Despite their icon’s return, Catalan indy efforts have a way to go

On October 31, 2017, Puigdemont, at the time president of Catalonia, went into exile after being accused of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds by the Spanish public prosecutor for organising an independence referendum and then declaring Catalan independence.

While fleeing, Puigdemont changed cars under a bridge, tricking the police helicopters hovering above, and escaped to Belgium.

READ MORE: Former Catalan president vanishes despite large-scale man-hunt

This week he returned to Catalonia for the first time since his great escape. This occasion was no less dramatic.

Everyone thought Puigdemont would try to enter the Catalan parliament. After all, he is an elected Catalan MP and the parliament was due to debate the investiture of a new government after elections in May. More to the point, Puigdemont had told the press that this was his plan.

If he had gone through with it, waiting at the doors of the Generalitat would have been police officers ready to arrest him. Why? Because despite the Spanish parliament passing an amnesty law in May for those who participated in the 2017 “wildcat” referendum, its Supreme Court ruled in July that while the charges of sedition and rebellion could be amnestied, the charge of misuse of public funds could not.

Consequently, Puigdemont remains a fugitive despite being elected as an MP by the Catalan people and despite the will of the Spanish Parliament, all because Spain’s notoriously politicised judiciary – largely unreconstructed from the era of the Franco dictatorship – wants it that way. As it turns out, Puigdemont was still not willing to submit to Spanish “justice”.

Turning up at the Ciutadella park to speak to thousands of Catalan independence supporters, the former president told the crowd: “We [the independence movement] are still here”. To everyone’s shock, Puigdemont then disappeared.

Police responded with “Operation Cage”, a tactic only supposed to be used for catching dangerous criminals. All the major roads in Barcelona were shut down in an attempt to find Puigdemont, causing traffic chaos in the Catalan capital.

While Puigdemont wasn’t detained, police officers and a firefighter were, accused of aiding Puigdemont’s escape.

READ MORE: Police officer arrested in connection with Carles Puigdemont escape

An arrest warrant was issued for Jordi Turull, secretary general of the pro-independence JxCAT party, who spent time behind bars for his role in organising the referendum. Back in Ciutadella park, independence supporters were being tear-gassed and beaten by police in riot gear. It was like 2017 all over again.

How to explain the spectacle of Puigdemont entering and then exiting again? This was all about disrupting the investiture of Salvador Illa, leader of the unionist centre-left PSC, as president.

The PSC won the election in May but without a majority. To gain a majority, they made a deal with ERC, the centre-left Catalan pro-independence party, for their votes in return for new devolved powers for the Catalan regional parliament. The deal essentially means fiscal autonomy for the Catalan parliament.

Puigdemont’s party, JxCAT, is opposed to the agreement and has essentially accused ERC, it’s pro-independence rival, of embracing the unionist enemy. The argument goes that if the amnesty law can be blocked by Spanish judges, why would a promise of fiscal autonomy be worth the paper it’s written on? And how does any of this aid the cause of Catalan independence?

ERC say that expanding Catalan sovereignty when the opportunity arises is what all true independentists should be doing.

The party’s national co-ordinator and former Catalan president Pere Aragonés has claimed that the fiscal autonomy deal is the biggest win for “Catalanism” since the fall of the Franco dictatorship, but the agreement even has critics within his own party, with only 53.5% of the membership voting in favour of it.

Through his theatrical, brief return to Barcelona, Puigdemont has sought to position himself as the only true leader of the Catalan independence cause left standing, the one who is still willing to defy and embarrass the Spanish state while others do deals which put anti-independence politicians in power in Catalonia.

However, Puigdemont will have to offer more than theatrics to breathe fresh life into Catalan independence. Both JxCAT and ERC saw their vote share fall significantly in the May election, losing their pro-independence majority in the Catalan Parliament for the first time since 2012.

The two parties have seen almost half of their total combined vote disappear since 2017.

Abstention among independence supporters has risen sharply, as many feel it’s not worth voting if pro-independence politicians can’t or won’t deliver.

While the Catalan independence movement will always stand up and be counted when one of its leaders is being hunted by the police, what the movement really needs from its leaders is a coherent path forward for their cause.