating, will order the dismissal of the investigation due to the application of the amnesty. They will do so, in any case, after hearing the parties –the lawyers, the Public Prosecutor's Office, and Vox–, to whom at least five working days must be given from the moment they receive the criminal investigation.
The political part
However, this is the procedural part of the story, the rest is politics. That is to say, Puigdemont has been in exile for nine years and must choose at what political moment he should return, which does not necessarily have to coincide with the calendar decided by the courts nor does it have to be at the gates of an election campaign for the Spanish elections. In fact, the former leader of the ANC Lluís Llach has been explicit when asking him: “The move for the president in exile to return now is a political trap that must be dodged”. “We will return, not in the service of our party, but in the service of our country,” said Puigdemont.
The former president is personally managing his return and is hermetic with his own, but there are basically two scenarios: that he returns just before the election campaign of November 29th or that he waits and returns after the elections. Returning before voting would give a boost to Junts, which is in decline in the polls; while if he returned later, he would isolate himself from the electoral noise that the former president of the ANC was asking him for and would allow him to reach beyond Junts.
There is a precedent that can provide clues: for the 2024 Parliament election campaign, many of his own were pressuring him to return before the elections as he had promised and give the definitive push for his candidacy to win; finally, however, he decided to return on the day of Salvador Illa's investiture, August 8, 2024, and stand everyone up, as it is colloquially said: instead of going to Parliament as he had said and ending up arrested, he vanished into the crowd and left again to preserve his freedom of movement.
What will he do when he returns?
Until now we have only addressed when and how Puigdemont will return, but the most relevant question still remains: what will he do when he can be in Catalonia? On this, he is even more hermetic than on his return, since he has not communicated it even to his core group. There are basically two scenarios and a derivative: that he retires from politics or that he decides to continue. And, in case of continuing, whether or not he will take the role of leader of the opposition in the Parliament that his party needs to try to turn the polls around and confront both the PSC and Aliança Catalana. In short, today the return remains an unknown.