At virtually the last minute before the party's deadline for the presentation of candidates, Carles Puigdemont resolved the enigma: he will be the leader of the Together for Catalonia (Junts) party list for the next elections to the Catalan Parliament, although he will not be the candidate for the Catalan presidency, a place that will be contested by Laura Borràs and Damià Calvet. Puigdemont is not taking the "step aside" route which Artur Mas did in January 2016, but nor does he want to repeat the formula of the last elections, under which he was to return to Catalonia if sworn in as president, something that proved unviable in 2018.
Basically, what Puigdemont is also doing is protecting himself from opposition discourses that might accuse him of once again saying he would return and in the end not doing so, even if it was because his investiture session never came to pass. His precise placement in the candidacy needs to be defined, and that will depend on several factors, including the position of the winner of the primaries. The options that seem most likely are that he will lead the candidacy for Barcelona or Girona, with the latter alternative being one which has always been to his liking and which, in the end, has made it easier for him not to drop off the lists, something that many senior figures leaders in the party have taken for granted in recent days.
In any case, Puigdemont will play the most prominent role in the election campaign, if only because his participation will not be intermittent, but rather highly active, as the intention is to establish a stable residence in northern Catalonia during that period. Borràs and Calvet know the situation perfectly and do not raise any objection; on the contrary, they have full confidence in his electoral power. The duel between Borràs and Calvet, which will take place on November 28th and 29th, will pit two clearly differentiated politicians: the first, a candidate in two Spanish elections, apparently starts with an advantage and her figure apparently seems to more closely resemble what the new party represents. But Calvet has been preparing for a long time, brings together key sectors from the former Convergència and the PDeCAT, has the endorsement of the imprisoned ministers Jordi Turull and Josep Rull, among others, and he is well familiar with the mechanisms of a political party.
With this move, the profile of the Junts electoral list is at least given an outline, even that the party is moving several steps behind its main electoral opponent: the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) has its list leader and presidential candidate defined, and there is no longer any doubt that it will be Pere Aragonès after official movements made over the weekend. Aragonés will have no rival in ERC and the party has its electoral machinery perfectly greased. Oriol Junqueras will not be on the list due to the impossibility of doing so following the Supreme Court's verdict, which, in addition to keeping him in prison, disqualified him from holding office. However, the prison will play an active role, as the party's calculations are that in that first fortnight of February - with the elections on Sunday 14th - Junqueras and Raül Romeva will have at least a week to campaign on the street. As for the general secretary, Marta Rovira, what is still to be defined is not her role in the campaign, which will be important, but her presence on the party list with a rile which will either be important or symbolic. The option of being number two to Aragonès does not seem to be completely ruled out.
In short: in the contest to decide which party (if either) will have hegemony in the pro-independence political space, the dice have begun to roll.